DigiActive.org

DigiActive News: Seeking Africa Correspondents

DigiActive.org is seeking volunteer correspondents to write about digital activism in Africa. Please direct inqueries to Mary Joyce (Mary@digiactive.org).

What will the DigiActive Africa Correspondent(s) write about? The Africa Correspondent(s) will write posts for DigiActive about how activists in Africa are using digital technology in their campaigns for social and political change. Some African digital activism cases that have previously been featured on DigiActive include the No More than 24 campaign from Kenya and the Election Watch Map from Zimbabwe. And we expect more to come!

What about cross-posting? The Africa Correspondent(s) will also be responsible for cross-posting on Kabissa.org, an NGO which provides civil society organizations in Africa with Internet services and training in order to help each one achieve their mission. This means that you get to be publish each post you write on two web sites for double the authorship credit!

How often should I write? Ideally we ask correspondents to write one post per week, though there is some flexibility depending on your schedule and other commitments.

Sounds great! Where to I sign up? If you are interested in becoming a volunteer correspondent for DigiActive (for Africa or anywhere else), please contact Mary@digiactive.org. We look forward to hearing from you!

Tactic: Student ‘twitters’ out of Egyptian jail

photos of Mohammed Maree on James’ Twitter page

Description: James Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the blogging site Twitter.

Tools Used for the Action: Twitter

Outcome: Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt – many of whom had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted of the arrests. (Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or “tweets,” from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook.)

Buck sent only one message with his cell phone – “Arrested.” Buck’s friends started to write regular updates on their blogs about his arrest, as they weren’t sure how long he was going to be able to communicate with them. Fortunately, he was able to continue to send updates, and his entries set off a chain of events that led to his college hiring a lawyer on his behalf.

Buck was released from prison the next day, and sent another update saying “Free.” However, his translator, Maree, was transferred to another police station, and has not been heard from since. There are conflicting reports from the Egyptian government about whether Maree was freed and his whereabouts. Buck has now started another campaign on his Twitter page as a way to find Maree.

“James’ case is particularly compelling to us because of the simplicity of his message — one word, ‘arrested’ — and the speed with which the whole scene played out,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “It highlights the simplicity and value of a real-time communication network that follows you wherever you go.”

Tactic: Gazans Phone-Bank for Obama Online

Description: Palestinian youth are using the Internet to run an informal phone bank to call voters in the US before every primary in order to convince them to vote for Barack Obama. (see video)

Organizer: Ibrahim Abu Jayab and 17 of his friends (Gaza, Palestine)

Purpose of Action: To convince American voters to elect Obama as president. Ibrahim believe that an Obama presidency would have a positive effect on the Middle East peace process.

Organizing Tools: Internet telephony

Outcome: We have yet to see whether Obama will win the election.

Ease of Replication: Internet telephony services, like Skype, are great because you can make calls internationally while paying local rates for calling cell phones and land lines. If you are speaking computer-to-computer (using a head set) you can talk for free.

Read more »

Campaign: Saving Israeli town of Sderot

Note: We at DigiActive understand that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an extremely sensitive topic. Our goal is to maintain a neutral perspective, highlighting digital activism from both sides without favoritism. However, we will not post content which actively advocates violence against either side. If we have linked to violent content in error, let us know and we will take it down.

Description of Campaign: Sderot is a small town near the Gaza Strip (see map below) which has been the frequent target of Kassam rockets from Palestine. Bloggers are getting together to “save Sderot” by telling the stories of its citizens online.

Digital Activism Tools: Facebook, blog, YouTube

How These Tools Are Being Used: The Sderot Media Center, whose goals is to present “the human face behind the news”, is using its YouTube channel to provide a window into daily life in Sderot. In addition, videos unrelated to the center have appeared, including one, “Children of Sderot Just Want A Little Peace”, which focuses on the safety of children to Sderot, and “Save the City of Sderot in Israel.”

Blogs, are also being used to raise awareness of Sderot. The international Jewish organization United Jewish Communities has created a blog called Voices from Sderot which also describes daily life in the town.

Finally, Israeli activists are using Facebook to bring together supporters of Sderot. There are over 100 groups about Sderot on Facebook, most with less than 1000 members. The largest, “Stop the Kassam rockets on Sderot!” has over 5,500.

Read more »

Action Alert: Free Esraa and her Companions

What? Join one of the Facebook groups pushing for the freedom of the 3 digital activists jailed in Egypt: Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, Mahamed El Sharkawi,and Kareem El Beheiri

When? Now!

Where? The Facebook groups to join are divided linguistically. Join the one in the language you are most comfortable with, as you will likely be receiving messages in that language from the group.

Arabic: Free Esraa افرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

English: Free Esraa and her Companions! أفرجوا عن إسراء ورفاقها

French: Libérez Esraa et ses Camarades. Free Esraa.

Norsk: Free Esraa and her Companions!

How? Click one of the links above to visit the group you would and then click the “Join” button on that page.

Why? On April 6th we covered the story of Egyptian activists using a Facebook group, 6 April - اضراب عام لشعب مصر (April 6 - General Strike for the People of Egypt), to drum up participation in a general strike on Sunday, April 6. The group’s founder Esraa Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and bloggers Mahamed El Sharkawi and Kareem El Beheiri were arrested by Egyptian police in connection with the Facebook group and the call of the strike.

Who is organizing the action? There are slightly different officers and admins for the 4 groups, but Egyptians Hany Elkhayat, Samy Harak, Wael Nawara, Manal Fahmy, and Mohamed Zaki Elsheemi seem to be involved with most of them. Dina Ibrahim is the sole admin of the French group.

Tactic: Saudi Activist Uses Youtube to Advocate for Womens’ Right to Drive…

Description: On International Women’s Rights day, a video of a woman in Saudi Arabia defying the country’s ban on female drivers in urban areas was posted on the video-sharing site YouTube. At the wheel of her car, rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider, describes the injustice and appeals to the Saudi Government to expand women’s rights in the country and lift the ban.

Organizer: Human Rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider. 125 other people signed an accompanying petition that was delivered to the Saudi Ministry of interior that same day.

Purpose of Action: To celebrate International Women’s Rights day and call for the lifting of the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia.

Organizing Tools: The video was uploaded to and posted on the video-sharing site Youtube.com

Outcome: The story was picked up by all major international news organizations which has helped to widely publicize the action. Bloggers around the world have also helped amplify the message by writing on the story and posting links to the video, which has so far been viewed more than 120,000 times.

Link to Video with English dubbing

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: Overview of the Egyptian General Strike

Description of Campaign: As mentioned in our previous post, Egyptian activists organized a massive nation-wide strike on April 6. In our last post we talked about their use of Facebook. Now Global Voices correspondent Amira Al Hussaini gives a complete run-down of the other technologies used by the activists. This is definitely one of the most sophisticated digital activism campaigns to date.

Digital Activism Tools: blogs (both individual and collaborative), Twitter, Facebook, phone banking

How These Tools Are Being Used: From Amira’s excellent post:

Egyptian bloggers worked round the clock telling the world about a workers’ revolt that shook their country, as thousands rioted at a textile mill in Al Mahalla, demanding better pay and protesting against increasing prices. They were also among the first casualties of the unrest, which left two people killed, scores injured and an undetermined number of activists, organisers and mere spectators behind bars. Their coverage came in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Flickr shots, Facebook messages and all other online tools they could get their hands on. Read more…

Tactic: Egyptians Use Facebook to Organize Strike

See UPDATE after the jump….

Description: Egyptian activists used a Facebook group, 6 April - اضراب عام لشعب مصر (April 6 - General Strike for the People of Egypt), to drum up participation in a general strike on Sunday, April 6. The group currently has over 66,000 members. The page also features several original graphics promoting the strike.

Organizer: It is unclear who first called for the strike, which was originally limited to the the Mahalla al-Kobra state-owned textile factory in northern Egypt. From this strike, a general solidarity strike was devised and several organization became involved in promoting it, including bloggers, members of the progressive group Kefaya (Enough!), the Muslim Brotherhood, and the opposition El Ghad (Tomorrow) Party.

Purpose of Action: The purpose of the strike was to protest low wages and rising food prices in Egypt, as well as to make a more general show of disapproval of the Egyptian government, led by Hosni Mubarak

Organizing Tools: Facebook, digital images

Outcome: On Sunday, thousands of people participated in the strike in Mahall al-Kobra, clashing violently with police. In other parts of the country, thousands of Egyptians skipped work and school in solidarity with the factory workers, in spite of harsh threats from the government. (source: IHT) It is not clear what role the Facebook group had on participation.

Ease of Replication: Starting a Facebook group is very easy, but coordinating with offline groups is also extremely helpful in getting people to attend a protest.

Here is one of the images posted to the Facebook group. View more original graphics after the jump…

Read more »

Campaign: Free YemenPortal.net

Description of Campaign: In January of 2008, the Yemeni Ministry of Communications blocked the news aggregation site YemenPortal.net. Today, the creator of the site, Walid Al-Saqaf, along with the progressive organization Mideast Youth, launched FreeYemenPortal.org, the official site of the campaign the end the campaign on YemenPortal.net.

Digital Activism Tools: blog banners, petition

How These Tools Are Being Used: The site is asking bloggers to post Free YemenPortal.net banners on their sites. In addition, Mideast youth has posted a Free YemenPortal.net petition on their site.

Update after the jump…

Read more »