Never before have so many people been threatened or imprisoned for what the words they write on the internet.

As activists and ordinary citizens have increasingly made use of the internet to express their opinions and connect with others, many governments have also increased surveillance, filtering, legal actions and harassment. The harshest consequence for many has been the politically motivated arrest of bloggers and online writers for their online and/or offline activities, in some tragic cases even leading to death. Online journalists and bloggers now represent 45% of all media workers in prison worldwide.

Today, Global Voices Advocacy is launching a new website called Threatened Voices to help track suppression of free speech online. It features a world map and an interactive timeline that help visualize the story of threats and arrests against bloggers worldwide, and it is a central platform to gather information from the most dedicated organisations and activists, including Committee to Protect Bloggers, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Reporters without Borders, Human Rights Watch, CyberLaw Blog, Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Global Voices Advocacy.

What blogger, where?

Finding accurate information about arrested and threatened bloggers and online writers is difficult for several reasons.

First, the secrecy surrounding online censorship and repression makes it extra difficult to be accurate. Not a single week passes without stories of arrests of yet another online journalist or activist in countries like Egypt or Iran, but the details and reasons are often shrouded in mystery.

Second, there is still some confusion about the definition of a “blogger”. Professional journalists are increasingly migrating to online media and blogs in pursuit of more freedom, blurring the old lines of definition. And many so-called cyber-dissidents in China, Tunisia, Vietnam, or Iran, do not have personal blogs. Other times, bloggers are arrested for their offline activity, rather than for what they have published online.

This confusion has sometimes made it hard for online free speech advocates to come up with a good strategies and partnerships to defend bloggers and online activists, but it has never been more important to try.

Let's work together

At Global Voices we engage a community of authors, editors, and translators, who help keep us all informed of free speech and human rights abuses. With Threatened Voices we aim to open the process of reporting up even further to any person who has information.

We're calling on those whose friends, relatives, colleagues, or compatriots, have been threatened to help create and update the profiles of those missing or under arrest, so we can seek additional sources, verify, and link to online campaigns dedicated to freeing them.

In the process, we are hoping to learn more about when, where, and to what extent bloggers are being subjected to abuse in different countries, so we can share that information widely with journalists, researchers, and activists, and work towards creating an internet where everyone can exercise their right to speak freely, and where bloggers in prison are not forgotten.

Help spread the word. Tweet, blog and update your facebook status about Threatened Voices!

Three more blogs have been blocked in Tunisia this week. These blogs, Mochagheb (Disturber), Ennaqed (The Critic) and Place Mohamed Ali have all been particularly active in providing news of the struggle of The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), and especially about the latest social unrest in the southwestern phosphate mining region of Gafsa, where two people have been killed. One was shot dead by security forces and the other was electrocuted inside a local electric generator.

I asked the Tunisian blogger Ennaqed about the censorship of his blog in Tunisia. He said:

I think that the main reason of banning my blog is crossing the “red lines” that are constraining the media in Tunisia by talking about issues that are completely ignored by mainstream media. Last year, I was seriously engaged in covering the hunger strike of three Tunisian secondary school teachers who were expelled from their jobs for political reasons, and my blog was blocked temporarily. And like the rest of the Tunisian bloggers, I was blogging about the revolt in the mining region and recently about the prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbullah, and the remains of eight Tunisian men handed over by Israel. But, honestly, I think that the most direct reason for banning my blog might be my last blog post about the participation of an Israeli delegation in the 31st Congress of the International Geography Union (IGU) that is taking place in Tunisia. What I actually did is copy and re-post a press release about a group of Palestinian geographers who are boycotting the aforementioned conference because of Israeli participation.

On June 21 the censorship passed beyond all reason and banned the first and only podcasting Tunisian blog Radyoun (Radio) run by a group of Tunisian bloggers dedicated to discussing social and cultural topics. Apparently, the podcast debate about the sporadic protests in the poor mining region of Gasfa and about the freedom of expression led to the banning of the blog.

This is a non-comprehensive list of blocked blogs in Tunisia. Please keep in mind that the list does not include blocked websites:

1. Citizen Zouari‬, blog of Tunisian journalist and former political prisoner, Abdallah Zouari.
2. The Free Pen the blog of Tunisian journalist and former political prisoner, Slim Boukhdhir. In July 2007, this blog was also hacked and deleted.
3. ‫Mokhtar Yahyaoui‬, blog of a former Tunisian judge who was dismissed after publishing an open letter to President Ben Ali criticising the lack of independence of the judiciary.
4. Tunisia Watch, this blog is also run by Mokhtar Yahyaoui‬.
5. Astrubal
6. [fikra] blog of Tunisian activist and political refugee Sami Ben Gharbia.
7. Nawaat, popular group blog about news, politics, cyber-activism and Islamic reform.
8. Radyoun, the podcasting Tunisian blog.
9. Moaz Jmai. (this blog has been blocked in Tunisia where I'm writing this post)
10. Place Mohamed Ali (this blog has been blocked in Tunisia where I'm writing this post)
11. Sofiane Chourabi.
12. Nader.
13. Free Race.
14. Samsoum .
15. Tunisian Citizen.
16. For Gafsa.
17. Mochagheb.
18. Annaqued.
19. Zabbaleh.
20. Adam.
21. Moumni.
22. Free Word.

Attacks on video-sharing websites

Despite the fact that Tunisian authorities have permanently blocked access to both popular video-sharing websites Dailymotion and YouTube, on 3 September, 2007 and 2 November, 2007 respectively, Tunisian netizens have still managed to access these websites to either watch or share videos. And while the Tunisian government worked hard to ensure that the polished image of a “secular, modern and democratic” state would not be marred by any “negative” information disseminated by opponents on the web, Tunisian video activists and bloggers kept the spotlight on the Redeyef revolt exposing harsh repression and flooding both banned video-sharing websites Youtube and Dailymotion with footage of demonstrators, protesting against unemployment and nepotism, clashing with the police. And when the official media remained silent about the death of two demonstrators, videos of the victims, the wounded and the use of firearms against civilians, were smuggled out of Tunisia and posted on the video-sharing websites.

The anti-censorship campaigns

Interest in online censorship in Tunisia has never been higher since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005 when a hardcore group of Tunisian bloggers and activists supported by sympathizers, organized a successful online campaign around Yezzi Fock Ben Ali (Enough is enough, Ben Ali) a “Freedom of Expression in Mourning!” campaign, the entire field of the online battle for freedom of speech has changed. The transformation owes to the growing number of bloggers, video and Facebook activists who are walking down the path of digital activism that was gradually and patiently traced by the first pioneers of the Tunisian online free speech movement who brilliantly used web 2.0 tools (videos, mash-ups, photos, etc.) to protest the crackdown on online free speech.

Badges of Tunisian online anticensorship campaigns

There is a growing number of blog posts and comments talking and/or protesting censorship. According to the advanced search engine of the recently launched North African Blogs aggregator, Berberus (Beta), of the 274 blog posts containing the word “censure” (censorship), 165 are Tunisian.

And of the 256 comments containing the same word, 98 were left on Tunisian blogs.

Compared with other North African Internet users, Tunisian Netizens seem to be much more interested in censorship than their counterparts in Algeria and Morocco. This trend is confirmed by the following graphs, generated by Google Insights for Search:

Back to April 2007. Following the ban on Dailymotion, Tunisian bloggers and activists from Nawaat.org launched the “Unblock Dailymotion campaign” in order to draw public attention to the aggressive online censorship policy adopted by the Tunisian regime. Cybversion.org blog was created to protest the ban of the Dailymotion and has since evolved into a group blog documenting censorship, anti-censorship and digital activism in Tunisia.

Fifty-one Tunisian bloggers are now running a new anti-censorship blog campaign launched on June 20 that encourages the local blogsphere to republish posts from censored blogs as part of the campaign to sensitize the public to the issue of online free speech. The blog campaign has received a lot of media attention from the Arab world and has been featured on the official website of Al Jazeera and the Qatari “Al-Arab” newspaper.

Badges and a headline widgets that use the free Feed2JS service displaying headlines of the anti-censorship blog campaign have been designed to build community around the blogs and help Tunisian bloggers stay updated about newly published content.
July 1st, is now “I blog for freedom of expression” day which Tunisian bloggers celebrate by blogging about free speech and/or by displaying a badge. Meanwhile, from time to time, Tunisian bloggers carry out ad-hoc campaigns to protest the banning of specific blogs or websites like the Blank Post Day that has been organized twice: the first time on 25 December 2006 and the second on 25 December 2007.

Tunisian netizens bid farewell to Facebook

On the social networking websites, Facebook, several groups protesting online censorship in Tunisia have been created.The most important one has so far gathered more than 620 members. Other groups have been created requesting the ATI (The Tunisian Internet Agency, which oversees Web distribution in the country) not to block Facebeook, which, unfortunately, seems to be blocked since yesterday by at least two of the country’s largest ISPs (Globalnet and PlaNet), as reported by several Tunisian bloggers and Facebook groups who were faced yesterday with the famous Tunisian 404 block page that states that the requested Web site could not be found.

It's far more than just censorship

Blocking web 2.0 websites (Youtube, Dailymotion, Facebook) and barring access to local outspoken websites and blogs is the most obvious way of cracking down of the online free speech in Tunisia. It should be emphasized, however, that this is only one tool in the regime's hand. Tunisia has adapted to the web 2.0 revolution by developing a broader strategy composed of a wide range of instruments including:
Punishing and persecuting outspoken online writers, bloggers and dissidents:
Between 2001 and 2008 more than 12 people have been arrested and/or sentenced because of their online activities:

1. The seven cyber dissidents known as the Youth of Zarzis;
2. The cyber dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui;
3. The forum administrator Ramzi Bettibi, known as the Tunisian “prisoner of the Net;
4. The online writer and Human rights advocate Mohamed Abbou;
5. The online Journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdhir;
6. The journalist and blogger Mohamed Fourati;
7. And while the last prisoner of opinion, blogger and Internet journalist Slim Boukhdhir, has been released from jail on 21 July, the Tunisian human rights NGO, Freedom and Equity, reported that a 22-year old ICT Student, Mariam Zouaghi, has been arrested, on July 26th, 2008, for visiting banned websites.

Creating an atmosphere of fear:

As is the case of China, creating a strong atmosphere of fear and a climate of intimidation has led Tunisian citizen to in general adopt a low profile vis-a-vis freedom of expression. During the last 7 years, most internet users and bloggers were censoring themselves by avoiding to raise their voices to address political topics or write freely bypassing the strict state censorship. Only a handful of activists, cyber dissidents and bloggers, usually the same men, are leading the free speech movement on the Internet, going well beyond these limits and even organizing an online anti-propaganda machine to the official one.

Hacking of dissident websites and blogs:

Almost every single Tunisian opposition website and self-hosted blog has been the victim of one or more hacking incidents. While there is no solid evidence that the Tunisian regime is behind attempts to take down opponent websites, there is quite a strong feeling among Tunisian opposition figures that the government is carrying out cyber-attacks, given their frequency and the nature of the targeted websites and blogs.

Moncef Marzouki, one of Tunisia's most prominent human rights defenders (former President of the Tunisian League for Human Rights and leader of the banned opposition party Congrès Pour la République) openly accused the Tunisian regime of orchestrating and waging these destructive attacks against the opposition Web: “In a week my website was hacked four times (…) All of this, of course, happened simultaneously with the hacking of web based email accounts that the Tunisian police is carrying out against Human rights advocates and political opponents.“

Screenshots of hacked Tunisian websites

What we have seen more recently is that the attack on collective blog Nawaat.org (deleting of the database and ftp files) happened simultaneously with the hacking of the personal blogs and email accounts of the activists running Nawaat. According to a press release issued on 16 June, 2008, Reporters Without Borders stated that:

The Tunisian news and blog wesbite Nawaat (http://www.nawaat.org/) yesterday suffered its most serious hacker attack since its creation. Its database was erased and its home page was modified (see photo). Blogs by human rights activists Sami Ben Gharbia (http://www.kitab.nl/ ) and Astrubal (http://astrubal.nawaat.org/) were also affected. Their blogs continue to be inaccessible and their databases have been badly damaged. The websites have been restored although some dysfunction continues.

This is a non comprehensive list of blogs and websites targeted:

Filtering emails:

As reported earlier by Reporters Without Borders and some Tunisian NGOs, Tunisian human rights defenders are having trouble reading their emails on the three important web based mail clients: Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail:

Reporters Without Borders is also surprised by the problems Tunisian Internet users are having with their email. Messages sent to them by human rights organisations such as the International Association for Supporting Political Prisoners (AISPP), the Tunisnews website or Reporters Without Borders are illegible on arrival.

Several sources said the messages can be seen in the inbox and can be opened, but often there is nothing inside. Once opened, they disappear from the inbox. “It looks like badly concealed filtering,” a specialist said.

It is worth noting that the issue does not affect “fresh/new” webmail accounts and it only happens when you log in to these accounts from within Tunisia. I have personally run a test, from The Netherlands with Tunisian lawyer Abdel Wahab Maatar and Tunisian blogger, activist, and former political prisoner Abdallah Zouari. I logged into their email accounts and was able to read their emails normally. The content I saw displayed was not the same they were reading. Here are two screenshots of the test. The first is from The Netherlands where I'm base and the second from Tunisia:

So it seems the email accounts of some Tunisian Internet users are being monitored by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) without their knowledge. DPI is a technology that has the ability to monitor the online activity and filter the traffic on the network by removing “unwanted” material from the actual body of received emails.

Recently, I asked Robert Guerra - a Toronto-base technologist who helps NGOs with data privacy, secure communications and information security about this. These are his comments:

At first glance, seems that there's some realtime interception of webmail and possibly other traffic is taking place. In a way, it looks like there's a network neutrality issue… Perhaps Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is being used. If indeed DPI is taking place, it might be worthwhile to raise it on the numerous DPI discussions that are taking place. The discussion in Canada is quite active, one where activists could use the Tunisian example to help their case. (…) it might be that existing accounts have been compromised in some way. Should ask if the accounts that are being affected were accessed at public (ie. net cafe) pc's . if so, passwords might have been captured.

Banners from Egyptian Facebook groups calling for the May 4 Strike.

After little less than a month following the April 6 strike in support of the textile workers in Mahalla City, during which a number of prominent Egyptian bloggers and internet activists were arrested, preparations for the next round of a planned general strike to mark the 80th birthday of President Hosni Mubarak, on May 4, 2008, are currently spreading all over the blogosphere and the Internet. And like the preparation for the April 6 strike, the internet has a vital role to play in mobilizing for the upcoming protest. SMS, email, blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter: almost all of these outlets are used by Egyptian Internet activists in their campaign the May 4 event. We've even seen a Facebookist Movement to Overthrow Mubarak being created. Another group entitled “We don't want Muslim Brothers” is calling for the strike but without participation of the Muslim Brotherhood, who recently decided to join May 4 protest.

Logo of the Egyptian Facebook group “Facebookist Movement to Overthrow Mubarak“

This approach of politicising the internet is not taking place without concerns being raised not only by pro-government and state-run newspapers (who recently waged a campaign against web 2.0 services like Youtube, Blogger and Facebook used by online activists) but even by opponents of Mubarak's regime and outspoken bloggers. And while the Al-Gomhuriya daily called for a “boycott [of] Youtube and Facebook websites” and the weekly Rose El-Youssef portrayed the former website as “a secret room aimed at running Egypt”, blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy, an outspoken Egyptian blogger, wrote, in a blog post titled “I do NOT endorse the May 4th General Strike Call” criticizing what he described as a call “coming from the cyberspace by bloggers, “Facebook activists” and the Islamist-leaning Labor Party whose leaders have declared themselves more or less as some “provisional govt” in cyber-exile”, that:

We, the Egyptian bloggers, have always prided ourselves on the fact that we have one foot on the ground and the other in the cyberspace… But this time, it seems some have thrown both their feet as well as brains in the cyberspace and are living some virtual reality, mistakenly believing (helped by the media sensationalist coverage of the “facebook activism“) that they are the ones behind the events in Mahalla…

Blogger and activist Nora Younis was kind enough to agree to this interview over email. Nora shares some of her ideas with us about the role of Internet in Egypt as a platform for political activism.

Sami Ben Gharbia: What was the role of internet in mobilizing Egyptian citizens to participate in the April 6 strike and do you believe that the kind of Facebook Group, with its 71,200 members, has an effect on the street?

Nora Younis: Internet was the main tool in mobilizing for the 6 April strike. It's true a tiny fringe of Egyptians have access to Facebook but the 70,000+ members of the group acted as strike advocates in the society and took the debate from PC screens to taxis, workplaces, dinner tables and breadlines. This forced the topic on the independent main stream media. The second tool in mobilizing for the strike was SMS. People I have known for years with no relation to politics or public participation were circulating messages advocating the strike. The word “strike” has never been uttered and repeated that much in Egypt during my lifetime. However, we should not forget that what gave April 6 its weight was the labor movement uprising and their struggle for a dignified minimum wage. Internet alone, without the popular base, wouldn't have led to the successful strike we witnessed April 6.

Sami: we've seen an anti-strike Facebook group formed to counter the pro-strike group and it seems that the political battle is taking place on blogs and on social networking websites. How do you describe this new development and do you believe that the Egyptian government or the ruling party is behind the aforementioned group?

Nora: Young members of the ruling party have initiated blogs and Facebook groups to polish the regime's image and counter the call for dissent. Such pages are probably encouraged by party officials, because when it comes to content they lack the passion. Furthermore, they remain unable to attract members and visitors.

Sami: It seems that the Egyptian regime is trying to calm down the situation. During the last week many of the previously arrested activist and bloggers have been released such as Khaled Hamza Salam the editor-in chief of Ikhwanweb, and blogger Mohamed Sharkawy and Esraa Abdul Fattah. How do you assess the situation in Egypt at this stage?

Nora: The Egyptian regime took preemptive measures to abort the April 6 strike by arresting activists early morning from their homes, and taping their calls days before. After the day was over and with the rising riots in Mahalla measures were taken to contain and calm the situation, as a way to weaken the planned May 4 strike. A government delegation headed to Mahalla, met some 2000 textile workers, and promised bonuses and privileges. Government statements have alienated Mahalla workers from the riots. Popular bloggers-activists have been released. All seems to be in attempt to calm the situation before May 4 - the president's 80th birthday.

Sami: The use of web tools has caused the arrest of some of those activists, but it also helped release the American student James Karl Buck who was arrested while photographing the 6 April demonstration. His Twittered message ‘ARRESTED‘ through his cell phone alerted the world about his arrest. Who do you believe is going to win this new kind of battle of information?

Nora: On April 5 the number of my Twitter update followers was 90. On April 6 it was 130, and today it is 180. Only because I was Twittering strike and detainees updates. James Buck gained wide support through his Twitter SMS. More people are joining the blogsphere, Facebook, and Twitter by the hour. I don't think this could ever be reversed. There is a techie, passionate, frustrated generation now on the playground….and one could only expect more to come. In few years time there will be no need for registration of political parties. Like-minded people will organise and will be heard.

1. Indonesia blocks YouTube over “Fitna” the movie

The Indonesian government has ordered the country’s internet service providers to block YouTube for publishing the 15-minute anti-Muslim film “Fitna”, made by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV). Some of the country's ISPs followed the block order, but “Fitna” could still be viewed through other providers.

“A letter was sent to Internet providers asking them to block any site or blog posting the film Fitna (…) Not only YouTube has uploaded the film, so it is up to the ISPs' discretion to block these sites,” a Communications and Information Ministry Official is quoted as saying.

Earlier this week, Indonesia had threatened to block YouTube unless the video-sharing web site removed the aforementioned movie.

2. Saudi Arabia: Fouad Alfarhan's blog and Freefouad blocked

The blog of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan was blocked today in Saudi Arabia, along with the Free Fouad website, which is dedicated to Alfarhan's case, and the pro-reformist blog Freedoms. Users trying to access these blogs from Saudi Arabia were met with a notice saying “Blocked URL. Dear User, Sorry, the requested page is unavailable. If you believe the requested page should not be blocked please click here. For more information about internet service in Saudi Arabia, please click here: www.internet.gov.sa“.

115 days after his arrest, on 10 December 2007, Fouad Alfarhan remains jailed for unspecified “violation of non-security regulations.” On March 11th, 2008, Alfarhan's nine-year old daughter, Raghad, released a YouTube video message for her father saying: “Daddy I miss you. When are you coming back home?”

3. Slide blocked in Turkey

A Turkish court banned access to Slide, the maker of social networking widgets, for “harboring pictures and articles that are considered to be insulting to Ataturk.”

In a note to Slide users in Turkey, Slide announced that it has contacted the Turkish government in the hope of resolving the issue via that route:

If you use Slide in Turkey, you've probably noticed that you are no longer able to access the Slide website or our applications (you may not even be able to access this post). The Turkish government has accused Slide of “harboring pictures and articles that are considered to be insulting to Ataturk,” founder of the republic.

We have contacted the government of Turkey in an effort to resolve this situation and will keep you updated on any changes. In the meantime, we're trying our best to enable Turkish citizens to access our website and applications again.

According to Slide statistics, Slide widgets are being viewed by more than 143 million unique viewers every month in more than 200 countries on websites like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, and Blogger.

4. Yemen blocks Maktoob blogging platform

Maktoobblog.com, one of the most popular Arab blogging platform, was recently blocked in Yemen, cutting off Yemeni Internet users from the more than 46,960 blogs the service hosts. According to MaktoobBlog, there are currently 1,226 Yemeni blogs hosted by the service. All of them disappeared from the Yemeni Internet.

On the pan-Arabic Al Hayat newspaper, Mr. Yasser Al-Eimad, from the Public Telecommunication Corporation, denied that Maktoobblog.com was blocked. But the OpenNet Initiative testing confirmed yesterday, after technical investigation, that the blog hosting service was blocked by Yemennet ISP, a service of the government's Public Telecommunication Corporation (PTC):

ONI technical investigation verified that the service has been blocked by Yemennet, Yemen’s government-run ISP. Access is blocked to the entire domain maktoobblog.com, effectively to every blog hosted by the service. Interestingly, users who attempt to access the site receive a network error message instead of the standard blockpage, which is served when users attempt to access sexual content.

This significant blocking is expected to hinder Internet users in Yemen from blogging and reading blogs because maktoobblog.com is home of one of the largest blogging communities in the Middle East and North Africa.