Blog or die

During the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008--sponsored by Harvard University and Google in Budapest, Hungary, in late June, and attended by over 200 bloggers, human rights activists, writers, journalists, hackers and IT experts from every corner of the globe--one participant joked that it was worthwhile buying domain names for dissidents likely to be imprisoned. "Just get them with 'Free (insert name here).com,' " he said.

A recent University of Washington report found that 64 people have been arrested for blogging their political views since 2003. Three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues in 2007 than in 2006. More than half of the arrests since 2003 were made in Iran, China and Egypt. Internet censorship has become a cause with global relevance.

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Numerous sessions revealed insights into societies all too easily categorized as oppressive. Iranian exile Hamid Tehrani revealed that the regime, now with one of the most effective web-filtering systems outside of China, bans many anti-George W. Bush sites such as Juan Cole's Informed Comment and The Huffington Post but allows a neocon and prowar site such as Pajamas Media to remain uncensored. It was a typically illogical move.

Only last week Iranian members of parliament announced a draft bill that aims to "toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society." The text of the bill would add "establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy" to the list of crimes punishable by execution.

The perception of the Internet in various countries remains troubling. Singaporean blogger Au Wai Pang said that the tool is "free" in his country, "but people behave like it is not." Self-censorship is a key barrier to open debate. Au reminded the Budapest audience that technology isn't always the answer to censorship issues. "How do you change people's minds," he asked, "[for] many who don't believe in a society with free speech?" Nothing beats face-to-face interaction, but the web has become a space where citizens can voice their opinions and have them respected often for the first time.

Story here.