Global Voices · Citizen media stories from 2007 May 03

3 May 2007

Daily archive · 7 posts

Stories from 3 May 2007

Abdel-Monem Mahmoud: the Egyptian totalitarian regime is the problem

Written by sami ben gharbia · Middle East & North Africa

As I promised in my last article “Online Freedom for All: Some cases worth supporting”, I’m publishing here the translation of the interview I did with the jailed Egyptian blogger...

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New political movement: Chile Primero

Written by Rosario Lizana · Latin America

A new political movement called Chile Primero is set to be a launched on May 12. Some Chilean politicians and some Chilean bloggers are ready to support this new party, although there is some debate how it will interact with the current President and other coalitions.

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Ethiopian blog blockage sparks free speech debate

Written by Andrew Heavens · Sub-Saharan Africa

Web watchdog the OpenNet Initiative this week confirmed that the Ethiopian government has been blocking scores of anti-government websites and millions of blogs hosted by Google’s Blogger service. Ethiopian bloggers responded to the news with a string of defiant posts, vowing to continue writing and beat the blockages.

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Arabeyes: The Middle East in Pictures

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

From dealing with the death of dear friend - a horse - to news of how the seaside town of Mukalla is Yemen is turning into a soulless new construction site, Amira Al Hussaini takes you on a new pictorial tour of the Middle East in today's blog round up.

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China: Bloggers' Response On The Attack In Ethiopia

Written by Jacky · Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia

Nine Chinese oil workers were killed in Ethiopia oil attack last month. Many Chinese netizens have expressed their grief, sadness and pain over the Internet.

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Israel: Israelis call for Prime Minister Olmert to resign

Written by Yaeli · Middle East & North Africa

From the left and right, Israeli bloggers Yaeli and David Bogner (aka Treppenwitz) provide us with a common ground to look into their country's blogosphere as they summarise for us what bloggers have to say about the newly-released Winograd report on how Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister handled the Second Lebanon War. Follow the arrows to embark on this fascinating journey.

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Code and Culture: Brazilians celebrate the advantages of being open

Written by Jose Murilo · Latin America

There is no clear consensus about the specific reasons that occasionally boost Brazil to the cutting edge of the open source revolution. For us here in the field, facing so many difficulties, ranging from simple misunderstandings to big resource constraints, the international acclaim sounds a bit exaggerated, and at times misinformed. But now that some fruits of the first generation of "seed" ideas are starting to ripen into visibility to bigger audiences and as principles of the 'open' protocol start to be tested in other sectors, more and more commentators are joining in the conversation focusing on specific areas that catch their attention.

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Updates from 3 May 2007

India

Recursive Hypocrisy on the politics of Uttar Pradesh. If opinion/exit polls are to be believed, and taken with a pinch of salt, one can come to a reasonable conclusion. Mayawati will be the next chief minister. The question is, with whose support. Given the law in its current form, and given that the probability of her winning more than 160 seats in very small, she has to get either the BJP or the SP.”

• Neha Viswanathan

India

Indian Muslims on the difficulty of finding a place to pray. “I wonder how many non-Muslims are comfortable with Muslims praying in front of them. I have seen people, in northern India, object just for the sake of doing it. On the other hand I have seen very amiable responses by non-Muslims in southern India. I would go ahead and claim that southern India is much more tolerant towards others when it comes to accepting idiosyncrasies.”

• Neha Viswanathan

India

Desidabba on Nina Paley's work as a cartoonist and why it might just be kicking up a controversy. “Then of course, Paley is a white American woman. Cue the drum beats baying for her blood. This complex we have when it comes to white people is so ingrained in our psyche that we don’t know whether to celebrate that they’re paying us attention or get angry at the direction taken by their interest.”

• Neha Viswanathan

Iran

Zahra says[Fa] Hezbollah in Iran criticized Iranian president,Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for kissing the hand of his primary school's teacher recently.His teacher was an old woman and wore gloves. The blogger says why he did not choose a man.You can see the photo here.

• Fred Petrossian

Bangladesh

Shahzaman Mozumder's Blog has a fascinating account of being a freedom fighter in 1971. “I reached the recruiting office, which was adjacent to Capt. Mahbub’s headquarters. Capt. Mahbub was also there and my name was soon written in a register and I became a Mukti Bahini recruit. There were a total of 45 to 50 other recruits, mostly from the nearby areas of Brahmanbaria. I was the only one from Dhaka. It was the 7th day of April 1971.”

• Neha Viswanathan

Bangladesh

A gut wrenching post on what means to be Bangla in Malaysia. “BANGLA, does that word mean anything to you? Or is it just something you shout to call that nameless guy from your toilet to scrape off that dried cow shit from underneath your car? Well for those who dont know shit, this blog explains the life of a Bangla. “

• Neha Viswanathan