Bloggers in chains?

When searching for something to write on this week, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Monday marked the start of a ground-breaking conference organized by Amnesty International on internet repression. The conference will have huge repercussions for the future of online freedoms.

Call on bloggers

The Amnesty conference - Some People Think the Internet is a Bad Thing: The Struggle for Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace – will call on victims of internet repression to recount their plights.

Amnesty claims that censorship is on the increase. Besides filtering of websites (Google, Microsoft and Yahoo being the main culprits in this area), there has also been a rapid increase in “politically motivated” closures of websites. Imprisonment of bloggers also seems to be a rising phenomenon.

Look at the case of Iranian blogger Kianoosh Sanjari. Sanjari was arrested in October following his blogging about conflicts between the Iranian police and the supporters of Shia cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi. Or twenty-two-year-old Egyptian blogger Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman – he was imprisoned for four years in February for insulting Islam and defaming the President of Egypt.

Suleiman’s fellow Egyptian blogger, Amr Gharbeia, told BBC: "The web is creating a more open society, it is allowing more people to speak out. It's only natural that upsets some people."

Fight for online freedom

Bloggers need to fight this repression, in order to protect our right to freedom of expression. We can get involved in promoting online freedom, by highlighting the plight of fellow bloggers jailed for what they wrote in their online journals. Amnesty International is asking all bloggers to show their support for freedom of expression by blogging about the erosion of media freedom.

"Freedom of expression online is a right, not a privilege - but it's a right that needs defending," said Steve Ballinger of Amnesty International. "We're asking bloggers worldwide to show their solidarity with web users in countries where they can face jail just for criticising the government."

Also, be sure to visit Irrepressible.info, Amnesy's site for online freedom. This is a very cool site, and a must for any bloggers who want to actively fight censorship.