Human rights

ONI Blog: “Financial Panic” and Online Censorship in Guatemala

The headlines in Guatemala's top newspaper, as well as on internationally popular site Boing Boing reported that a Twitter user was arrested by Guatemalan authorities, facing charges of “intent to incite financial panic." The last couple of weeks have been complicated...

- Posted on 14/May/2009; tagged in Guatemala, Latin America, Human rights, Cybercrime and security

ONI Blog: The Worst Places to be a Blogger

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has just released a list of the ten worst countries in which to blog. Topping the list is Burma, followed closely by Iran, Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, and Egypt. In determining...

- Posted on 30/Apr/2009; tagged in Burma, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Syria, Asia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Europe, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Human rights

ONI Blog: Dubai police chief wages war on youtube

Commander-in-Chief of Dubai police Lt General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim called (full article in Arabic , English summary) this week for the blocking of the social networking Web site youtube because, he said, the site contains religiously inappropriate...

- Posted on 10/Mar/2009; tagged in United Arab Emirates, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Obscenity, Hate speech, Human rights, Political filtering, Social filtering

ONI Blog: Can they hear me now? (On ICT regulations, governments, and transparency)

On February 11, Vodafone's global head of content standards, Annie Mullins, revealed that Vodafone handed over communications data to the Egyptian authorities in response to government demands. This data may have been used to help identify rioters who were...

- Posted on 24/Feb/2009; tagged in Egypt, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Legislation, Arrests and legal action, Human rights, Surveillance, Privacy, Data retention

ONI Blog: Over 1,203 Sites Blocked in Thailand

Over the weekend, it was reported by WikiLeaks that the secret censorship lists of Thailand's Ministroy of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) had been obtained by advisory board member CJ Hinke, who is the director of Freedom Against Censorship Thailand. Wikileaks...

- Posted on 22/Dec/2008; tagged in Thailand, Asia, Human rights, Political filtering

ONI Blog: Internet Censorship in Saudi

Saudi Arabia has one of the most restrictive Internet filters in the world, yet according to BusinessWeek news reports, the Saudi censorship regime is vastly unlike that of most countries. Employing a mere twenty-five people, the country’s Communication and...

- Posted on 30/Nov/2008; tagged in Saudi Arabia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Surveillance, ONI, Political filtering, Social filtering, Voluntary filtering

ONI Blog: Australia's Slippery Slope

With all of the news lately regarding Australia's Internet filtering scheme, one might think Australia were the first or only country to ever filter the Internet. Since the filter was announced in 2007, it has been widely criticized. First, Australia announced...

- Posted on 14/Nov/2008; tagged in Australia, Australia/New Zealand, Human rights, Overblocking

ONI Blog: UAE blog blocked after analyzing impact of US financial crisis on UAE economy

The UAE ISPs blocked access to the Arabic blog Mujarad Ensan (Just a man) a few days after the blogger published a post sarcastically entitled "Lough with me and say: Our economy is in a good condition" in which he...

- Posted on 14/Oct/2008; tagged in United Arab Emirates, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Political filtering

ONI Blog: Tunisian journalist sues government agency for blocking Facebook, claims damage for the use of 404 error message instead of 403

Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied El-Hen filed a suit this week in a Tunisian court against the Tunisian Internet Agency for blocking the social networking Web site Facebook, according to a report by Reuters (Arabic). The journalist...

- Posted on 12/Sep/2008; tagged in Tunisia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Social filtering

ONI Blog: Saudi journalist to Western journalists in Beijing on Internet filtering: “quit your belly aching”

Saudi journalist Molouk Y. Ba-Isa wrote an interesting article in Saudi Arabia’s principal English daily (Arab News) in which she reminds the Western journalists covering the 2008 Olympics in Beijing that censorship for people like her in countries such as Saudi...

- Posted on 14/Aug/2008; tagged in Saudi Arabia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Political filtering, Social filtering