16 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Irwan Abdul Raman, a blogger and editor better known as “Hassan Skodeng”, who was facing a one year prison sentence and a hefty fine for writing a satirical blog, has had the charges against him dropped. He had been accused of publishing online content deemed “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with malicious intent”. He had published a satirical article on his blog claiming that the main electricity firm, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, would allegedly sue the environmental group World Wildlife Fund for urging people to switch off their lights for the annual Earth Hour initiative.
16 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost
A Minnesota county court has found that a post written on the “Adventures of Johnny Northside” blog led to community official Jerry Moore being fired from the University of Minnesota. Blogger John Hoff must pay Moore $60,000 in damages, which comprises $35,000 for loss of wages and $25,000 for emotional distress. The blog post, which Moore said was untrue, linked him to a high-profile mortgage fraud. Hoff maintains the truth of his allegations.
08 Mar 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Blogger and human rights activist, Sultan al-Khalaifi, has been detained by security forces after criticising the country’s censorship rules on his blog. Khalaifi, who is founder of a rights group campaigning on cases of detention in Qatar, has been in detention since March 2 after being contacted by state security. According to his lawyer he has been detained on numerous occasions in the past.
08 Mar 11 | Index Index, minipost
Two journalists, Nedem Sener and Ahmet Sik, were sentenced to prison on Sunday pending an investigation into allegations that the military attempted to overthrow the Turkish government in 2003. About 60 journalists are currently imprisoned and thousands face prosecution for their work, reported the Turkish Journalists’ Association.
Meanwhile, there are other concerns about press freedom in Turkey; 600,000 bloggers cannot access their blogs, after Google’s blogging service, Blogspot, was blocked in the country, for example. The site was banned by a Turkish court after users showed football matches on their blogs. Digiturk, a satellite TV firm, has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches in Turkey and approached the courts when it became aware of the matches being shown on the blogs.
