By the numbers: arrested bloggers
As blogging becomes a more popular medium for news, it鈥檚 quickly facing greater scrutiny from repressive governments. Last year, at least , more than three times the number in 2006, according to a by World Information Access (WIA). This figure will continue rising, the group fears, and Reports Without Border says unaffiliated reporters are "now threatened as much a journalists in traditional media."
Bloggers seem particularly susceptible to political imprisonment: The vigilante tone of many citizen journalists sends them down a prickly path with government censors; and they are often one-man operations, meaning there鈥檚 no editors or company lawyers to fight an unfair arrest.
Here鈥檚 a breakdown of the WIA report on arrested bloggers since 2003:
64 individuals have been , serving a collective 78 years in prison.
15 months is the average jail time for arrested bloggers.
8 years is the longest sentence that the WIA found, given to in 2003 for 鈥渟ubverting state power; forming informal discussion group.鈥�
3 countries account for more than half of all blogger arrests: China, Egypt, and Iran.
2007 brought more than half of the blog-related arrests in Egypt. WIA attributes the spike to that year's local elections, a common catalyst for blog crackdowns, according to the report.
22 percent of those arrested last year were charged with using a blog to ; 17 percent were for violating cultural norms; another 17 for commenting on public policy; and 11 percent for exposing corruption or human-rights violations.
344 Burmese bloggers have been arrested, according to the , but WIA could not confirm the account. Nonetheless, the report noted this figure, showing that its numbers are only the beginning.
4 unexpected countries showed up on the list: Canada, France, the UK, and the US. The French case was for "posting a blog about his local and mismanagement.鈥� The Canadian example was for 鈥� for his blog.鈥� The British blogger allegedly . And the three American arrests were for 1) , 2) , and 3) during a G8 summit.
[Via ]
