Governments of the world discover they dislike citizens having freedom

Nothing governments dislike more than real freedom. Makes their job just that must less relevant.

Some countries are running each other over in their rush to repress. What are they afraid of?

Freedom on the worldwide Internet is in danger, according to a new report by Freedom House.

In a survey of 37 countries, only 8 qualified as having completely "Free" Internets, while 11 were designated "Not Free" and the remainder were "Partly Free." The survey measured Internet freedom by studying obstacles to access, such as governmental efforts to block technologies or control over Internet access providers, limits on content, including the blocking of websites and other forms of censorship, as well as violations of user rights including privacy, online surveillance and real world repercussions for online activity. The U.S. scored second on the list as ranked by most to least free, with Estonia taking the lead as the nation where the Internet was most free. Germany, Australia and the UK were ranked just behind the U.S.

Among the most alarming findings of the report was evidence that a growing number of countries are attempting to restrict the flow on information online by blocking political content and threatening website owners and bloggers with arrest. Even more democratic countries, like the UK, are chipping away at web freedom with other forms of censorship and surveillance, or with legal harassment.

Read more here.

Egyptian military jails blogger

A military court in Egypt has sentenced an internet activist to three years in jail for criticising the armed forces.

Maikel Nabil was arrested last month for blogs that criticised the army's role during anti-government protests.

The 26-year-old is thought to be the first blogger jailed in Egypt since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak.

Activists said the trial set a dangerous precedent at a time when Egypt was trying to move away from the alleged abuses of the Mubarak era.

Perhaps many small lights can help.

Read more here and here.

Mass-mirroring Wikileaks

Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.

In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, we need your help.

if you have a unix-based server which is hosting a website on the Internet and you want to give wikileaks some of your hosting resources, you can help!

Please follow the following instructions:

Read more here.

WikiLeaks releases diplomatic documents

A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

Oh my oh my, our so called leaders will need the fainting couch. Fetch the smelling salts.

Read more here.

Islam film Dutch MP to be charged

No no, mustn't criticize Islam...

A Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

"In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to... draw a clear line," the court in Amsterdam said.

Mr Wilders said the ruling was a "black day for me and for freedom of speech".

"I am shaken. I had absolutely not expected it," he told the Dutch news agency, ANP.

Read more here.