In August 2020, Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist whom the Wall Street Journal calls “the man Vladimir Putin fears most”, was medically evacuated to Berlin after being poisoned by a nerve agent that was linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service. He returned to Russia in January 2021 and was arrested…
Does Twitter Violate Human Rights with Amnesty International’s Azmina Dhrodia LISTEN VIA THESE CHANNELS LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK In the past few years, we have had a number of shoes dealing with the online abuse, especially for women and journalists, including: CLBR #225: Online Trolls with Fusion’s Kristen V. Brown (June 22, 2016);…
The Battle to Free Raif Badawi with Brandon Silver LISTEN VIA THESE CHANNELS LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK LINK Raif Badawi is a 34-year old Saudi activist, blogger and creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals. His writings called for greater religious tolerance in Saudi Arabia which is dominated by Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalists. (See…
Amnesty International released a landmark report on its 16-month investigation of abuse of women in Twitter entitled “TOXIC TWITTER – A TOXIC PLACE FOR WOMEN,” which charges that Twitter’s failure to safeguard women on its platform is a human rights violation. As the report explains: [F]or many women, Twitter is a platform where violence and…
World Day Against Cyber-Censorship – 2017 This is a day of observance spearheaded by Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International in 2008. For this year’s World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued a report entitled “Censorship and surveillance of journalists: an unscrupulous business.” The report condemns the readiness with which leading Internet companies submit to…
14,000 Saudi Women Sign Petition to End Male Guardianship Laws In Response to Twitter Campaign Background: Boxed In: Women and Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship System Saudi Women Launch Twitter Campaign Against Male Guardianship Twitter and the Birth of “Women Spring” in Saudi Arabia Human Rights Watch’s Kristine Beckerle (@K_Beckerle) is the Yemen and Kuwait researcher in the Middle…
In Twitter and the Birth of “Women Spring” in Saudi Arabia, we outlined how social media has been a tool for women to seek basic freedoms. This is not without risks, as the Saudi regime has jailed, flogged and even ordered the crucifixion for those offending it on social media. Now, women have launched a social…
The plight of women in Saudi Arabia is among the worst in the world, as the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Saudi Arabia 134th out of 145 countries for gender parity. From Wikipedia: According to the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, two “key” conservative Islamic “concepts” that curtail women’s rights in Saudi are sex…
Cyber Report 