Global Voices Online

The First Six Months of Rising Voices

David Sasaki · 23:13 · Sub-Saharan Africa , Americas

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As we all get ready to enter 2008, Rising Voices celebrates its first six months of existence. Thanks to the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Rising Voices has been able to distribute microgrants to five citizen media outreach projects based in Bangladesh, India, Sierra Leone, Bolivia, and Colombia. Collectively those five projects have trained over 100 new citizen journalists from communities that previously never entered the online global conversation.

It is worth getting to know each new blogger not just as a source of under-reported foreign news, but also as a neighbor and friend in our rapidly shrinking world. Get to know Carmen, a lover of poetry and literature, from the hillside working class neighborhood of La Loma in Medellín, Colombia. Discover the story of Suso - La Loma's local recyclables collector. Meet Cristina Quisbert who now blogs almost every day from the world's highest major city, El Alto, Bolivia.

Or head to Dhaka, Bangladesh where the Nari Jibon center is training young women like Sifat Binte Qaiyum and Ayesha Parveen how to document their personal and community stories with online media.

Just southwest of Bangladesh we find the Neighbourhood Diaries project taking place in Kolkata, India. Though the ten participants in the neighbourhood of Bow Bazaar have yet to start writing on their own blogs, project leader Sahar Romani has introduced us to each one. Take 16-year-old Surojit Mitra, for example:

Surojit is a student at Bow Bazaar Highschool. During his free time he loves to coreograph dances and listen to music. He is known for his laughter and his coreography in Sanlaap programmes. One thing that no one knows about him is that, once he failed an exam.

In a later post we learn that Surojit's favorite landmark of Bow Bazaar is the Punjabi Hotel. Here's his description:

As soon as you reach the Punjabi Hotel, what you hear first is the sound of conversations and the din of people who are going in. A light wind brings the smell of various food items to my nose. You can see shoe shops, the vegetables in the market being bought and sold. The touch of food items from the hotel and the fuchka. It is a very old hotel. Earlier it was renowned, everyone knew of it. Besides, the proprietor of the place was a friend of my mother’s.

Finally, make sure to head to the Think Build Change Salone in Freetown, Sierra Leone. After a vicious, decade-long civil war made Sierra Leone the least developed country in the world, a group of motivated young interns - such as Noah Dauda and Daniella Wilson - are documenting their efforts to rebuild the country. Make sure to check out Noah Dauda's photographs of microfinance traders and Emmanuel Joseph's experience producing a documentary in the eastern provinces of Kenema, Kailahun and Kono.

Looking Ahead

As you can see, in just six months, each project has made amazing progress in training new groups of bloggers in underrepresented communities. A sense of purpose and community has developed within each group.

In just a few days we'll announce the latest round of microgrant winners. Five new projects will join our current community of outreach trainers and the momentum and good will they've established. In the coming months we'll focus more on encouraging interaction between all 10 projects and highlighting the similarities the share.

We hope that you'll follow along.

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Saudi Arabia: Free Fouad Update

Sami Ben Gharbia · 08:21, December 26th, 2007 · Middle East & North Africa

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The leading Saudi blogger, Fouad Alfarhan, who has been arrested in Jeddah on December 10, 2007 for exercising his freedom of speech on his popular blog alfarhan.org has sent a letter few days before his arrest to his friends:

I was told that there is an official order from a high-ranking official in the Ministry of the Interior to investigate me. They will pick me up anytime in the next 2 weeks.

The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I’m running a online campaign promoting their issue. All what I did is wrote some pieces and put side banners and asked other bloggers to do the same.
he asked me to comply with him and sign an apology. I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that. An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is liar when they accused those guys to be supporting terrorism?

To expect the worst which is to be jailed for 3 days till we write good feedback about you and let u go

there may be no jial and only apologizing letter. But, if it’s more than three days, it should be out. I don’t want to be forgotten in jail.

According to his wife with whom we talked, Fouad's arrest was directly linked to his blogging activities. He may remain in custody for a one-month investigation period. After that his family will be allowed to visit him and be informed about his case and the possible charges that might be brought against him. Fouad is apparently being held, without charge or trial, at the Ministry of Interior's security service (al-Mabahith al-'Amma) headquarter in Jeddah. He has been arrested at his office in Jeddah and had been led to his home where police confiscated his laptop computer.

This is not the first time that Fouad has run into trouble with Saudi authorities. Last year, Fouad was questioned by plainclothes police and was forced to shut down his blog. After a hiatus of few months, Fouad decided to continue blogging.

Several bloggers and activists are organizing an online Free Fouad campaign at freefouad.com to call attention to Fouad. As so far, a support group created on Facebook for Fouad has gathered 295 members.

In a statement issued on December 24, 2007, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information condemned the “unjustified detention” of blogger Fouad Alfarhan and urged the Saudi authorities to reveal the reason of arresting him. “When the Saudi authorities arrest a young man writing maturely and is against terrorism and calls for reformation, it is a serious indicator for how far are the fanatic and those opposing freedom of expression and reformation are taking over in Saudi Arabia,” the executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Mr. Gamal said.

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