An Iranian newspaper has been banned after carrying articles critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic policies, the state Press TV satellite station said on its website.

A government media body revoked the license of Tehran Emrooz on Saturday.

Tehran Emrooz's publisher was summoned to a court on Sunday to answer charges of "printing pictures and editorial material insulting to the president and propagation of lies with the intention of agitating public opinion", Fars News Agency said.

The daily last week published a special issue on the third anniversary of Ahmadinejad's election that included articles criticizing the government's economic record.

The daily's editorial board acknowledged in a statement on Sunday it had gone beyond fair criticism of the government and issued an apology, the official IRNA news agency said.

Update: Condemnation

27th June 2008

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the 11-year prison sentence imposed on Kurdish journalist Mohammad Sadegh Kabovand on 22 June for “activity against national security.”

The authorities have no scruples about using unfair trials to convict journalists on trumped-up charges, Reporters Without Borders said. No consideration was given to Kabovand’s poor health, either. This especially severe sentence is a message to all those who do not kowtow to the regime, especially in the Kurdish northwest. The decision to close Tehran Emrooz was taken without referring to any court. President Ahmadinejad uses government commissions to settle his political scores.

The former editor of Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan, a weekly closed down in 2005, Kabovand received his 11-year sentence from a Tehran revolutionary court for creating a human rights organisation in Iran’s Kurdish region. Since his arrest in July 2007, he has been held in Tehran’s Evin prison, where he spend the first five months in solitary confinement.

Newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa was sentenced by an Egyptian court to six months hard labor in jail for publishing an article last year about health problems facing Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.

He was found guilty of damaging the national economy, although bankers have said it was difficult to link the drop in foreign investment at the time to the articles that were published.

Central Bank officials testified in court that investments of up to $350 million left the country on the days that Al-Dustour published the reports on the president's health.

Last year, Eissa was sentenced along with three other newspaper editors to a year in prison in a separate case for defaming Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic party. That trial also concerned newspaper articles about the president's health.

Eissa is one of the president's most outspoken critics. He has had run-ins with Egyptian authorities in the past. The paper was shut down for nearly seven years at one point.

The editor says the latest sentence sheds light on the limits to press freedom in Egypt. He says the verdict proves that Mubarak's government crushes the international right to freedom of expression.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi says his long-ruling coalition underestimated the power of the Internet, in advance of this month's elections. Badawi's ruling coalition suffered its worst losses in its history, after members of the opposition used the Internet to vent their views, circumventing the country's tightly controlled mainstream media.

Speaking to an investors' conference, the Malaysian leader said his coalition certainly lost the Internet war, and said it was a serious misjudgment for it to rely solely on government-controlled newspapers and television to get out its campaign message.

Many voters say they ignored the mainstream media and turned to independent blogsites like Malaysiakini.com, where they could see news on official corruption, religious and racial tensions and other issues that the mainstream media often does not report.

Observers say readership of the country's independent blogsites has surpassed that of mainstream print media.

Malaysia's government does not openly censor blogsites, as part of promise it made in the 1990's to not interfere with the Internet. The promise was part of an effort to draw foreign investment in plans for a new high-tech industry corridor. The plans for the corridor have since stalled, leading media freedom advocates to worry about whether the government may soon start imposing restrictions on the Internet.

See full article from the Bangkok Post

Malaysia's new information minister has pledged not to impose curbs on bloggers, who have been accused by other government officials of spreading lies and undermining public stability.

Internet commentators played a key role in recent general elections by catering to voters who wanted an alternative source of news besides television and newspapers, Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek told reporters.

The remarks by Ahmad Shabery reflect a softening in the government's stance toward bloggers. His predecessor and other officials have repeatedly criticized bloggers and warned that new laws could be crafted to rein in bloggers who dispense malicious or false rumors that could stir tensions.

Maktoobblog.com, one of the most popular Arab blogging platform, has been recently blocked in Yemen cutting off Yemeni Internet users from the more than 46960 Middle Eastern blogs the service hosts. Of these, 1226 are Yemeni blogs. All of them disappeared from the Yemeni Internet.

OpenNet Initiative testing has confirmed through technical investigation, that the blog hosting service has been blocked by Yemennet ISP, a service of the government’s Public Telecommunication Corporation (PTC):

Access is blocked to the entire domain maktoobblog.com, effectively to every blog hosted by the service.

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.

Cuba has blocked access to the country's most popular blog, signalling an apparent government crackdown on a new generation of cyber critics.

The blog, Generación Y, received 1.2m hits last month, but its writer, Yoani Sanchez, said Cubans could no longer visit her web page.

Attempts from the island to view desdecuba.com/generaciony and two other Cuban blogs which share the server in Germany prompt an error alert, though the site can be viewed outside Cuba.

Analysts said the crackdown underlined the communist authorities' determination to keep tight control despite some cautious moves towards economic reform and greater openness since Fidel Castro stood down, and his brother, Raúl, replaced him as president.

As the most-read blogger Sanchez, a philosophy graduate, who does not disguise her identity, was seen as a litmus test of official tolerance for dissent. I think this action is directed at a phenomenon that was getting out of their hands, she told the southern Florida newspaper the Sun-Sentinel. I don't think they're coming after me personally. I think they're moving against a phenomenon of which I am a part.

Her husband, Reynaldo Escobar, a journalist, said he was surprised the clampdown had not happened sooner: It's interesting that at a time when people are waiting for the government to lift restrictions, they would apply more restrictions.

Wikileaks has released 35 censored videos relating to the Chinese suppression of dissent in Tibet and has called on bloggers around the world to help drive the footage through the so called "Great Firewall of China".

The transparency group's move comes as a response to the the Chinese Public Security Bureau's carte-blanche censorship of youtube, the BBC, CNN, the Guardian and other sites carrying video footage of the Tibetan people's recent heroic stand against the inhumane Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Wikileaks has also placed the collection in two easy to use archives together with a HTML index page so they may be easily copied, placed on websites, emailed across the internet as attachments and uploaded to peer to peer networks.

Censorship, like communism, seems like a reasonable enough idea to begin with. While 'from each according to his ability and to each according to his need' sounds unarguable, the world has learned that these words call forth a power elite to administer them with coercive force. Such elites are quick to define the needs of their own members as paramount. Similarly 'from each mouth according to its ability and to each ear according to its need' seems harmless enough, but history shows that censorship also requires an anointed class to define this "need" and to make violence against those who continue talking. Such power is quickly corrupted.

See full article from the Guardian

Earlier this week the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, sent a formal letter of complaint to the Chinese embassy in London calling for access to the Guardian website to be restored and "henceforth unfettered".

Chinese authorities can censor online content internally using either an outright block on a specific website address, or using filtering technology that restricts access to individual online articles containing key words such as "Tibet" and "violence".

It has not been clear which technical restrictions the Chinese authorities have been using against international news websites.

However, according to reports from several internet users in China, the censorship appears to have become less draconian this week compared to the weekend, when the worst of the unrest in Tibet was taking place.

Videos on the Guardian website that had previously been inaccessible can now be viewed in China and users in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guilin have been able to access a range of online news stories on Tibet.

One Chinese technology blogger said that while access has improved it does not necessarily mean that the authorities have relented: Suppose there is less access from Chinese readers once they felt the site is hard to access. The censorship system will turn to other hot sites with higher sensitive hits automatically.

Niger’s official media censor summarily suspended the FM broadcasts of France-based Radio France Internationale (RFI) for three months. Authorities accused RFI of discrediting the government in connection with a day-long series of programs on Monday about the detention of RFI correspondent Moussa Kaka.

In a telephone interview with CPJ, Douda Diallo, the president of the country’s High Council on Communications, said RFI’s programs questioned the independence of Niger’s courts, and broadcast “falsehoods” over Kaka’s case “with a manifest intention to discredit Niger’s institutions.”

The re-suspension of RFI is a clear sign of an ongoing government policy to censor media outlets, whether local or foreign, for material deemed critical of the government, said CPJ’s Executive Director Joel Simon. We call on the authorities to reverse lift the ban on RFI and release its correspondent Moussa Kaka immediately.

Kaka, a veteran radio journalist distinguished for his coverage of several Tuareg rebellions since the 1990s, was arrested in September on anti-state charges over alleged links with a recent insurgency. Kaka had done exclusive interviews with rebel leaders last year, according to local journalists.

Russian blogger Savva Terentyev is being charged for inciting hatred toward the authorities for a post that, among other things, labeled the police uneducated representatives of the animal world.

Terentyev said that the charges were a result of a February 2007 posting in which he chastised local authorities for raiding an opposition newspaper.

Terentyev's comments, first published by The Associated Press, come amid a government crackdown on Russian internet and media outlets: They're trash - and those that become cops are simply trash, dumb, uneducated representatives of the animal world. It would be good if in the center of every town in Russia ... an oven was built, like at Auschwitz, in which ceremonially, every day, and better yet, twice a day ... the infidel cops were burnt. This would be the first step toward cleaning society of these cop-hoodlum scum.

Bahrain was urged yesterday to provide more protection for journalists by scraping the jail sentences in its Press law.

A report by Reporters Without Borders has issued calls for the authorities to implement legislative reforms they have been promising for years.

It also called upon them to fulfil their promises to allow more Press freedom. According to the report, reform of the Press law must not be abandoned for lack of political determination or because of pressure from the radical fundamentalists who form the majority in parliament.

The report calls also upon the government to put an end to the state monopoly on broadcasting. The organisation also urged the Information Ministry to show more restraint in its censorship of the Internet. Access to some web sites is banned. It should be the job of the courts, not the government, to regulate the Internet, the report said.

The report praised the freedom atmosphere in the Kingdom when compared to other GCC states, but highlighted that the Press freedom situation is far from satisfactory.

It appreciated the fact that no journalist has been imprisoned since March 1999, but highlights that the Press was still facing many problems. It claimed that restrictive laws and pressure from officials too often force journalists to exercise censorship.

An Iranian Baluch journalist and civil rights campaigner, Yaghub Mehrnehad, aged 28, has been sentenced to death for an unknown offence, after torture and an unfair trial conducted behind closed doors, according to Amnesty International.

His execution is imminent. He is likely to be hanged in public, using the barbaric slow strangulation method favoured by the Tehran regime. It is deliberately designed to maximise the pain and prolong the suffering of the victim.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) have condemned the death sentence.

Mehrnehad is a journalist for the reformist newspaper, Mardomsalari (Democracy), and president of Sedaye Edalat (Voice of Justice), a lawful, government-registered cultural association in Iranian-occupied Baluchistan.

On February 19, the Iranian judicial authorities announced that Mehrnehad had been sentenced to death for belonging to the armed Jondollah organisation, also known as the Iranian Peoples' Resistance Movement. No evidence has been offered to substantiate this allegation. On the contrary, all Mehrnehad's activities have been lawful and peaceful.

His appeal against conviction has been fast-tracked, in violation of Iranian law, to prevent him from challenging what human rights organisations say is a grave miscarriage of justice.

...Read full article

Journalists throughout Europe, both east and west, are faced with a growing pattern of censorship and pressure including physical violence and intimidation, according to a survey by the Association of European Journalists (AEJ). What's more, the EU is failing to stand up for them, the AEJ adds.

The survey, presented on 28 February in Brussels, found media freedom in retreat across much of Europe and pointed to a number of abuses by governments, including interference in editorial policies and even threats and intimidation.

The AEJ survey, which covers 20 countries, listed a number of abuses including:

• Violence and intimidation (Russia, Armenia)
• assault against media independence by governments (Slovenia)
• political abuses, particularly in public broadcasting (Croatia, Slovakia, Poland
• commercial pressure and over-concentration in mainstream media (France, Italy).

William Horsley, the survey's editor, said: Governments across Europe are showing a marked trend to use harsher methods, including heavy official 'spin' and tighter controls on journalists' access to information in order to block media criticism.

And according to Horsley, the trend is not confined to the younger democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. The open confrontation between government and the media in Slovenia is mirrored in various ways in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, among others.

In Ireland, two senior journalists from The Irish Times are facing jail sentences for refusing to reveal their sources, the AEJ heard at a recent workshop in Dublin. In Slovakia, journalist Martin Klein was condemned for publishing a satirical article about a church leader, a ruling which was subsequently upheld by Slovakia's Supreme Court despite a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which backed the journalist.

What's more, Horsley says media organisations themselves have to share part of the blame: European media have been too slow to comprehend and report the pattern of censorship, pressure and sometimes physical violence faced by journalists in every corner of Europe.

As for the European institutions – the Council, Commission and Parliament - Horsley said they had so far failed to stand up for media freedom.

Horsley told EurActiv: If the EU neglects its own doubtful record in protecting media freedoms at home it is obvious that governments elsewhere will not take very seriously its appeals to allow media freedom and independence there.

Armenian authorities should immediately lift restrictions on independent news reporting and the censorship of independent news Web sites, steps imposed when President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

Kocharian declared a 20-day state of emergency after clashes between government troops and opposition supporters in the capital, Yereven. Protesters claimed that vote-rigging marred the February 19 presidential election that ended in victory for Kocharian’s hand-picked successor, Serzh Sarkisian. Hundreds of troops were deployed in Yerevan to clamp down on the demonstrations.

As part of the declaration, Kocharian ordered media outlets to cite only official sources when reporting on national politics. Several independent and opposition news Web sites that operate under Armenian domain names were also blocked. They included Web sites run by the pro-opposition news agency A1+ and the independent newspapers Aravot (Morning) and Aikakan Zhamanak (Armenian Time), according to the news agency Armenia Today. Armenia Today reported that local Internet users received a message that said: Warning! As ordered by a state decree, some informational Web sites will not be accessible.

The Armenian Service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was blocked within the country.

Cameroon police in the capital, Yaoundé, today forced a popular radio station off the air and confiscated its equipment over commentary critical of the government during a call-in program.

Magic FM is the third broadcaster summarily closed by authorities within a week in response to critical coverage of public demonstrations fueled by a rise in prices and President Paul Biya’s bid to seek another term in office.

Editor-in-Chief Roger Kiyeck told CPJ that officers accused the station of “broadcasting irresponsibly,” and inciting tensions in connection with commentary critical of the government during his morning call-in program, Magic Attitude.

Magic FM, a leading station in Yaoundé that partners with the U.S. government-funded Voice of America, is known for its pointed political coverage.

The closure of Magic FM followed last week’s back-to-back closures of leading broadcasters Equinoxe Télévision, and its sister station Radio Equinoxe, in connection with their pointed coverage of Cameroon’s national crisis.

Update: Condemned

10th May 2008

The British High Commissioner to Cameroon, H.E. Syd Maddicott, has vehemently condemned the ban government slammed on the Equinoxe Radio and Television in Douala and Magic FM radio in Yaounde: The cancelling of licenses of three broadcasting stations is an unwelcome move. Some have alleged that the stations in question were closed down simply because their editorial line opposed the constitutional amendment. If true this is a serious problem. The press cannot be truly free if they are only free to agree with those in power.

A media rights group says Burma's military government has ordered the weekly magazine Myanmar Nation to stop publishing and has arrested two of its employees.

The International Freedom of Expression Exchange said that the arrests of Thet Zin and Sein Win show that Burma continues to crack down on the independent media, despite plans for a constitutional referendum and other promises of reform. The group said the two are being held without charge.

Tuesday, a new law connected to Burma's upcoming constitutional referendum took effect. The new law says any Burmese citizen who gives public speeches or passes out leaflets against the referendum could face up to three years in jail.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the Government of Fiji's deportation of a newspaper publisher and managing director, Russell Hunter, to Australia on February 26 after his paper published stories highlighting allegations of tax evasion by a government minister.

Hunter was at home when government officials arrived with a document citing his deportation. He was held overnight before being forced onto a flight to Sydney, without being given the opportunity to notify his family.

Hunter, an Australian citizen, was reportedly denied consular access and legal advice. Fiji's authorities did not advise the Australian Government of the deportation. It is understood Hunter's work visa had 18 months to run.

The action followed publication in Hunter's paper, the Fiji Sun, of allegations of tax evasion by a government minister, since named as finance minister Mahendra Chaudhry, a former prime minister.

Fiji's interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said in a press statement that media freedom is secure and guaranteed...[BUT]...He warned the media that it must recognise there are limitations to constitutional guarantees on freedom of the press.

The Belarusian Supreme Court has ordered the early release of Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now-shuttered independent newspaper Zgoda, who was sentenced in January to three years in a high-security prison for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006.

We’re relieved at the Belarusian Supreme Court’s decision to grant early release to Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, but he should not have been jailed in the first place, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. We remain concerned that the court did not overturn this politically motivated conviction.

Sdvizhkov’s lawyer, Maya Aleksandrova, told CPJ that the court cut the sentence to three months after reviewing the journalist’s appeal on Friday. The journalist, arrested in November, had already served that length of time. Aleksandrova said the court reduced Sdvizhkov’s sentence due to “exceptional circumstances,” citing the journalist’s deteriorating health, his good behavior in prison, and his elderly mother’s poor health.

Sdvizhkov’s paper reprinted the controversial cartoons in Zgoda in February 2006, prompting authorities to begin an investigation into possible incitement to religious hatred. But journalists said the prosecution was motivated less by religious sensitivity than a desire to silence a critical newspaper in the weeks before a presidential election.

Index on Censorship is calling for the release of Tunisian comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah, who has been jailed on the basis of suspect evidence, apparently in punishment for mimicking the country’s president.

The trigger seems to have been a private recording of comedian Hédi Ouled Baballah’s satirical imitation of Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali that has spread across the country by mobile phone.

Index on Censorship, together with fellow members of the Tunisian Monitoring Group (TMG) of international free speech groups, believes that Ouled Baballah was targeted by police and framed for drugs and currency charges as punishment for the popular satire.

In Tunisia dissidents are never charged for their political acts, but instead are falsely accused of “dishonourable” offences, says OLPEC. Recent victims of this tactic include human rights lawyer Mohamed Abbou, jailed for allegedly attacking a female colleague, and journalist Slim Boukhdhir, accused of breaking public morality laws.

This is the second time that Hédi Ouled Baballah has been persecuted for mimicking Ben Ali. After performing a similar sketch last year he was arrested and beaten up by police in the Bouchoucha detention centre between 9 and 11 March 2007.

Cameroon’s government summarily closed a leading private television station on supposed regulatory violations.

The station in Douala was distinguished for its leading coverage of a national debate over a bid by President Paul Biya to scrap a constitutional clause that limits presidential terms.

Two police commanders backed by a squad of riot police forced Equinoxe Télévision off the air and sealed its studios, the station’s editor in chief, Albert Yondjeu, told CPJ. Police gave the station a copy of an order from Communications Minister Jean-Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam. The order stated that the station was operating illegally because it had not paid a 100 million CFA francs (US$227,000) broadcast licensing fee, according to Equinoxe Director General Séverin Tchounkeu.

Only three private television stations, Canal2 International, Spectrum TV, and TV+ have operated with official licenses in Cameroon since last year, but the government has allowed the rest of the handful of stations, unable to afford the hefty licensing fees, to operate under a regime of administrative tolerance. [This only applies of course when the station toes the government line].

Local journalists say they believe the move was linked to Equinoxe’s pointed coverage of the heated debate splitting supporters and opponents of Biya, who has been in power since 1982.

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) is concerned that the fate of two newspapers in Malaysia is being left hanging by the authorities following the expiration of their licence, and the debilitating effect this has had on their coverage of news in the run-up to the nationwide elections.

The annually renewable publishing permits for the Tamil-language Makkal Osai and the Mandarin-language Oriental Daily lapsed in December 2007 and have not been approved by outgoing Deputy Internal Security Minister Fu Ah Kiow, reports the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ).

The two newspapers, seen to be more critical than the other mainstream media closely tied to the government, have had to show a different slant after Parliament was dissolved for a general election on 8 March 2008.

The Oriental Daily editor has reportedly issued a set of guidelines on election coverage, which includes no frontpage coverage for the opposition.

CIJ, which is monitoring the media's election coverage, observes that Makkal Osai has started to publish news favouring the incumbent government, joining the usual clamour of mainstream newspapers.

We are concerned that the requirement for a publication permit has been effective in silencing critical voices and controlling any attempt for editorial independence. By delaying approval but allowing the paper to continue operating using lapsed permits, the caretaker government is putting the papers at its mercy and sending a signal to their owners to be compliant, CIJ said in its release.

The government of Chad is using the current state of emergency to clamp down on journalists and members of peaceful opposition parties, Amnesty International have said. Amnesty said that the government has arrested at least three opposition members and that some newspapers in Chad have ceased publishing due to potential censorship, with many journalists fleeing the country.

Chadian President Idriss Deby last week declared a state of emergency throughout Chad, citing increased violence between government forces and rebels in the capital city of N'Djamena. The order bans most public meetings, imposes a curfew, authorizes government censorship of the press, and allows regional governments to regulate travel.

The recent fighting in Chad is the most recent eruption of longstanding hostilities between the Chadian government and several rebel groups seeking to depose Deby.

Pervez Kambaksh, the 23-year-old student, whose death sentence for downloading a report on women's rights from the internet has been speaking to The Independent from his Afghan prison.

In a voice soft, somewhat hesitant, he said: The judges had made up their mind about the case without me. The way they talked to me, looked at me, was the way they look at a condemned man. I wanted to say 'this is wrong, please listen to me', but I was given no chance to explain.

For Kambaksh the four-minute hearing has led to four months of incarceration, sharing a 10 by 12 metre cell with 34 others and having the threat of execution constantly hanging over him. His fate appeared sealed when the Afghan senate passed a motion, proposed by Sibghatullkah Mojeddeid, a key ally of the President Hamid Karzai, confirming the death sentence, although this was later withdrawn after domestic and international protests.

Since The Independent exposed the case of Kambaksh, eminent public figures such as the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. and Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, have lobbied Karzai to reprieve him. A petition launched by this newspaper calling for justice for Kambaksh has gathered nearly 90,000 signatures.

Kambaksh's ordeal began in mid- October after the downloading of the document about Islam and women's rights from an Iranian website. He was questioned first by some teachers of religion from the university where he is a student of journalism.

On 27 October he was arrested at the offices of Jahan-e-Naw, a newspaper for which he had carried out reporting assignments. It was about 10 in the morning. They told me that one of the directors of the NDS [the Afghan national intelligence service] wanted to see me. I was taken to a police station and sat around until 3 o'clock when they said they were arresting me over the website entry. When I protested they said they were doing this for my own safety, otherwise I may be killed.

On 6 December he was brought before a court in Mazar where the charges against him, accusing him of blasphemy and breaching other tenets of Islamic law, were read out. But then the proceedings concluded without any evidence being presented before the court.

He arrived at the court at the next session, on 22 January expecting a date to be set for the trial, only to hear numbing news. They normally sit for just a few hours in the afternoon. I was taken into the court just before it shut at 4 o'clock. There were three judges and a prosecutor and some details of the case were repeated. One of the judges then said to me that I have been found guilty and the sentence was death. I tried to argue, but, as I said, they talked to me like a criminal, they just said I would be taken back to the prison.

I was totally shocked. Afterwards I sat and tried to calculate just how long they had taken to judge my case. I thought at first it was three minutes, but then I worked out it was four. That was it, I have been in prison ever since. All I can hope now is that something can be done at the appeal. I would really like the appeal to be heard in Kabul, I think I will get a better hearing there.

Following the international outcry over the case, and the campaign by Mr Kambaksh's supporters, Afghanistan's Supreme Court has said that the appeal may take place at Kabul, away from local justice in Mazar, and that the hearing this time would be in the open. Justice Bahahuddin Baha also stated that the student would have the right to legal representation.

It has been reported that the Uzbek-language website Newsuz.com has been blocked in Uzbekistan.

After a series of critical publications on human rights issues, gas supply issues, and price growth, and also analytical publications on the recent elections, we began receiving letters with threats and demands to follow information posted on government sites. We did not do that and, as a result, out site was blocked, Newsuz.Com editor-in-chief Aziz Nosirov said.

Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student sentenced to death for downloading an article about women's rights, has been promised the chance to appeal against his death penalty in an open court, well away from the plotters and extremists accused of hijacking the original proceedings.

Afghanistan's Supreme Court said his appeal would be held in "a very open court" in Kabul, and that he would have every opportunity to select a lawyer.

It was claimed he was originally convicted behind closed doors without proper representation.

Supreme Court Justice Bahauddin Baha said yesterday that the appeal would be heard in Kabul at Kambaksh's request.

More than 87,100 people have signed an Independent petition demanding justice for Kambaksh.

Reporters Without Borders today accused public officials around the world of impotence, cowardice and duplicity in defending freedom of expression.

The spinelessness of some Western countries and major international bodies is harming press freedom, secretary-general Robert Ménard said in the organisation’s annual press freedom report: The lack of determination by democratic countries in defending the values they supposedly stand for is alarming.

He charged that the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva had caved in to pressure from countries such as Iran and Uzbekistan and expressed concern at the softness of the European Union towards dictators who did not flinch at the threat of European sanctions.

The report’s introduction listed problems expected in the coming year, especially physical attacks on journalists during key elections in Pakistan, Russia, Iran and Zimbabwe.

The worldwide press freedom organisation voiced concern about the safety of journalists covering fighting in Sri Lanka, the Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Niger, Chad and especially Iraq, where it said journalists continue to be buried almost every week.

It also protested against censorship of new media (mobile phones transmitting photos and film and video-sharing and social networking websites) and highlighted media repression in China in the run-up to the Olympic Games there this summer: Nobody apart from the International Olympic Committee seems to believe the government will make a significant human rights concession before the Games start. Every time a journalist or blogger is released, another goes into prison. (...) China’s dissidents will probably be having a hard time this summer.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the closure of five Iranian websites and the charges of “violating national security” brought yesterday against Jelveh Javaheri and Nahid Keshavarz, two journalists who write for the women rights’s websites WeChange and Zanestan.

These charges are abusive, the press freedom organisation said. Javaheri and Keshavarz just do their job as journalists when they write about the condition of women in Iran. This is Javaheri’s second arrest in two months while Keshavarz is constantly being summoned before the Tehran revolutionary court. We call on the authorities to free them at once and to stop bringing prosecutions against them.

Javaheri writes for WeChange. She was previously arrested on 1 December and charged with “disturbing public opinion,” “publishing false information” and “publicity against the Islamic Republic” for writing articles demanding respect for the rights that women are accorded under the Iranian constitution. She was released on bail a month later.

Tehran prosecutor-general Saeed Mortazavi yesterday decided to ban the conservative website Nosazi and four other sites for poisoning the electoral domain. Since 8 February, there has been a growing controversy about the 14 March parliamentary elections, with young mollah Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the late Supreme Guide, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, condemning the Guardian Council’s decision to disqualify 70% of the candidates. Nosazi had criticised his position.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia is asking the country's media to exercise self-censorship because the era of government control over the press is at an end.

In a speech commemorating National Press Day Yudhoyono said self-censorship should be improved by only reporting "appropriate" news.

Bans and (state) censorship of the press no longer exist in our country. The press has achieved the freedom it fought for...BUT...the freedom is not absolute.

He said that the freedom it had gained, the press should be dignified, useful and responsible. It is the press that should control itself for the good of the nation. The people want the press to provide accurate and objective information.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to remove independent broadcaster Aaj TV from air for more than 12 hours.

Satellite transmissions of Aaj were shut down after a prominent critic of the Musharraf government, Nusrat Javed, appeared on a late-night political talk show, according to The Associated Press. Aaj was among more than 40 channels that were taken off air soon after Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the country’s constitution on November 3. Though all the channels eventually broadcast again, many did so only after taking anchors and journalists critical of the government off the air and curtailing live coverage of demonstrations and other events that showed opposition to the government.

Aaj was shut down midway through the live talk show Live with Talat, a popular political show, after Javed appeared as a guest, The Associated Press reported. He had also anchored his own popular late night show, “Bolta Pakistan” (Talking Pakistan) before the November 3 clampdown.

Prior to the broadcast, Musharraf’s spokesman Rashid Quereshi had advised Aaj that it should not allow Javed to appear on any of its programs.

Afghanistan's President has promised justice for Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, raising hopes that the condemned student journalist will be freed.

At a joint press conference with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in Afghanistan on a previously unannounced visit, President Hamid Karzai vowed: Justice will be done. It was the first time that the President has spoken publicly about the 23-year-old's plight, which sparked outrage around the world, after The Independent launched a petition to save him last week. Kambaksh was sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading an article about women's rights, which poked fun at Islam by questioning why men are allowed four spouses, but women are not.

Asked about the case by The Independent, Karzai said he had talked it over with the US and British officials, who have both expressed concerns over Kambaksh's fate.

Karzai insisted it was a matter for his country's courts to deal with. He said: This is an issue that our judicial system is handling. I can assure you, that at the end of the day, justice will be done in the right way.

His remarks suggest he is not planning to use his executive powers to intervene at this stage, but that he may yet pardon Kambaksh if the sentence is upheld by Afghanistan's supreme court. Under Afghan law the President has to sign off on a death sentence before it can be carried out.

Conservative clerics and tribal elders have urged the government not to overturn the death penalty. More than 100 religious and tribal leaders attended a rally in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, in support of the verdict. The province, in eastern Afghanistan, borders Pakistan's tribal belt, which nurtured many of Afghanistan's hardline mullahs.

Khaliq Daad, head of the Islamic council of Paktia, said Kambaksh had "humiliated" Islam. He said: Kambaksh made the Afghan people very upset. It was against the clerics and Islam. He has humiliated Islam. We want the Afghan President to support the court's decision.

If the verdict is upheld Mr Karzai may be forced to choose between the mullahs, who passed the sentence, and the international community, which opposes it.

Zia Bumia, president of the Committee to Protect Afghan Journalists, said the courts had been hijacked by Mr Karzai's enemies to split him between the religious conservatives and his American backers.

Global Voices Advocacy is pleased to announce the second of several planned manuals focused on the topics of circumventing internet filtering, anonymous blogging and effective use of Internet-based tools in campaigns for social and political change.

Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy explains how activists can use blogs as part of campaigns against injustice around the world. Blogging can help activists in several ways. It is a quick and inexpensive way to create a presence on the Internet, to disseminate information about a cause, and to organize actions to lobby decision-makers.

The goal of Blog for a Cause!: is twofold: to inform and to inspire. The guide is designed to be accessible and practical, giving activists a number of easy-to-follow tips on how to use a blog to further their particular cause.

The guide is divided into five sections:

1. Frequently asked questions about what blog advocacy is
2. The 5 key elements of any successful advocacy blog
3. The 4 steps to creating an advocacy blog
4. How to make your blog a vibrant community of active volunteers
5. Tips to help blog activists stay safe online

In addition to the information provided above, the guide is also full of examples of advocacy blogs from around the world, to inspire readers with a glimpse of what is possible. These featured advocacy blogs have a variety of goals, ranging from freeing a jailed blogger in Saudi Arabia to protecting the environment in Hong Kong and opposing the conflict in Darfur.

The guide was written by Mary Joyce, a student of digital activism based in Boston, and was commissioned by Global Voices Advocacy, an anti-censorship project of Global Voices online.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association firmly condemn the arrest of blogger and writer Nay Myo Latt at his home in Rangoon.

This hounding of bloggers is unacceptable, the two organisations said: We do not know where Nay Bone Latt is being held. We urge the authorities to release him and to stop this persecution.

A member of the outlawed National League for Democracy, Nay Myo Latt uses his blog (www.nayphonelatt.net) to record the difficulties encountered by young Burmese when trying to express themselves, especially since last autumn’s protests against the military regime that were led by Buddhist monks. He also owns three Internet Cafés in Burma.

The Burmese authorities have stepped up their surveillance of the Internet since the start of January, reportedly pressuring Internet café owners to register the personal details (name, address and so on) of all users and to programme (and save) screen captures every five minutes on each computer. All this data is apparently then sent to the communication ministry.

The only blog platform that until recently had still been accessible within Burma, the Google-owned Blogger (www.blogger.com), has been censured by the regime since 23 January. Bloggers are no longer able to post entries unless they use proxies are other ways to circumvent censorship.

This blockage is one of the ways used by the government to reduce Burmese citizens to silence, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association said. They can no long post blog entries or disseminate information. Burma is in danger of being cut off from the rest of the world again.

The condemned student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh will not face execution, a senior government official in Afghanistan indicated yesterday.

A ministerial aide, Najib Manalai, insisted: I am not worried for his life. I'm sure Afghanistan's justice system will find the best way to avoid this sentence.

It was the clearest indication yet that the 23-year-old will have his death penalty revoked amid mounting international pressure on the Afghan authorities.

Kambaksh was condemned to die by an Islamic court for insulting Islam. He was found guilty under sharia law after he distributed articles from the internet on women's rights at Balkh university in northern Afghanistan, an act he claims was aimed at provoking debate. His family say he was not allowed a defence lawyer and the trial was in secret.

The verdict, briefly endorsed by the Afghan senate before it retracted its opinion, caused international protests. More than 63,000 people have signed an Independent petition urging the Foreign Office to put all possible pressure on the Afghan government to prevent the execution. The United Nations' senior human rights advocate, Louise Arbour, has written to the President and his top officials. President Hamid Karzai's staff said he had been inundated by appeals from pressure groups across the globe to pardon the student journalist.

The President is concerned about the case and is watching the situation very closely, his spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said. But he added: There is a judicial process ongoing.

Manalai is the senior adviser in Afghanistan's Culture Ministry, which is in charge of arbitrating free speech disputes in the media. He condemned the student writer but maintained it was very unlikely he would face the gallows.

The President can pardon death-row prisoners if their sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. But privately, government sources h