Cyber-dissident

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A cyber-dissident is a professional journalist or citizen journalist who posts news, information, or commentary on the internet that implies criticism of a government or regime.

At least two nonprofit organizations are currently working to raise awareness of the contributions of cyber-dissidents and to defend them against the human rights violations to which some of them are subjected: Global Voices Online and Reporters Without Borders. The latter has released a Handbook For Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents and maintains a roster of currently imprisoned cyber-dissidents. The Committee to Protect Bloggers has been created [1]

In regions where print and broadcast media are tightly controlled, anonymous online postings by cyber-dissidents may be the only source of information about the experiences, feelings, and opinions of ordinary citizens. This advantage may be offset by the difficulty in assessing the good faith and accuracy of reports originating from anonymous sources.

1 Persecution of Cyber-Dissidents
2 References
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Persecution of Cyber-Dissidents

[edit] Iran

Mohamad Reza Nasab Abdolahi was imprisoned for publishing an open letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; Mohamad's pregnant wife and other bloggers who commented on Mohamad's treatment were also imprisoned. ^[1]

[edit] Egypt

Several bloggers in Egypt were arrested for allegedly defaming the president Hosni Mubarak and expressing critical views about Islam ^[2]

[edit] Russia

When Russian president Vladimir Putin called on his nation's women to have more children, journalist Vladimir Rakhmankov published a satiric article on the Internet calling Putin "the nation's phallic symbol". Rakhmankov was found guilty and fined by the court. [2] ^[3] ^[4] ^[5]

Russian state security service FSB, the main successor to the KGB, has allegedly created special teams of people who appear on various blogs to harass and intimidate political bloggers and thus effectively prevent free discussion of undesirable subjects ^[6] Such tactics are known as "active measures" in Russia.