DigiActive.org

Tactic: European net freedom lobbyists unite to fight new internet bill

Description: The Telecoms Package is a proposal from the EU Commission to reform the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services with a view to completing the internal market for electronic communications. It is seen by net freedom activists as a serious threat. Especially some of the amendments brought in related to intellectual property rights would lead to monitoring and blocking of websites and peer-to-peer exchanges by ISPs, permitting ISPs to sanction users by suspending or terminating internet access.
The proposal was due to be voted on by the responsible committees on July 7, followed by the vote of the European parliament as a whole on September 2. Not long before the committees’ votes hundreds of amendments to the package made it impossible to overlook it, which bore the huge risk that members of the parliament would vote for a bill the consequences of which they could not foresee.

Tools Being Used: Blogs, Wiki

How These Tools Are Being Used: On July 1, netzpolitik.org from Germany, La Quadrature du Net from France and the British Open Rights Group published a press release on their respective blogs announcing their actions to stop the Telecoms Package or have it changed in a way that it would not inflict net freedom any longer.
The involved groups subsequently organized the action mainly using a wiki, frequently posting updates on their respective blogs or websites to communicate the progress to the public.

What Are They Doing: Especially before July 7, the work mainly consisted of mobilizing an opposition by contacting members of the European parliament and their respective assistants to inform them about the dangers of the Telecoms Package and to convince them to drop or reject the amendments related to intellectual property rights. The organizations’ tactic included inviting volunteers via their open wiki - and “advertising” that trough blogs - to participate in this effort, which made a broad action possible.

Outcome: The action was successfully publicized in many blogs and subsequently turned massive (mainstream) media attention on the Telecoms Package. As an outcome, many - but not all - amendments inflicting or endangering net freedom were dropped by the committees. Additionally, the members of the parliament decided to postpone their own vote for three further weeks. That means, the decision will now be made between September 22 and 25. Read more »

Campaign: Bahraini bloggers unite against Sectarianism

Description: Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al-Yousif and journalist Ahmed Al-Aradi have written a bloggers’ code of ethics to fight sectarianism in the Gulf country. They propose this yet to be reviewed and finished code to be physically and electronically signed on the International Blog Day, August 31.

Digital Activism tools: Several blogs, banners, Facebook.

How These Tools Are Being Used: The code was first published on Mahmood Al-Yousif’s blog and is to be spread via blogs. From there it has taken the step into printed newsletters, which discuss the campaign. Meanwhile, a Facebook group has been founded to discuss the code.

Outcome: The code is still to be discussed and will be signed on Blog Day, August 31. Read more »

Action Alert: Write for imprisoned Egyptian blogger

What? Blog posts and letters dedicated to the imprisoned Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer.

When? On June 28, the 600. day for Kareem to spend in prison.

Where? On your blog / website.

How? You can do this in two ways:

Option 1: Write a post/letter directly to or about Kareem. Make people aware of what Kareem is going through. Express your opinions or concerns over the fact that he is still in prison just for sharing his personal views on radical Islam, extremism within Al Azhar, and the president of Egypt.

Option 2: Write about something controversial, fearlessly, the same way as Kareem did (whether be it about free speech, human rights, religious freedom, political rights, et al) and then dedicate this post to him.

You may also choose to directly write to Kareem. Instructions can be found here.

Why? On June 28, Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is due to spend his 600. day in jail. To increase awareness for Kareem in prison, and get in touch with him, the watchblog Free Kareem calls for blog posts and letters dedicated to the imprisoned.

Who is organizing the action? The campaign is organized by Free Kareem. Read more »

Action Alert: Support a Kurdish human rights activist

What? Send a mail to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei to express your concern for the medical condition of the Kurdish journalist and human rights activist, Mohammed Sadigh Kabodwand.

When? Now!

Where? Email or fax the letter below the “more” tag to:

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic:
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei,

Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228
E-mail: info@leader.ir or istiftaa@wilayah.org

How? Just copy the letter below and paste it to your email.

Why? There are serious concerns for the health of Iranian Kurdish human rights activist and journalist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, who suffered a stroke in Evin prison on 19 May 2008 and has been denied access to adequate medical care. He has been held since 1 July 2007 on charges of “acting against national security”.

He was reportedly been denied access to medical help before and was held in very bad conditions in solitary confinement as well as being subject to torture.

Last month, two other Kurdish men (Kaveh Aziz Poor and Ebrahim Lotf Allahi) died while in government detention. It is suspected that both were beaten to death by government authorities. AKR again asks the international community to condemn these vicious acts.

Who is organizing the action? The campaign is lead by the lately relaunched Alliance for Kurdish Rights. The AKR is an independent and self-funded project started by a group of students and youth activists who wish to campaign for change and address the issue of Kurdish rights in the Middle East and abroad.

via Alliance for Kurdish Rights Read more »

Tactic: Mapping Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa

Description: United for Africa is a South African web site that records reports of violence sent by SMS and e-mail on a Google Earth map. It provides living testimony to the atrocities committed during the xenophobic riots of May 2008 in South Africa. United for Africa is build upon the engine of Kenyan riot-tracking site Ushahidi.

Organizer: Quirk, a web marketing agency in Cape Town is leading this charge. Quirk will act as administrators on this build, and the Ushahidi team will step away from it as soon as the build is done.

Purpose of Action: To create a visual map of human rights abuses.

Organizing Tools: SMS, Google Earth, web site

Outcome: The xenophobic riots in South Africa are still continuing.

Ease of Replication: It is rather difficult to replicate the Ushahidi map, but their authors offer help to interested activists. United for Africa is actually the second rip-off build upon the Ushahidi engine after Sokwanele from Zimbabwe. The initiators of Ushahidi are developing their project as a free and open source tool for crowdsourcing crisis information and then visualizing that on a map. They hope that they will soon be able to provide this tool for any national or international conflict. To reach that goal they are still seeking for more developers.

via White African

Tactic: Keeping demonstrators up to date using Twitter

Description: A German group used the microblogging service Twitter to inform protesters during the traditional May 1 demonstrations in Hamburg, Germany.

Organizer: The Freie Sender Kombinat (FSK), “Free Channels Conglomerate”, a Hamburg-based independent radio station.

Purpose of Action: To inform leftist protesters about the progress of both their own and a neo-nazi counter-demonstration.

Organizing Tools: Twitter, cell phones.

Outcome: About 360 people followed the FSK’s Twitter account and were subsequently informed about the ongoing of both demonstrations, but the organizers failed to study whether their broadcasting had any effect on the protesters’ behavior. Using Twitter instead of regular SMS broadcasting saved the FSK about 650 € (~1000 $) of SMS costs.

Ease of Replication: Twitter is one of the new minimalist and easy-to-use web 2.0 technologies. Updates can be received via the service’s website, RSS feed, instant messenger (XMPP / Jabber) or specialized Twitter clients.
Reporting from a demonstration via Twitter is by far easier to handle than most alternatives, i.e. live radio broadcasting, and highly cost effective. Problems could arise through a lack of phone connection or data security.

Read more »

DigiActive News: Interview (in German)

On Tuesday, DigiActive writer Simon Columbus was interviewed by Frédéric Valin of Spreeblick, which is one of Germany’s top three blogs, about digital activism.

If you understand German, you can read the whole interview on Spreeblick.

Topics included a review of last September’s “Free Burma” action lead by German bloggers and a look at the power of digital activism.

Tactic: Organizing a Blogging Workshop

Description: On April 3 and 4, 2008, a blogging workshop was held in Kabul, Afghanistan. The participators were introduced to blogging and the blogosphere and learned how to use blog providers or to differentiate between a blog and a web site.

Organizer: The workshop was organized by the Afghan Association of Blog Writers, represented by the bloggers Nasim Fekrat and Masoumeh Ebrahimi.

Purpose of Action: The workshop’s goal was to introduce Afghan journalists and writers to the power of blogs. The organizers believe that blogs could help improve the quality of the Afghan print and online media, if being used as a publishing as well as an investigation tool. Another goal was to speed up the growth of the currently very small Afghan blogosphere.

Organizing Tools: Blogs

Outcome: Ten Afghan journalists, writers and academics were introduced to blogging. They learned how to use online media and subsequently founded their own blogs. The workshop was described as “may be the most important step for journalism in Afghanistan.” So far it cannot be told how many of the participants will continue their blogs.

Ease of Replication: Afghan PenLog, the Afghan Association of Blog Writers, plans to hold similar events in several other Afghan cities, but the funding will remain a serious difficulty. A workshop can be held by few (here: two) persons, but it causes relatively huge costs as for the location or technical equipment.

Campaign: Blog4Burma

Description of Campaign: After the junta’s crackdown on the protesters of the saffron revolution, Burma faded from the public eye within a few days. Even the bloggers, who widely campaigned in support of the demonstrators, don’t write about the country any longer. An international group of bloggers has united as the Blog4Burma coalition to keep the topic in the focus of the blogosphere.

Digital Activism Tools: Blogs, Feed

How These Tools Are Being Used: The Blog4Burma coalition’s goal is to provide a wide range of information about the situation in Burma. A group of bloggers from currently four countries (Austria, France, Germany, Spain), writing in as many languages, the coalition does not have a common website. The members write articles about Burma-related topics on their own blogs, which are then collected in a common feed.

Read more »