I’ve been a huge fan of the online freedom work of Reporters Without Borders. For example here is an article on “criminal” libel charges against an online newspaper for satirizing Putin.

Now Amnesty International has started irrepressible.info which allows you to add political material censored by countries like China on your own website by simply adding a bit of code to a web page.

The connections between those who normally take their (online and in-person) freedom of expression and assembly for granted and those in countries being punished for using theirs is growing. Check out Arabist.Net and this bloggers account of being tortured in Egypt (warning – it is a graphic account). And this protest in South Korea days before as part of ICT-coordinated day of protest on May 25.

The ability to quickly bring attention to political happenings in one country to the rest of the world (particularly media outside their borders) is significant. Flashmob pillow fights may soon give way to same day protests thousands of miles away from a trigger incident.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 9:55 am and is filed under Activism, Asia, Blogs and Feeds, Democracy, Middle East, National, Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.