Romania: NATO Summit in Bucharest

Posted 2 April 2008 8:08 GMT

Countries	Romania
Topics	Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Law, Protest, International Relations, Politics, Digital Activism

Romania

Mihnea Dumitru announces his plans to leave the city for the duration of the NATO Summit in Bucharest, which begins today: “In a perfect show of support for my government and its intentions to transform the capital into a no-man’s land where nothing can possibly go wrong, I have decided to flee to the mountainside, where I should be enjoying relative peace and calm with my friends. […] My decision primarly rests on the treatment of six German nationals received over at one of our border check-points. Without any sort of reason or motivation, they were taken into custody for 19 hours, searched both inside and out, found to be carrying nothing wrong short of a few anti-NATO posters and urban survival literature, declared dangerous and then summarily sent back to where they came from.”

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Updates about Eastern & Central Europe

14 February 2012

Hungary

Blogger Ulrika Lejnarová, highlighting air pollution data from the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute [sk], wonders [sk] why Slovakia, while often paying attention to the critical conditions in Hungary [en], is doing little to inform its own citizens of the domestic situation adequately, in order to avoid health complications.

• Tibor Blazko

10 February 2012

Macedonia

GV Author Filip Stojanovski posts pictures of Skopje's snowy and icy streets and reports on his blog: “[…] the pavements and the side streets in the municipality of Centar remain icy. Some are covered by layers of ice or re-frozen slush, by old frozen snow, or an unevenly hardened mash of snow and 'salt.' Fokus daily claimed that the authorities avoid declaring nationwide state of emergency in order to ‘prove' that they were prepared for the snow.”

• Veronica Khokhlova

9 February 2012

Russia

On February 9, 2012, following the widely-discussed leaks of pro-Kremlin mailboxes, LiveJournal, where the leaks were published, became temporarily unavailable, Lenta.ru reported [ru]. Russian representative of Anonymous group @OP_Russia, suggested [ru] that it was a DDoS attack to hide the evidence of massive wrongdoings (including corruption, thievery, political provocations, and cybercrime) [ru] by Nashi youth movement. Later that day @OP_Russia took responsibility for taking down 3 websites of United Russia party: mos-partya.ru, er-region.ru, and er-kaluga.ru.

• Alexey Sidorenko

Russia

At OpenDemocracy.net, Olesya Gerasimenko talks to the parents of three young neo-Nazi men who were convicted of race murders: “One has adopted the views of their only child and says that violence is necessary. One blames the politicians that have incited adolescents to street fighting. One cries, convinced of the innocence of his son. They are all different, but they have all asked themselves one and the same question: ‘am I to blame for what happened?’”

• Veronica Khokhlova

Macedonia

While the authorities in Macedonia remain silent on the country's stance on the ACTA, bloggers, such as Airborne, emphasize the need to gain more knowledge [mk], as the traditional media mostly ignore the issue: “Maybe, one of these days, we'll just simply wake up in the ACTA-ruled world.” The new media attempting to fill this gap in local languages include Metamorphosis and IT.com.mk. Endek blog advocates [mk] standing up for Internet freedom by joining international protest movements.

• Filip Stojanovski

Saudi Arabia: Fate of Journalist Hamza Kashgari Hangs in the Balance

Please sign this petition, ask your friends to sign as well and help save Hamza:
Freedom of speech and expression does not give any individual the right to insult...