Sugar Cubes

Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk
20.01.06

Journalist and blogger Ahmad Reza Shiri will have a permanent threat hanging over him as a result of the suspended sentence of three years in prison handed down by a court in the northern city of Mashad on 8 January, Reporters Without Borders said today. He was reportedly accused of writing articles in his blog calling for a boycott of last February’s legislative elections.

“Suspended sentences are often used to silence journalists who bother the authorities,” the press freedom organisation said. “The fact that this type of sentence has now been applied to a blogger shows the importance that weblogs have assumed in Iranian society.”

Shiri said he was arrested in February 2004 and spent 21 days in detention because of what he had written in his previous blog, Iran Azad (Free Iran). In June 2004, a Mashad court gave him a suspended sentence of a year in prison. The authorities also closed down his blog and confiscated his computer. But he started up another blog a few months later: www.roozname.blogfa.com .

He told Reporters Without Borders that this month’s conviction is directly linked to the first one. He said the intelligence ministry asked for his case to be retried on the basis of new charges, including the fact that he gave interview to foreign radio stations. So the case was retried by another Mashad judge and this time he got a three-year suspended sentence. He will have to serve the sentence in prison if he gets into any kind of trouble with the authorities during the next five years.

Wow…For the first time, I feel how democratic our Arab countries are!

News of the blogosphere…

Laila from Raising Yousuf reports that the big day of elections is less than two weeks away. She has been recruited by the Guardians Unlimited to write about the elections in a series of posts.

From Ramallah Online, in Palestinian village of Al-Walaja people still live under the same conditions caused by Al-Nakba nearly 54 years ago. The Isreali military forces attackd the village and bulldozed Palestinians properties declaring the area to be a closed military zone.

From KABOBfest, the Palestine Solidarity Movement will hold its fifth annual conference at Georgetown University, Washington, DC from the 17th - 19th of Febreuary, 2006. The spokesperson of PSM, Nadeem Muaddi said the divestment from Israel has become a national concern.

Norwegians activists are under attack from Israel’s supporters in the US and Condoleeza Rice threatens with serious political consequences.

What we talk about…

On Ariel Sharon’s health condition:

SteamedPenguin at the beginning, was afraid Sharon would die quickly, then he was afraid Sharon would live.

KABOBfest’s blogger Will’s post number 400 was also about Sharon, Will says he was surprised not to see any news about Sharon’s health on Yahoo frontpage sidebar.

Laila of Raising Yousuf wonders what will Sharon say when he meets all his peaces on his final day, what will he say to his Maker?

Sugar Cubes compared the poor media coverage of Arafat’s sickness and death to the excessive focus of MSM on Sharon’s health and hospitalization. From Arafat to Sharon and recently Abramoff, who decides what’s a top story?

Photo Credit: Raising Yousuf

From peacepalestine, in a letter from Al Jazeera camerman who is improsined in Guantanamo, Sami Al-Hajj, he asks a question which he can not get out of his mind, why are they punishing him?. Sami was tied to a wire out in the cold, standing all day on his feet just because he asked to go to the bathroom, feeling desperate he eventually soiled his trousers “to the enjoynment of the soldiers and whores watching“.

SteamedPenguin, thinks that Taliban = USA : “So I figure a dark hegemonical backwards empire beating up against misogynist, homophobic, anti-education, anti-progress goat-fucking clowns equals itself out.”

Sugar Cubes tried to shed some light on blogging in Arabic.

Read nasrawi talking about his date with Kamanche.

The little things that matter…

Haitham Sabbah has started a campaign to ask blog services to recognize and list Palestine in their countries category. If a blog service does not recognize Palestine intentionally the pledge states that its supporters will not use it.

From Sugar Cubes, Arab-American author and radio show host Samar Jarrah appeared on a Fox News‘ segment called “Your Turn” as a special guest on “Dialogue Between Arabs and Americans” to talk about her book “Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts”, you can read a review of her book here. Samar did a fabulous job tackling different controversial topics of interest to the average American when it comes to Islam and the Arab World. She explained the difference between Islam and culture and talked about women in Islam. About Palestine, Samar says that Arabs still have the question of Palestine in their hearts even after september 11, the Afghanistan and war on Iraq, and they are still looking for a peacefull solution for the Palestine-Isreal conflict. Read the written interview here

From Sabbah’s Blog, a member of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are trying to educate the U.S. public by airing Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) on several TV stations. The campaign aims at educating the American public on the human rights conditions in the holy land of Palestine and the daily misfortune Palestinians are going through. Imagine Life, as a Palestinian Campain has also made a complimentary film called Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land.

Haitham Sabbah has created this pledge to ask the below Blog engines to add Palestine under their list of countries:

Please show your support by siging this pledge and invite at least 5 friends to sign it too.

It is important to send these Blog Services and request they add Palestine to their country list:

10.01.06

Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk

Corporate responsibility: Reporters Without Borders urges Internet users and bloggers to support its recommendations on freedom of expression

Sign the petition on : http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16119

On 6 January, Reporters Without Borders issued six concrete proposals aimed at ensuring that Internet-sector companies respect free expression when operating in repressive countries. The organisation calls on bloggers and Internet user to sign an online petition in support of this initiative.

These recommendations will be addressed to the US government and US legislators because all the companies named in this document are based in the United States. Nonetheless, they concern all democratic countries and have therefore will be sent to European Union officials and to the Secretary General of the OECD as well.

Reporters Without Borders’ proposals

- E-mail services:
No US company would be allowed to host e-mail servers within a repressive country*. So, if the authorities of a repressive country want personal information about the user of a US company’s e-mail service, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by US judicial authorities .

- Search engines:
Search engines would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor “protected” words. The list of “protected” keywords such as “democracy” or “human rights” should be appended to the law or code of conduct.

- Content hosts (websites, blogs, discussion forums etc)
US companies would not be allowed to locate their host servers within repressive countries. If the authorities of a repressive country desire the closure of a publication hosted by a US company, they would have to request it under a procedure supervised by the US judicial authorities. Like search engines, content hosts would not be allowed to incorporate automatic filters that censor “protected” key-words.

- Internet censorship technologies
Reporters Without Borders proposes two options:

Option a: US companies would no longer be permitted to sell Internet censorship software to repressive states.

Option b: They would still be able to market this type of software but it will have to incorporate a list of “protected” keywords that are rendered technically impossible to censor.

- Internet surveillance technology and equipment
US companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce in order to sell to a repressive country any technology or equipment which can be used to intercept electronic communications or which is specifically designed to assist the authorities in monitoring Internet users.

- Training
US companies would have to obtain the express permission of the Department of Commerce before providing any programme of training in Internet surveillance and censorship techniques in a repressive country.

* A list of countries that repress freedom of expression would be drawn up on the basis of documents provided by the US State Department and would be appended to the code of conduct or law that is adopted. This list would be regularly updated.

Note: The purpose of these recommendations is to protect freedom of expression. They in no way aim to restrict the necessary cooperation between governments in their efforts to combat terrorism, paedophilia and cyber-crime.

More information about this initiative

I’ve stumbled upon a number of excellent of Arabic blogs which we, English bloggers, are not giving the proper attention they deserve. I myself is guilty of this bad habit of being reluctant to read Arabic entries , for some reason I tend to enjoy Arabic works of literature but not political articles or rigid stories about society for example.

This entry is dedicated to khadder kenaan of Jordanian Issues. Khadder discusses the latest and hottest political, economical and social phenomenas in Jordan. He provides a closer look at what is really going on in Jordan, something we, Jordanian expats around the World, strive to have.

Here’s an excerpt from Jordanian Issues, it should give you some kind of clue of the purpose and direction of Khadder’s blog:

شؤون اردنية محاولة لملء فراغ متعاظم على شبكة المعلوماتية فيما يخص الاردن . هذا الفراغ مرتبط بانعدام التناول الجدي والمتواصل، إلافيما ندر، لما يجري في الاردن. إن ما اود القيام به هو محالة اخرى على هذا الصعيد، من اجل ان يكون لمواطني الاردن قناة اخرى، على محدوديتها، بعد ان اصبحت القنوات المتاحة تضيق بهم في الداخل والخارج

Let me try to translate:

Jordanian Issues is an attempt to fill the enormous void on the Internet with regard to Jordan. This void is caused by the lack of constantly and seriously tackling of what is happening in Jordan, except rarely. And that is what I’m trying to do, to give the citizens of Jordan another channel (despite its limitedness) after all the provided channels, both external and internal, have grown restricted and narrow.

And while at it, check out some other Arabic blogs that I found interesting and worthy of reading:

I’m sure there are many excellent Arabic blogs out there but those are the ones I got when I’ve searched for “الأردن”. I wonder why do we not read Arabic blogs and why aren’t they taken seriously like their English counterparts. I can understand why blogging in Arabic is not attractive to the International audience, but what I can not fully comprehend is why are they being ignored by the Arabic audience as well?

I am afraid of answering my own questions, just yesterday I translated an English word literally to Arabic and used it while talking to my brother, it happened so spontaneously that it really disturbed me.

Tell your story to the World today!

Here’s the post Haitham has made just today, so this is your chance, contact chelsea quickly and yes I too would like to know if you’re going to do it

You are invited on a public radio show!  

Here comes another great news. I was contacted by Open Source Radio, and they are searching for you. As an editor at Global Voices, they asked my advice and suggestions as to what bloggers in the Middle East/North Africa use skype and would be interested for interviews.

Since I know (I hope I’m wrong) that skype is not very popular in this part of the world, I suggested that instead of me suggesting bloggers, let’s try to make them show up voluntary. So here is the official invitation:

Greetings,

I’m a producer for the national radio show Open Source, www.radioopensource.org. We broadcast out of Boston, MA, USA.

We’re starting a new project, “Blog Stories.” The idea is to interview bloggers, via skype or phone, throughout the Middle East. These will be introduced on our website and then eventually broadcast on our show. These will also be available for podcast.

I’m hoping to collect compelling personal stories from bloggers, the story behind the blog/blogger. And of course we also want to capture the political, cultural modd of the blog and the regions from which the blogger writes.

As for format sometimes the interview will be edited down to 3-5 minute monologues. Other times our host, Christopher Lydon, will interview the blogger and the audio interview will be a dialogue.

Please contact me if this prospect interests you.

Many thanks, and kind regards, Chelsea

mailto: chelsea@radioopensource.org

Thank you a million, Chelsea!

Guys/gals, please do not hesitate to make your voice heard. And it would be great if you can repost this invitation on your blog.

C’mon, don’t miss it, this will also give you few more readers. Well, a lot more than few. Open Source Radio is one of the most popular projects online these days, and I’m sure your blog and opinions will be popular soon

PS. Don’t forget to let me know when you make your interview. I’ll be glad to hear your it.

Happy new prosperous year from KABOBfest and Haitham Sabbah. The Palestinian Blogosphere wish that 2006 would bring with it pleasant surprises and help us get over last year’s misfortunes. And even though, some dark clouds are hovering over our heads, some of us have typed down some new year’s resolutions. May this year and every year nothing occupies us but peace.

Photo Credit: International Solidarity Movement

News of the Blogosphere…

According to Beith-Sahour, three non-violent protests took place on the 31 of December in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, against checkpoints and the Israeli occupation. Participants weren’t only Palestinians but also Israelis and International peace activists. The Israeli movement against occupation protested the expansion of Israeli lands beyoung the Green Line.

15 of Fateh candidates will withdraw from the parliamentary elections scheduled on the 25th of January if Israel did not allow residents of east Jerusalem to vote.

From Beit-Sahour also, shelling of Gaza Strip continues to the very last day of the year. Laila of Raising Yousuf, says Gaza is under seige and the sonic attacks will continue for at least few days according to Israeli newspaper. I don’t know what is it with wiping countries and cities off the map these days, but it seems that Isael has some new resolutions for the new year concerning Palestinian cities, one of them is to wipe Beit Hanun off the map. Back in September, plan was slightly different, they wanted to blast it off the map.

Photo Credit: Raising Yousuf

On the three people missing in Gaza, Haitham Sabbah analyzes the kidnapping phenomena and compares between kidnapping in Palestine and Iraq. He says that Palestinians have to watch out for enemies from the outside and the inside too. Sugar Cubes writes about the demonstration held by Gazzans demanding the freedom of Kate Burton, the human rights worker who was showing her parents around when the three of them were kidnapped. Rafah Pundits reports that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) blames the Palestinian Authority for the incident.

Last but not least, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fateh, and Al Quds Brigades, military wing of the Islamic Jihad, has declared on the 31st of December, after midnight, the end of the truce which was declared last March in Qairo.

What we talk about…

The Palestinian death toll in 2005 reached 255 according to The Black Iris of Jordan while the Israeli has reached its lowest number since the beginning of Intifada in 2000.

2005 highlights by Mazin Qumsiyeh is a must read, from tragedies to meetings and best books of the year with an emphasis on the Palestine-Israel conflict’s cases and updates.

There is a big talk going on Palestinian and pro-Palestinian blogs concerning Spielberg’s new film “Munich”. KABOBfest and umkahlil quote As’ad Abu Khalil who thinks that the movie serves Israeli propaganda. alt.muslim suggests that Speilberg makes 10 more movies just to balance things up. Check out the list of top 10 movies Hollywood has yet to make if ever considered being fair to Arabs. For more on the movie, The Black Iris of Jordan has reviewed and rated “Munich” 4/5.

While the world was watching Gaza, exapnsionism was taking place all the time in Jerusalem.

Sabbah sums up the challenges facing the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians in general to take charge of things, have a state and enjoy the peace they’ve always dreamt of. 11 interesting points are definitely worth reading!

The little things that matter…

Every Saturday thecutter goes to a nearby supermarket which sells thousands of people on Saturdays normally since almost all other shops are closed on Sundays. She pulls a sign out of her purse and rests it on a “Jaffa” brand fruit stand. The sign says: “Don’t buy Jaffa fruit, or any products from Israel. This produce makes its profits by having exploited native people, throwing them off their land.”

From this much i can say is true, Drew describes his experience with weddings in Rafah. His post is guaranteed to at least make you smile.

That was the title of an interesting post by Free Agent, he wrote:

It’s been a busy month, but my personal schedule can never rival the stirrings and happenings in the blogosphere.

In my free time (limited and far in between, alas), I’ve been surfing and coming across several blogs of interest, some of them which I’ve been reading for some time. A few have been around for a while, others are relatively new; all are well-written.

First up, former American TV-reporter-turned-blogger Rebecca McKinnon’s RConversations. One of her recent posts struck a chord with me, and I believe will do the same for many of you bloggers-cum-journalists out there: “Thoughts on the Future of Journalism“.

Lisa Goldman, a regular contributor to Global Voices, writes about life in Israel in On The Face. This Canadian-Israeli’s stories and musings are informative, witty and humorous, and yet does not hesitate to shed light on serious issues when necessary.

On the “other” side of the equation, I’ve selected two bloggers: the Palestinian blogger of Sugar Cubes, who usually writes about politics, current affairs affecting Palestine, and Israeli-Palestinian/Jewish-Muslim relations (SC is also Global Voices’ Palestinian blogosphere author); also of interest is Imaan’s Living in Gaza City. She writes about living in Palestine and part of her blog’s attraction are the photos that she takes of her family and day-to-day activities. She’s a Swedish Muslim woman living in Gaza, but apparently is planning to return to Sweden soon (for her reasons, read this post). I’m hoping that she continues to blog when she’s back there.

Still in the Middle East, I recently discovered Michael J. Totten and his Middle East Journal, who writes extensively on current affairs and Mideast politics. Totten is based in Beirut, Lebanon and a columnist for TCS Daily, the online publication of Tech Central Station.

And speaking of Lebanon, it is a country surprisingly close to my heart. Perhaps one day I will write about how this country in the Levant captured much of my affection. But right now there are more important things at hand - Lebanese blogs. A selection of these blogs:

The Lebanese Bloggers - sharp, impassioned political commentary by a group of contributors.
Lebanese Political Journal - in-depth and no-less-impassioned political analyses by a (smaller) group of contributors.
Remembering Lebanon (Memoire du Luban) - A compilation blog of news, article and essays on Lebanon. Some of it is in English and others in French.
Across the Bay - Blog by a PhD. student of Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

For more Lebanese blogs, check out Global Voices Online’s Lebanon page.

Last but not least, a highly-readable, well-written, humorous and insightful blog: Waiter Rant. Trust me - this guy is friggin’ good. Especially “Just Call me Cyrano“ and “Seduction“. He’ll make you laugh. He’ll make you cry. He’ll entertain you. Go read him.

lol way to go, I didn’t know Google Reader contradicts with my religion and culture!

We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.