Global Voices Online

Along the Malecon reports that supporters of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez are “hoping to start a trend” by “using the blogger's photo as their profile picture on Facebook in a show of solidarity.”

Egyptian Ibn Al Dunya, who writes at Fustat, praises a new Global Voices Online project - Threatened Voices, which tracks the suppression of online free speech.

The detention, beating and subsequent release of bloggers Yoaní Sánchez, Claudia Cadelo and Orlando Luis Pardo by Cuban state security on November 6, is receiving widespread coverage in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere and twittersphere. Yoaní has written (es) about the incident on Generación Y, her blog, and English-language blogs like Babalú Blog, Repeating Islands and Uncommon Sense are following the story. An audio interview (es) with Sánchez about the incident has been posted to YouTube.

Tunisian blogger Fatma Riahi, who blogs as Fatma Arabicca, has been charged with defamation on her own blog and is now being detained. A group has been formed on Facebook in support of the 34-year-old blogger, who is also being accused of blogging on Debat Tunise (Tunisia Debate).

On the evening of November 6, Babalú blog linked to a post by Penultimos Dias (es) reporting that a number of prominent Cuban bloggers, including Yoaní Sánchez and Global Voices contributor Claudia Cadelo, were detained by state security forces. An update from Penultimos Días reported that Sanchez and Orlando Luis Pardo were “verbally abused and severely beaten”.

Russia Blog reports on the arrest of the alleged killers of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova.

Foreign Policy Association's Russia blog writes about the results of a Pew Research Center's poll on poverty, wealth and attitudes in Central and Eastern Europe “20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

Man of Paper reports [ar] on his blog that Shabablek, a Syrian magazine, has suspended all work indefinitely in protest of the pervasive censorship from the side of the Syrian Ministry of Information.