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Images from Cuba: Enrique's ‘57 Pontiac

David Sasaki · 16:03 · Americas

“Voices of Cuba #9″ by Sven

Steven, who normally blogs in English, Spanish, and French at Steve's Gallery continues his excellent “Voices of Cuba” series with this photograph of Enrique, a construction worker from Santiago de Cuba. On his Cuba Blog he notes:

As important as the posts and photos here are the fact that they are all being posted directly from Cuba [is also important]. I have a running bet with a friend in Matanzas who claimed that things like blogging and photoblogging were impossible from Cuba. He’s going to owe me a cerveza very soon…

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Join Our Live Chat! Handbook for Bloggers & Cyber-Dissidents

Rebecca MacKinnon · 10:30 · Announcements

Update: The IRC chat was a great success, with three dozen participants from around the world (China, Malaysia, Tunisia, Bahrain, Japan, Germany, France and Canada, just to name a few…) The transcript is available here if you'd like to see what transpired. Coming out of the conversation are a new set of efforts to spread the Guide around the world - we'll be posting a link to a wiki page in the next couple of hours for people interested in helping us with this project.

Do you have questions about, criticisms of, or reactions to the Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents? Global Voices will be hosting a live online chat to discuss the book on Tuesday September 27th at 11:00amNewYork /15:00GMT /18:00Cairo /23:00Beijing. Click here for full instructions about how to join the Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Reporters Without Borders Internet director Julien Pain will be there to answer your questions and discuss your reactions to the handbook. We are inviting all of the contributors to join us. Their names will be added here as they confirm attendance. Right now they include:
- Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voices Co-founder, How to Blog Anonymously
- Yan Sham-Shackleton, who blogs at Glutter, author of the chapter: “I kept my promise to those who died“
- Markus Beckedahl of Netzpolitik, author of chapter: We promote civil and human rights.
- more coming…

If you have questions or comments about the Handbook which you'd like Julien and the rest of us to think about (or start discussing) in advance, please share them in the comments section of this post.

NOTE: In case you're having trouble accessing the handbook from the link above, we are also hosting a copy. Click here to download the English (PDF).

How to Blog Anonymously (Chinese PDF)
How to Circumvent Censorship (Chinese PDF)

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Pakistan: Blog-o-rama

Omer Alvie · 05:06 · South Asia

Without a helmet, riding a Vespa scooter at 45km an hour, I headed out on the internet highway last night, swerving my way through heavy traffic (risking life and limb) to bring you this neat little collection of posts from some very interesting Pakistani bloggers.

Meanderings had a rather eloquent and angered response to President Musharaf’s (now infamous) comments to Washington Post, which she incidentally forwarded to the President’s web site; Teeth Maestro posted about President Bush’s desperate need for a BATHROOM BREAK at the UN summit (as he hadn’t ‘been’ earlier); Suspect Paki examines the news of the incident in Basra and the two British marines; Mina presents her shell shocked comments on the recent bombings in Lahore; and Windmills highlights the story of an Israeli conscientious objector which is definitely worth reading.

Apart from the above, I want to highlight some ‘non-newsy’ posts by Pakistani bloggers that are worth viewing because they help break the monotony of political blogging highlighted above. Kay’s blog is rather refreshing as it presents a tri-photo commentary of life; I AM MAKING IT HAPPEN excels in photo blogging as her photo compositions are superb; and finally Light Within writes about mountain climbing in northern Pakistan which is a riveting read.

Well that’s all for now, I better be off or my ISP Proxy will fine me for not wearing a helmet.

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Iranian Journalists & Blogging in Iran: An Open Window to Communicate

Farid Pouya · 04:13 · Middle East & North Africa

Iranian journalists in their blogs,time to time, provide us first hand information. A couple of months ago Webnameh published Ganji's supporters' photos in front of hospital before any other site or journal. A few weeks ago Hanif Mazroi, who was jailed last year , wrote about his prison days, his suffering, and his chained friends too. A valuable page of history which explains in details a persecuted journalist's dark days.

Arash Sigarchi in a Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber Dissidents says “we can freely write in our blogs“. He is right, many journalists express their ideas with much freedom in their blogs. Many of them paid for that by being arrested. Sigarchi, Motalebi, Samminejad,…are just a few names among many others. Some prefer write without mentioning their real name. FMSokhan whose writings are published on Gooya, a popular news site, is one of them.

Some journalists such as Massih Alinejad discovered blogging when they lost their jobs. Massih(Masomeh) Alinejad used to cover Iranian Parliament. Conservative Parliament barred this brave journalist from her workplace after her revelation about Mps' huge pay. She started to express herself in her blog. Iranian State closed the door to her she opened a window to communicate.

Iranian journalists used blogs to share their ideas, photos, favourite articles and communicate with their readers. News in blogs are fragmented and discontinued but valuable. So valuable that some go to jail for that.

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