Global Voices · Citizen media stories from May 2010

May, 2010

Monthly archive · 197 posts

Stories from May, 2010

19 May 2010

Bahrain: Why was Al Jazeera's Office Shut Down?

Written by Amira Al Hussaini · Middle East & North Africa

Bahrain temporarily shut down the office of Al Jazeera Satellite Channel for "violating professional conventions." Bloggers and tweeps react to the development in this post - especially after rumours surfaced that the Qatari station's bureau was closed because of a report it aired on poverty in Bahrain. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera says it doesn't even operate an office in Bahrain so what exactly is going on?

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18 May 2010

Iran: Students challenge Ahmadinejad again

Written by Fred Petrossian · Middle East & North Africa

Hundreds of students from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran protested against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to their own university on May 10th. Hamid Tehrani reviews some videos uploaded on YouTube of the protests in this post.

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Côte d'Ivoire - Ghana: Friends and Foes at World Cup 2010

Written by Lova Rakotomalala · Sub-Saharan Africa

Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana will be the two nations representing the West African region at the World Cup 2010 in South Africa. For the first time, the World Cup will...

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Iran's Kurdish cities in strike in protest against executions

Written by Fred Petrossian · Middle East & North Africa

Life came to a standstill in several Kurdish cities in Iran as businesses and shops went on strike on Thursday,May 13th, to protest against the execution of four Kurdish prisoners. While mainstream media ignored the protest, citizen journalists recorded the rebellious act in photographs and video footage.

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Pakistan: The Draw Mohammed Day Controversy

Written by Teeth Maestro · South Asia, North America

A controversial Facebook campaign called “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” has irked many Muslims across the world. This has also caused an uproar in the Pakistani blogosphere and many bloggers are questioning the motives, the necessity and the hypocrisy behind this initiative.

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Technology for Transparency Review, Part IV

Written by David Sasaki · Technology for Transparency Network

While San Francisco's residents may be eager to send their local government a photograph of a pothole via Twitter, the same program might not be as effective in other communities where expectations of political representation and responsiveness are lower. Here is our review of civic complaint initiatives worldwide.

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Updates from May, 2010

25 May 2010

Taiwan (ROC)

One of the top public issues in Taiwan blogosphere recently is whether Taiwan should abolish death penalty or not. Thus, The Ball Music sorts out and introduces several heavy metal songs that are about death penalty(zht). “…You don't have to support the abolishment of death penalty just because you are a fan of Metallica or Iron Maiden, yet you can understand their viewpoints about death penalty from their songs.“, says the blogger.

• Portnoy Zheng

24 May 2010

Armenia

Ianyan comments on this week's Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Oslo, Norway. Noting the often cheesy nature of the international music competition, the blog takes a look at the two female acts from Armenia and Azerbaijan, currently among the main entrants considered to have a chance to win.

• Onnik Krikorian

Russia

Moscow mayor's office prepared a draft bill on access to the information with no mention of blogs or any kind of social media, gzt.ru reported [RUS]. Gzt.ru suggests the reason of the absence of Web 2.0 is the inability of the city's telecommunications committee to provide an effective information policy.

• Alexey Sidorenko

Bhutan

Indian blogger Jabberwock quotes Tshering Tobgay, blogger and the leader of the opposition Party in the Bhutanese parliament answering the question ‘why is it important for a politician to blog': “because that forces you to pause and introspect and think about things, which is something politicians don’t always feel the need to do”.

• Rezwan