A MCMC official is quoted thus:

“It is being blocked because we found that some of the comments on the website were insensitive, bordering on incitement.”

He further says that all other ISPs have been ordered to enforce the ban.

Malaysia Today is often controversial with commentaries which the government finds distasteful.  Though the government purports to allow free speech this action from the MCMC which is a government regulatory body is the complete opposite.

The Malaysia Today admin are now using the other URL address that redirects to the site.

*****************************

Thanks to Kamal for the tip

SF Gate, San Francisco Chronicle says

City Manager Joseph Tanner on Monday added the Vallejo Times Herald’s local news blog and the Vallejo Is Burning Web site to the list of Internet addresses employees cannot access from city computers. “We blocked these because they are political in nature,” Tanner said. “We blocked them because one is an anti-bankruptcy site and the other is a rag of a newspaper.”

The two sites, Vallejo is burning and Vallejo Times Herald have now been ranked together with porn, gambling, social networking and hate sites that have been banned.The city labour unions are up in arms decrying the affront on free speech, the are qouoted on SF Gate

“With this bankruptcy filing, the city declared war on its employees and our contracts,” said one employee who requested his name not be used because of Tanner’s memo. “Now they want the opposition with our hands tied behind our backs and gags in our mouths.”

We, here, don’t think Tanner’s actions will save the city from bankruptcy if indeed it is indeed in the red.

Jill Tan, Asia Representative from Apple Inc. informs us that iTunes in China is now working. 

*****************************************************

As athletes downloaded the album “Songs for Tibet” from the iTunes store, in support of the Tibet cause,(the music is also good BTW), China retaliated by blocking the iTunes store in China, anybody who wanted to access the store got a error message.

The Apple Support forums were inundated by complaints by iTunes accounts holders in
China and here is a response one of them got from Apple support. 

My name is Bryan and I understand that you have not been able to connect to the iTunes store for the last couple days and that you are concerned that it would be an issue withChina blocking the iTunes store. I’m sorry to hear that and I’m happy to assist you with this today.

ITunes is not being blocked in China from our end, but access to the iTunes Store IS restricted in some areas inChina. This would also explain why it’s happening to your friends there as well.

I would advise that you contact your ISP about this matter. Please also note though that accessing the US iTunes Store outside of the geographic region of the United States is not supported, and that attempting to access it while inChina is at your own risk.The iTunes Store Sales and Service Policies are available for you to review:

Terms of Sale
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/sales.html Terms of Service
http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/service.htmlThank you for being a valued iTunes Store customer. I hope that you have found the above information helpful and that you have a great day!Kind Regards,

Bryan
iTunes Store Customer Support  

Funny thing is that, according to China.org, the official government information site it is the Chinese citizens who are offended by the songs of Tibet album and they are the ones who want iTunes shut down,

A music album advocating “Tibetan independence” recently available for paid download on iTunes has ignited strong indignation among Chinese netizens.

According to Chinanews.com, the angry netizens are rallying together to denounce Apple in offering “Songs for Tibet” for purchase. They have also expressed a wish to ban the album’s singers and producers, most notably Sting, John Mayer and Dave Matthews, from entering China.

Many people have made remarks on online forums to express their anger, even those who have been fans of the artists in the past.

Some say they will boycott all Apple products from now on, including the popular iPhone, which is not available in China since negotiations among Apple, China Mobile and China Unicom broke down

This is completely opposite of what is happening at the apple support forums it seems to be a case of the Chinese authorities are continuing with their habit of blocking sites.

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We are trying to get word from Apple and will update you once we receive it.

h/t to informationweek

***

Update: Four other arrestees are also bloggers, Jeffrey Rae, Michael Liss, Jeff Goldin and Tom Grant.

***

CPB friend, Brian Conley, was arrested at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday in Beijing. Brian, the founder of the Alive in Baghdad video news project, as well as an employee of the Hub, was documenting the activities of New York artist James Powderly, who uses lasers. In this case, it looks as he was planning a Tibet-themed event at the Olympics.

Tell your legislators to get Brian the hell out of there. Given the Chinese government’s complete lack of decency and lust for violence, it’s imperative that they’re out sooner rather than later.

More information on Brian and other detainees on the Free Tibet site. Twitter search feed for Brian.

In their suit Gremach states that the blogger has been on a ‘hate campaign’ and wants Google to unmask the blogger going by the name, ‘Toxic Writer’.  Google in turn have taken down the blog and their Indian subsidiary claims it is not responsible for the Blogger.com service, which is also a subsidiary of Google.

Wired writes that the suit which was filed at Bombay High Court would have far reaching implications on how Google operates in India.

Seeing as Yahoo was all but willing to hand over its user’s information to the Chinese authorities we hope that Google & Co. will resist the urge to focus more on profits than free speech.

Chinese citizen journalist, Zhou ‘Zuola’ Shuguang was today placed under a kind of ‘town arrest’ by Chinese authorities.  Apparently he was able to tweet the incident, oh the joys of twitter, and his followers quickly got the word out.

The authorities seemed to be uncomfortable with his intention to travel to Beijing and blog about the olympic games.  Zuola knew he would be visited by the authorities today and had tweeted about to let everybody know.

Aware of the rucus he was causing he decided against going to Beijing, and was at home when the ….’government people’ came for him.  He was detained for a bout an hour and released, and informed that he would not be allowed to leave his hometown for the time being, and told that if he left he would be brought back.

Global Voices writes that this is the second time Zuola has be threatened for his blogging.

CPB friend Antony Loewenstein has a new book coming out in September. It’s called “The Blogging Revolution” and will be of interest to anyone blogging in repressive countries or interested in those who do. Here’s the low down from publishers, Melbourne University Press.

The Blogging Revolution is a colourful and revelatory account of bloggers around the globe who live and write under repressive regimes-many of them risking their lives in doing so.

Antony Loewenstein’s travels take him to private parties in Iran and Egypt, internet cafes in Saudi Arabia and Damascus, to the homes of Cuban dissidents and into newspaper offices in Beijing, where he discovers the ways in which the internet is threatening the rule of governments.

Through first-hand investigations, he reveals the complicity of Western multinationals in assisting the restriction of information in these countries and how bloggers are leading the charge for change.

The Blogging Revolution is a superb examination about the nature of repression in the twenty-first century and the power of brave individuals to overcome it.

We have been aware of Antony’s efforts since before he started the book and are looking forward to reading it.

Zeng Jinyan, a blogger, dissident and the wife of imprisoned blogger and AIDS activist Hu Jia, has been disappeared by the Chinese government, along with the couple’s child, according to Agence France Presse (via Inquirer.net). Zeng went missing on August 7, the day before the Olympics were set to begin.

Zeng, who was nominated for the Sakharov Prize along with her husband, has criticized the activities of the Chinese secret police on her blog and continued her blogging after her husband was sentenced.

Zeng’s husband, Hu Jia, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for “state subversion,” or something.

Zeng is one of many dissidents the Chinese government has eliminated from public view in their attempt to cleanse the Olympics of reality.

From Reporters Without Borders.

Kevin Gosper, the head of the IOC’s press commission, admitted today: “I also now understand that some IOC officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered games related.”

Whores.

***

New York Times’s blog Rings made the following stagy gasp.

Western journalists working at the Main Press Centre in Beijing say they could not access the website for Amnesty International on Tuesday, a claim that officials with the International Olympic Committee say they are investigating, according to Reuters.

The website’s unavailability came a day after Amnesty International issued a harsh report criticizing China for failing to live up to promises that it would improve its human rights record ahead of the Olympics.

And this.

Sam Zarifi, Amnesty’s Asia Pacific director, said he began hearing about the problem after he directed reporters working at the Main Press Centre to his website to view the recently released report. “It is really disappointing,” he said in a telephone interview. The Chinese government’s “one big, begrudging promise was that foreign media would have free access on all issues, everywhere.”

Hilarious! What kind of boob believes a promise by the Chinese government?

Dear colleagues,

It’s been a grueling two and half months since yemenportal.net was blocked from access of Internet users in Yemen and now all two alternative domains (arabiaportal.net, yemenportal.org) are also banned.

This week, the government’s Minister of Information threatened to file lawsuits against news websites on the justification of ‘inciting hatred’ or ‘harming national interests’ and the other usual excused they often use to prosecute journalists. The threat is even more severe for websites because the government would use the penal code instead of the press law. This means that website owners could get up to death penalties. (Reports in Arabic)

(more…)

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