Saturday, May 13, 2006
Jailed Bloggers: Should Journalists Care?
This year there have been a few high-profile cases of jailed bloggers in countries with little or no legal protection for freedom of expression or press freedom.
In Egypt, the popular blogger and democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fatah was arrested on May 7 along with several other demonstrators at a sit-in.
According to the group Reporters without Borders, "El-Fatah has been charged with illegal assembly (in violation of the state of emergency law), blocking traffic, insulting President Mubarak, and verbal abuse of police officers at the time of his arrest. ...Around 70 government opponents and dissidents have been arrested since the start of a wave protest in April that began when two judges called for the complete independence of Egypt's courts and an investigation into the last presidential election. The detainees include five other bloggers who were arrested while taking part in demonstrations."
Similarly, on February 22 Chinese blogger and documentary filmmaker Hao Wu was arrested by Chinese State Security. Global Voices Online founder Ethan Zuckerman notes, "The reason for Hao's detention is unknown. One of the possibilities is that the authorities who detained Hao want to use him and his video footage to prosecute members of China's underground churches."
While some bloggers offer journalism (or citizen journalism), most bloggers do not consider themselves journalists. Even so, bloggers and journalists share a common cause: protecting freedom of expression.
As media grows more distributed, conversational, individualized, and global I think it might be a good idea for journalists to pay more attention to cases like these, and perhaps even to call for jailed bloggers' release in some cases. So far, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press site does not mention either Hao Wu's or Alaa Abd El-Fatah's cases. Maybe that would be a good place to start.
...Of course, bloggers and journalists often serve very different goals, too. So there might also be professional and ethical pitfalls to supporting the release of jailed bloggers.
What do you think about this quandary? Please comment below.
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