Following the success of his Twitter account, Hugo Chavez has launched his own blog in order to increase his online presence. Chavez announced that he plans to publish transcripts of his speeches and articles, as well as a guest column by Fidel Castro. His Twitter account, which only began a month ago, has already more than 400,000 followers.
Mordechai Vanunu, the former Israeli nuclear plant technician who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the country’s nuclear arsenal, was jailed again on 23 May. He was found guilty of “unauthorised meetings with foreigners” which include journalists and his Norwegian girlfriend. The Israeli government did not allow Vanunu to leave the country, visit foreign embassies nor meet with people from outside Israel after finishing his sentence in April 2004. He was convicted of breaking these terms in December 2009 and sentenced to six months community service. Vanunu claims he did not comply with the order out of fear he would be assaulted.
A Turkish student has received an 11-month suspended jail sentence after posting a cartoon of the local mayor on Facebook. Erdem Büyük, 22, of the northwestern city of Eskisehir, was arrested, interrogated after loading a cartoon of Yilmaz Bûyükersen onto the site. He has been found guilty of defamation under article 125 of the Turkish criminal code. Büyük told reporters that he shared the cartoon because he “really liked it” but had “no intention of attacking the mayor”. The sentence has been postponed for 5 years, but will be executed if the student repeats the offense. Büyük’s lawyer said today that they intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Brian Mettenbrink of Nebraska was sentenced this week to one year in prison and a $20,000 fine for orchestrating the DDoS attacks against the Church of Scientology’s website in 2008. Mettenbrink admitted to being a member of the group Anonymous, who staged a series of online attacks on Scientology websites as a protest over the religion’s censorship of the internet.