View allAll Photos Tagged FreedomOfExpression
1,000+ people protested against the Government's controversial proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill at Devonshire Green in Sheffield.
The proposed Bill includes proposals that would give police and the Home Secretary increased powers to stop protests on grounds of “serious annoyance or inconvenience” which if you’re a government minister could mean all of them.
It’s a serious erosion of civil liberties and democratic rights.
Album: www.flickr.com/photos/shefftim/albums/72157718795475528
My home, Seattle, is a Sanctuary City. We will do all we can to help immigrants and refugees who seek a better place than the horror they leave behind.
Remember: our ancestors were immigrants too.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_city
If you wish to use or share this image feel feee to do so as long as you give proper attribution. Please do not sell nor modify this artwork.
This image cc by-nc-nd Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 2018.
#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong #PoliceState
Bell Chan | BGfotologue
follow me on :
القاتل فى لندن - مظاهرة ضد زيارة سيسي
But in Egypt it would be no laughing matter. Egypt's rulers are rarely allowed to be called into ridicule especially if they also head the military.
During 2012 and early 2013 Egyptian comic Bassem Youssef was widely acclaimed for his biting satirical humour at the expensve of the then Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi.
However after Morsi was toppled in what some claim was a coup and others argue was a popular uprising, Bassem assumed he could continue to satirize Egypt's new rulers including the most powerful man in the country - General Abdel Fattah-El Sisi but he was immediately denounced in the media as a traitor and a foreign agent.
Now in Egypt if you want to retain your job and keep out of prison you must praise the president. and the climate of fear ,in which no one dares speak, becomes worse day by day.
But why a depiction of Sisi as Mickey Mouse ? Because just the previous month an Egyptian Facebook user, Amr Nohan, had been sentenced to three years in prison for photoshopping a picture of Sisi and adding the mickey mouse ears.
The idea and design of the placard used in the demonstration was a British woman's who was also among the protesters.
But unfortunately repression in Egypt is much much wider than arrests for trying to poke fun at your president.
Sisi's regime has been responsible for the death of hundreds of protesters on the streets, hundreds of disappearances and death sentences, a clampdown on the press and media, trade unions and universities and allowing key Mubarak figures to return to politics and big business.
After disbanding parliament, Sisi's regime decreed that the government could delegate business and construction projects to the military without any tender process and subsequently the Egyptian army has been awarded contracts worth billions of dollars.
Meanwhile anyone who speaks out, whether Islamist or secular, is at risk of arrest or being "disappeared" and currently it is estimated that the country has approximately 40,000 political prisoners.
This is what Human RIghts Watch conclude in their latest country report -
"Egypt’s human rights crisis, the most serious in the country’s modern history, continued unabated throughout 2014. The government consolidated control through constriction of basic freedoms and a stifling campaign of arrests targeting political opponents. Former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took office in June, has overseen a reversal of the human rights gains that followed the 2011 uprising. Security forces and an increasingly politicized judiciary—apparently unnerved by rising armed group attacks—invoked national security to muzzle nearly all dissent."
Find out more
About Amr Nohan and his 3 year sentence for attaching "Mickey Mouse" ears to a Sisi photo -
advox.globalvoices.org/2015/10/14/egyptian-facebook-user-...
About Human Rights in Egypt .
www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa...
www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/egypt
How to help/Join a campaign -
#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong
Bell Chan | BGfotologue
follow me on :
For more lagniappe, click on the album with that title below. (To access the “lagniappe” album on your iPhone, click on the information icon at the bottom of this screen; then, when your next screen appears, scroll down just a bit, and you'll see that "album.")
It's a sad day in Paris...send some prayers their way. Stand up, speak up, and let your opinions be heard!
"The threat or fear of violence should not become an excuse or justification for restricting the freedom of speech!"
~Alan Dershowitz
See:
www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz-with-wind/
From the exhibition @Large: Ai WeiWei on Alcatraz
General information about the exhibition:
www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/
New York Times review:
www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/arts/design/ai-weiwei-takes-hi...
Trailer for "Never Sorry," a film about Ai WeiWei:
Are you a fan of the EU?
Do you have no concerns?
Please look into the agreed EU directives on Article 11 and Article 13. Though you may have to search for Articles 15 and 17. Sorry, the EU changed the names for some reason. And the Swedish MEPs contend they all voted the opposite way they wanted to vote 'by mistake' but the EU will not let them vote again because it does not suit the EU: funny that.
Please do your own research and consideration into what that will mean for free and open communication on the Internet, and humanity and everyday life in the EU.
And if you still have no concerns can I interest you in buying some magic beans?
Hello there. Relevant comments welcome but please do NOT post any link(s). All my images are my own original work.
There's a big march underway in Paris today. This scene taken about a week or so before the recent terrorism activities in Paris.
Taken from Place de la Concorde's Roue de Paris (Ferris Wheel). December 2014.
Look for it at Getty Images
If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Germany, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off.
In other words that means, that german users can not access photos on flickr that are not flaged "safe" ... only flowers and landscapes for the germans ...
We will not let this happen! Copy and upload this picture to your account - show flickr who we are! Thank you!
Deswegen treten wir gemeinsam in Aktion und zeigen allen, das uns das nicht gefällt was flickr mit uns macht! Füge das Bild zu deinen Favoriten hinzu und poste es!
flickr sperrt uns aus! Und auch dich!
Seit gestern werden für deutsche Nutzer keine Bilder mehr angezeigt, die als 'moderate' oder 'restricted' markiert sind! Es gibt keine Moeglichkeit das umzustellen - das ist eine grobe Unverschämtheit und Frechheit von flickr!
Espanol:
No sé cuando, pero muy recientemente a las cuentas de Alemania, Hong Kong, Corea y Singapur les han prohibido ver las fotos que están en el Safe Search, las mismas en las que a nosotros nos dan la opcíón de ver o no ver. A ellos simplemente se lo prohiben. Chale no?
Francais:
Si votre compte Yahoo! est basé à Singapour, à Hong Kong, en Corée ou en Allemagne, vous ne pourrez voir que les photos qui n'ont pas été marquées comme ayant un contenu qui peut choquer. Toutes les autres ne vous seront pas accessibles. Vous serez donc condamnés à ne voir que des paysages et des fleurs. Il ne faut pas laisser faire ça. Envoyez cette photo sur votre compte pour montrer à Flickr que nous savons nous mobiliser contre la censure !
Spread the image!
This image should be interpreted with caution and this caption should also be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation.
An injured photographer lies on the ground after falling - the same man as depicted in the previous photograph. An officer (and there is no suggestion he was in any way responsible for the man's injury) is seen attending to him. His radio call one might assume is likely to have been for medical assistance, although it's also possible it was related to other matters. The image underscores the unpredictable nature of large-scale demonstrations, where journalists work in close proximity to both protesters and law enforcement, and situations can change in an instant.
I should emphasise that this description reflects only my impressions at the time. I am not aware of nor can I find definitive evidence of all the circumstances, and this caption should therefore be understood as a partial and subjective interpretation.
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Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.That clash escalated steadily.
In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder. By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS.
Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence. Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime.
The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign. By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law.
It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history. Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state. The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation.
Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion. For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
Place de la République Square, Paris, France
Used By:
publicintellectualsproject.mcmaster.ca/ "Pen-Ultimate (Freedom of Expression) and the Racist Spectacle of #JeSuisCharlie" bit.ly/1ND0L7o
© Ben Heine || Facebook || Twitter || www.benheine.com
_______________________________________________
For more information about my art: info@benheine.com
_______________________________________________
Audience at RC Hall #Dhaka #university #MOSC #freedomofexpression #politics #Bangladesh
59 Likes on Instagram
القاتل فى لندن - مظاهرة ضد زيارة سيسي
Anti-Sisi protesters taunt the dictator's supporters who had been bused in by the Egyptian Embassy as chear leaders during Sisi's meeting with Cameron in London.
Why a depiction of Sisi as Mickey Mouse ? Because just the previous month an Egyptian Facebook user had been sentenced to three years in prison for photoshopping a picture of Sisi and adding the mickey mouse ears.
The idea and design of the placard used in the demonstration was a British woman's who was also among the protesters.
But unfortunately repression in Egypt is much much wider than arrests for trying to poke fun at your president.
Sisi's regime has been responsible for the death of hundreds of protesters on the streets, hundreds of disappearances and death sentences, a clampdown on the press and media, trade unions and universities and allowing key Mubarak figures to return to politics and big business.
After disbanding parliament, Sisi's regime decreed that the government could delegate business and construction projects to the military without any tender process and subsequently the Egyptian army has been awarded contracts worth billions of dollars.
Meanwhile anyone who speaks out, whether Islamist or secular, is at risk of arrest or being "disappeared" and currently it is estimated that the country has approximately 40,000 political prisoners.
This is what Human RIghts Watch conclude in their latest country report -
"Egypt’s human rights crisis, the most serious in the country’s modern history, continued unabated throughout 2014. The government consolidated control through constriction of basic freedoms and a stifling campaign of arrests targeting political opponents. Former Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who took office in June, has overseen a reversal of the human rights gains that followed the 2011 uprising. Security forces and an increasingly politicized judiciary—apparently unnerved by rising armed group attacks—invoked national security to muzzle nearly all dissent."
Find out more
About Amr Nohan and his 3 year sentence for attaching "Mickey Mouse" ears to a Sisi photo -
advox.globalvoices.org/2015/10/14/egyptian-facebook-user-...
About Human Rights in Egypt .
www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa...
www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/egypt
freedomhouse.org/blog/stopping-egypt-s-downward-spiral-re...
( Freedom House uses one of my photos in its report. )
How to help/Join a campaign -
egyptsolidarityinitiative.org/
To email me for any reason
alisdare@gmail.com
Original Painting Acrylic on canvas. 20"x24" 2021 Lightfast acrylic on gessoed canvas Learn more at www.CrowRising.com/gallery.
as far as I know, this one is FACTUALLY INCORRECT. so, you know, you probs don't want to use it anywhere. But it's a pretty picture so I'm leaving it here anyway.
See:
www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz-trace/
From the exhibition @Large: Ai WeiWei on Alcatraz
General information about the exhibition:
www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/
New York Times review:
www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/arts/design/ai-weiwei-takes-hi...
Trailer for "Never Sorry," a film about Ai WeiWei:
The cry of the imprisoned. A protest against the journalists, writers, poets, cartoonists and other artists, imprisoned under the draconian Digital Security Act was organised by Baki Billah, Sarwar Tushar and Shaikat Amin. The event featured songs, poetry, drama, illustrations and film at Shahbag Square in Dhaka, the equivalent of Tahrir Square in Bangladesh. A record number of arrests have been made during the COVID-19 period.
I am dedicating this photo to Umida Akhmedova who risks being thrown into jail for her photographic work - in which she searched for the beauty in the traditions and people of her country. Read about her plight and see a selection of her amazing pictures here: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8473285.stm
And possibly dedicate your next upload to her so that she knows that she is not alone.
'The cry of the imprisoned'. A protest against the journalists, writers, poets, cartoonists and other artists, imprisoned under the draconian Digital Security Act was organised by Baki Billah, Sarwar Tushar and Shaikat Amin. The event featured songs, poetry, drama, illustrations and film at Shahbag Square in Dhaka, the equivalent of Tahrir Square in Bangladesh. A record number of arrests have been made during the COVID-19 period.
Artist Sohan Mahmud performs at the event.
'The cry of the imprisoned'. A protest against the journalists, writers, poets, cartoonists and other artists, imprisoned under the draconian Digital Security Act was organised by Baki Billah, Sarwar Tushar and Shaikat Amin. The event featured songs, poetry, drama, illustrations and film at Shahbag Square in Dhaka, the equivalent of Tahrir Square in Bangladesh. A record number of arrests have been made during the COVID-19 period.
Artist Sohan Mahmud performs at the event.
The Internet Freedom Fellows program funded by the U.S. Department of State and managed by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, brings human rights activists from across the globe to Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to meet with fellow activists, U.S. and international government leaders, and members of civil society and the private sector engaged in technology and human rights. A key goal of the program is to share experiences and lessons learned on the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as fundamental human rights. The Fellows are in Geneva June 19-22 during the 20th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. This year’s Internet Freedom Fellows, all human rights activists and active practitioners of digital media, are from Syria, India, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan. In Geneva they will participate in a global conversation, webcast from the United Nations, on “Global Networks, Individual Freedoms” Wednesday, June 20 at 1000 EDT (14:00 UTC).
The 2012 Fellows are:
Dlshad Othman (Syria): Mr. Othman is a Syrian activist and IT engineer who provides Syrians with digital security resources and assistance so that they can utilize online communications and advocacy freely and securely in spite of increased online government repression in the form of censorship, sophisticated cyber attacks, and intense surveillance.
Pranesh Prakash (India): Mr. Prakash is a program manager at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore. He works primarily in areas where technology and public policy intersect, engaging in research and policy advocacy on issues relating to online freedom of expression, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights reform, and Internet governance.
Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso): Mr. Kambou is a journalist-reporter at Lefaso.net and an animator of blogs. He campaigns for and promotes human rights and the values of democracy and freedom of the press. He publishes videos and articles to sensitize people to and educate them on human rights issues.
Sopheap Chak (Cambodia): Ms. Chak is the Program Director of the Cambodia Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and is one of Cambodia’s leading human rights bloggers. She mobilizes young activists around the country in civic engagement through the Cambodian Youth Network for Change. She is a contributing author for Global Voice Online, UPI Asia Online, and Furutre Challenges.
Andres Azpurua (Venezuela): Mr. Azpurua is committed to generating digital tools that empower Venezuelans to better exercise their human rights. He has contributed o the creation of a digital platform that promotes and defends voters’ rights. He is also the founder of a digital initiative that seeks to build a volunteer base from civil society to promote the right of association in Venezuela.
Emin Milli (Azerbaijan): Mr. Milli is a writer and a dissident who has actively used online networking tools to spread information about human rights violations in Azerbaijan. He was imprisoned for 16 months for his critical views about the government of Azerbaijan. He was conditionally released in 2010 and is currently writing his dissertation in London on “New Media and Arab Revolutions”.
U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers
The Internet Freedom Fellows program funded by the U.S. Department of State and managed by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, brings human rights activists from across the globe to Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to meet with fellow activists, U.S. and international government leaders, and members of civil society and the private sector engaged in technology and human rights. A key goal of the program is to share experiences and lessons learned on the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as fundamental human rights. The Fellows are in Geneva June 19-22 during the 20th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. This year’s Internet Freedom Fellows, all human rights activists and active practitioners of digital media, are from Syria, India, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan. In Geneva they will participate in a global conversation, webcast from the United Nations, on “Global Networks, Individual Freedoms” Wednesday, June 20 at 1000 EDT (14:00 UTC).
The 2012 Fellows are:
Dlshad Othman (Syria): Mr. Othman is a Syrian activist and IT engineer who provides Syrians with digital security resources and assistance so that they can utilize online communications and advocacy freely and securely in spite of increased online government repression in the form of censorship, sophisticated cyber attacks, and intense surveillance.
Pranesh Prakash (India): Mr. Prakash is a program manager at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore. He works primarily in areas where technology and public policy intersect, engaging in research and policy advocacy on issues relating to online freedom of expression, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights reform, and Internet governance.
Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso): Mr. Kambou is a journalist-reporter at Lefaso.net and an animator of blogs. He campaigns for and promotes human rights and the values of democracy and freedom of the press. He publishes videos and articles to sensitize people to and educate them on human rights issues.
Sopheap Chak (Cambodia): Ms. Chak is the Program Director of the Cambodia Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and is one of Cambodia’s leading human rights bloggers. She mobilizes young activists around the country in civic engagement through the Cambodian Youth Network for Change. She is a contributing author for Global Voice Online, UPI Asia Online, and Furutre Challenges.
Andres Azpurua (Venezuela): Mr. Azpurua is committed to generating digital tools that empower Venezuelans to better exercise their human rights. He has contributed o the creation of a digital platform that promotes and defends voters’ rights. He is also the founder of a digital initiative that seeks to build a volunteer base from civil society to promote the right of association in Venezuela.
Emin Milli (Azerbaijan): Mr. Milli is a writer and a dissident who has actively used online networking tools to spread information about human rights violations in Azerbaijan. He was imprisoned for 16 months for his critical views about the government of Azerbaijan. He was conditionally released in 2010 and is currently writing his dissertation in London on “New Media and Arab Revolutions”.
U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers
#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong #PoliceState
Bell Chan | BGfotologue
follow me on :
One of numerous images from today's Canadian Combat Coalition National rally in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
An image from today's peaceful rally by the Canadian Combat Coalition across the street from the Public Archives building on Wellington Street.
The rally was held within a fenced enclosure, to separate this group from those opposed to their views under the heavy presence and watchful eyes of the Ottawa Police Service.
A variety of members from various groups were present.
One of numerous images from today's Canadian Combat Coalition National rally in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
An image from today's peaceful rally by the Canadian Combat Coalition across the street from the Public Archives building on Wellington Street.
The rally was held within a fenced enclosure, to separate this group from those opposed to their views under the heavy presence and watchful eyes of the Ottawa Police Service.
A variety of members from various groups were present.
A bit of journalism about journalism (the rights and freedom thereof)... Stumbled upon this street protest in Berlin on a recent trip, and thought BW might fit the 'reportage' nature of the shot/
Well 200 years ago I made it, but now I found the time to burn ist.
That is the good thing about clay, you can take your time.
The Internet Freedom Fellows program funded by the U.S. Department of State and managed by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, brings human rights activists from across the globe to Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to meet with fellow activists, U.S. and international government leaders, and members of civil society and the private sector engaged in technology and human rights. A key goal of the program is to share experiences and lessons learned on the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as fundamental human rights. The Fellows are in Geneva June 19-22 during the 20th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. This year’s Internet Freedom Fellows, all human rights activists and active practitioners of digital media, are from Syria, India, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Venezuela and Azerbaijan. In Geneva they will participate in a global conversation, webcast from the United Nations, on “Global Networks, Individual Freedoms” Wednesday, June 20 at 1000 EDT (14:00 UTC).
The 2012 Fellows are:
Dlshad Othman (Syria): Mr. Othman is a Syrian activist and IT engineer who provides Syrians with digital security resources and assistance so that they can utilize online communications and advocacy freely and securely in spite of increased online government repression in the form of censorship, sophisticated cyber attacks, and intense surveillance.
Pranesh Prakash (India): Mr. Prakash is a program manager at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore. He works primarily in areas where technology and public policy intersect, engaging in research and policy advocacy on issues relating to online freedom of expression, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights reform, and Internet governance.
Koundjoro Gabriel Kambou (Burkina Faso): Mr. Kambou is a journalist-reporter at Lefaso.net and an animator of blogs. He campaigns for and promotes human rights and the values of democracy and freedom of the press. He publishes videos and articles to sensitize people to and educate them on human rights issues.
Sopheap Chak (Cambodia): Ms. Chak is the Program Director of the Cambodia Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and is one of Cambodia’s leading human rights bloggers. She mobilizes young activists around the country in civic engagement through the Cambodian Youth Network for Change. She is a contributing author for Global Voice Online, UPI Asia Online, and Furutre Challenges.
Andres Azpurua (Venezuela): Mr. Azpurua is committed to generating digital tools that empower Venezuelans to better exercise their human rights. He has contributed o the creation of a digital platform that promotes and defends voters’ rights. He is also the founder of a digital initiative that seeks to build a volunteer base from civil society to promote the right of association in Venezuela.
Emin Milli (Azerbaijan): Mr. Milli is a writer and a dissident who has actively used online networking tools to spread information about human rights violations in Azerbaijan. He was imprisoned for 16 months for his critical views about the government of Azerbaijan. He was conditionally released in 2010 and is currently writing his dissertation in London on “New Media and Arab Revolutions”.
U.S. Mission Photo by Eric Bridiers
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Ayer, 10/03/2010, en la Plaza Manises de Valencia, frente a la Diputación, tuvo lugar una concentración en contra del escandaloso ataque a la libertad de expresión que hemos sufrido todos los valencianos (aunque muchos no lo sepan). Multitud de ciudadanos nos congregamos allí para hacer saber a nuestros dirigentes políticos que no vamos a dejar pasar por alto un hecho tan grave como éste.
91 velas fueron encendidas representando las 91 fotografías de la exposición que se inauguró en el MUVIM de las cuales 10 se censuraron.
Valgan estas velas encendidas también para recordar a todos los que murieron por la libertad de expresión en este país.