China's secret plot to tame Tibet. "Internal Communist party documents have revealed that China is planning a programme of harsh political repression in Tibet despite a public show of moderation to win over world opinion before the Olympic Games next month." Meanwhile, the military has sealed off several monasteries in Lhasa, keeping over 1,000 monks locked up. Another 1,000 monks have mysteriously disappeared, and may have been sent to prisons in a neighbouring province to keep them silent through the Olympics.
posted on Jul 13, 2008 - View this thread

When the wire won't carry your subversive tract, distribute your digital screed via flash drive. Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly. Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire ...[passed via flash drives]... and seriously damaged Mr. Alarcón’s reputation in some circles.
posted on Mar 6, 2008 - View this thread

Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma.
posted on Dec 9, 2007 - View this thread

Risking all: the Burmese jokers who laugh in the face of danger. In Burma (Myanmar), comedians are targets in the junta's war on words. [Via BB.]
posted on Oct 17, 2007 - View this thread

"The people who murder journalists in Sri Lanka feel so well protected that they carry out fresh murders to mark the anniversaries of their preceding ones."
posted on May 1, 2007 - View this thread

60 years ago today, an incident took place in Taipei, which led to the massive slaughter of thousands of Taiwanese at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese troops. Many were imprisoned for torture and execution on Green Island off Taiwan's eastern coast. More on Green Island here, and an interesting-ish flickr photo set here
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

The Tank Man (via Frontline). An iconic image of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - View this thread

The Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2004 as compiled by Doctors Without Borders - wars, disease, famine, and repression that has gone largely unnoticed in mainstream media [via PBS' NewsHour - real audio streaming link].
posted on Feb 5, 2005 - View this thread

Persian, Amercian blogospheres come together after an Iranian blogger, Sina Motallebi, was detained by Iranian regime. OJR's Mark Glaser has the story. BTW, sign the "Release Sina" petition if you haven't.
posted on May 1, 2003 - View this thread

Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan. "A man who was severely beaten by Ismail Khan's forces described to Human Rights Watch the effect of the repression: 'At any time I feel that I am in danger. When I leave my house, I do not know if I will return. I do not know whether something will happen to me, if there will be some car crash, or that I will be hit in the back of the head.' Another witness talked about how his community's hopes after the hated Taliban regime was ended have been deflated: 'What has changed in Afghanistan? All our hopes are crushed. We are completely disappointed. Look-all the same warlords are in power as before. Fundamentalism has come into power, and every day they strengthen their power.'

The light of liberation and liberty descends upon Afghanistan.
posted on Nov 6, 2002 - View this thread

Free Speech 101 - We must acknowledge that people who use force to suppress the opinions of others are committing assault not merely on other humans and on the basic promise of free speech, but on democracy itself.
posted on Sep 20, 2002 - View this thread

Followup on Houston's great K-Mart roundup To the great relief of many in Houston, it does indeed appear that heads are going to roll over the mass arrest last week. Or at least, one head will.
posted on Aug 24, 2002 - View this thread

Most of us are familiar with stories about government suppression of the free flow of information on the Internet - e.g. China's crackdown on internet dissidents; France's tussle with Yahoo over online sales of Nazi memorabilia; and, fresh from yesterday's news, Iran's closure of 400 internet cafes. But did you know there are no web servers to speak of in North Korea? That you need government permission to own a fax machine or modem in Burma? That Somalia has only one ISP? If you can forgive some of its design peculiarities, this Enemies of the Internet report (by Reporters Without Borders) gives a pretty comprehensive rundown of the international state of online freedoms.
posted on May 14, 2001 - View this thread