21 May 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Hacktivists have targeted two Indian government websites, as discussions of internet regulation took place in parliament. The websites of India’s apex court and the ruling Congress party were hacked in an apparent protest against the censorship of some websites by the Indian government. Hacking group Anonymous, who have protested the closures of video sharing websites Pirate Bay and Vimeo, are believed to have been involved in the attacks. Shortly before the websites became unavailable, Anonymous Central Twitter account read: “Namaste #India, your time has come to trash the current government and install a new one. Good luck.”
21 May 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
A citizen journalist has been sentenced to death in Syria, after giving a series of interviews to Al-Jazeera TV station. Mohammed Abdelmawla al-Hariri has been charged with “high treason and contacts with foreign parties” after giving the broadcaster an interview on the situation in his home town of Deraa. Hariri, who was arrested on 16 April shortly after giving an interview, has reportedly been subject to horrific torture after his arrest, resulting in partial paralysis. The Syrian government has accused the station of being part of a global plot to cause chaos in the country.
21 May 2012 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
The body of a murdered Mexican crime reporter was found at a roadside on Friday. Marco Antonio Avila Garcia of “Diario Sonora de la Tarde” and “El Regional” newspapers was kidnapped on Thursday while waiting at a car-wash. His tortured body was discovered in a black plastic bag the following day, in the northern state of Sonora, almost 70 miles away from where he was kidnapped. Police found a message signed by a cartel with the body, but refused to reveal its contents. Garcia regularly reported on organised crime in Ciudad Obregon.
21 May 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Pakistani authorities have restored access to micro-blogging platform Twitter, after temporarily blocking it because of messages deemed “offensive to Islam”. The ban, which came into force on Sunday (20 May) shortly after Interior Minister Rehman Malik said there were no plans to block Twitter, seemed to be the result of a competition on Facebook to submit images of the Prophet Muhammad. The ban was lifted about eight hours after it was imposed, and the chairman of The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) Twitter was blocked after it refused to remove inflammatory and blasphemous content.
