Markmedia

Singapore blogger convicted of sedition

BLOGGER Benjamin Koh Song Huat spent his first night in a prison cell on Friday after becoming one of the first persons to be convicted under the Sedition Act.
"It was the first time I had seen that word — sedition, I didn't know what it meant until my lawyer explained it to me."

Entries posted on his blog in June and July were peppered with vulgarities and insulted Islam and the Malay culture.So, when news of his arrest broke, he got calls from one of them.

More information available here and here

Anti Trafficking in Asia Portal

TIPinAsia.info provides quick links to country-specific information on trafficking in persons as well as anti-trafficking news and information about individual countries (Cambodia, Thailand, and East Timor).
Includes specific instances of human trafficking in sex and other trades, laws, regional organizations, and documents on human rights, violence against women and children, and other subjects.
Available in several languages. A program sponsored by The Asia Foundation.

Om Kina och yttrandefrihet

• Amnesty International: People’s Republic of China – Controls tighten as Internet activism grows:
  http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA170012004?open&of=ENG-315
• Amnesty International: 2005 Report
  http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/chn-summary-eng
• Human Rights Watch: 2004 Overview of human rights:
  http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/13/china9809.htm
• IFEX: China tightens grip on the Internet
  http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/67344/
• IFEX: International Press Institute concerned over EU's failure to criticise China for its gross violations of press freedom and freedom of expression
  http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/67443/
• Open Net Initiative: Internet filtering in China in 2004-2005
  http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/
• The Register: Microsoft deletes ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ in China
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/13/ms_ban_freedom/
• The Register: Campaigners quiz Google on China play
  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/19/rsf_google_china/
• Reporters Without Borders: The Internet under surveillance – China:
  http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10749&Valider=OK
• Reporters Without Borders: Authorities declare war on unregistered blogs and websites
  http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14010
• Reporters Without Borders: Microsoft censors its blog tool
  http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14069
• Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders challenges 14 major Internet and computer firms about their activity in China
  http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8668

Blogging making a difference in the Philippines: Thank you SIDA

Blogging has become a force to be reckoned with in the fight for democracy and against corruption in the Philippines. The latest massive push to remove President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for corruption and election-rigging has been largely driven by journalists and activists who have been denied the use of the traditional media by legal restraints from the Arroyo administration.
This is the first time a crisis of this kind has been fought on the information highway instead of the avenues of Manila and the traditional response of police and army has shown its self useless.

The Australian newspaper The Age describes it this way:

This revolution is all about control of information. The election-fixing allegations center on taped phone calls allegedly between the President and an electoral commissioner, Virgilo Garcilliano. When the allegations surfaced in early June, threats from the Arroyo administration stopped the mainstream media from publishing the contents because the calls had been illegally recorded.
This created an on-line blog bonanza...
The Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism was also crucial in the on-line campaign. The centre first aired the three-hour tape of the conversations, offering it as a download on its website in early June.

The lynch-pin of Filipino blogging is the  Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism and their blog "inside PCIJ". The blog and the use of interactive information dissemination is a direct result of a SIDA  [eng.] financed course called " The Electronic Research and Publishing programme", given by The Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, JMK, Stockholm University. [Yes, I teach the course with a colleague.]

When Yvonne Chua, training director for the Center, came to our course she new nothing about blogging. After a week she had grasped the political and journalistic implications and grappled with the technology. Before she left us she was convinced that blogging was important. When she got home it took some convincing on her part to get the organization on board, but they did and the results can now be seen influencing journalism and democratic development throughout Asia.

I am proud to have played a small part in this development.

 

 

Modern Literature of Southeast Asia: Research Portal

"This is an educational website established to facilitate research on modern Southeast Asian literatures from a cultural studies perspective."
http://members.freespeech.org/southeast-asian-literature/

The site features a compilation of links to sites with general information and information about specific countries (such as Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam) on  topics such as history, literature, and film. Also includes a bibliography. From a professor of comparative world literature.
[from http://lii.org/ntw/]