This article originally appeared on Global Voices Online, November 18, 2009.

Aminatou Haidar is a leading activist for independence of the Western Sahara (from Morocco). Born in 1967, she was "disappeared" by Moroccan authorities for her activism at age twenty, only to reemerge three years later. In 2005,...

When a favorite site rolls out a new feature, users are supposed to ooh and ahh, not cringe. One of Facebook's latest features has me doing just that. After logging in recently, I peeked at the ubiquitous "suggestions" box on the right side of the screen, only to see that...

It's perhaps not that shocking that the film world is rallying around Roman Polanski. After all, plenty of artists over the years have worked with Polanski, all the while fully aware of his crimes. The Academy itself ignored them, awarding Polanski with the honor of Best Director; Harrison Ford ignored...

When President George W. Bush left office, only 22% of the country's citizens approved of his leadership. President Obama enjoys an approval rating of 50%, a respectable number. In Iran, Venezuela, and China, press have reported on approval polls of the leadership.

So when an independent poll conducted in Morocco...

From the Great Firewall to the Myanmar Wide Web, Asia is well-known for its practices in Internet filtering. China has long taken the lead in blocking Web sites, filtering sites across the spectrum - from social to political content, pornography to Internet tools. The OpenNet Initiative (full disclosure: I'm involved)...

On March 28, as political tensions in Madagascar showed no signs of letting up, a young man named Razily decided to take a stroll down Antananarivo's most famous avenue. It would have been a day like any other, except that on this particular day the avenue was flanked by...

Author's note: Shortly after the publication of this piece, LinkedIn contacted me to state that they had become aware of the issue and were fixing it. They have issued a statement which reads:

This article was originally featured on Global Voices Online.

The saga of journalist and blogger Laila El-Haddad, who writes at Raising Yousuf and Noor: diary of a Palestinian mother, was carefully covered by Global Voices last week. However, as El-Haddad moved into her 36th hour at the...

Laila El-Haddad is from Gaza. Maybe you know her: She's a journalist and pundit, but perhaps even more prominently she is a blogger, writing about her experiences in Gaza and the United States, and her proud role as a mother of two, Yousuf and Noor.

But in spite...

On Wednesday, I got the news that Omidreza Mirsayafi, Iranian blogger and new friend of mine, had passed away in prison in Iran. He was arrested last April, tried last November, and detained in February following an interrogation. On December 21, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled...

This blog post originally appeared on the OpenNet Initiative blog. The OpenNet Initiative investigates, exposes and analyzes Internet filtering.

Many a DVD collector over the years has been disappointed upon learning that their rare DVD from Taiwan or France can't be played on their American DVD player. Just as...

Today's op-ed in Australian IT by Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of an organization called Child Wise is naive at best, dangerous at worst. McMenamin, whose organization seeks to prevent child sexual abuse, claims that Australia's internet filtering scheme is the...

So it looks like the Moroccans are at it again. Instead of just letting people be who they are, the government is still going on about their naming laws. In other words, if you want to give your child an Amazigh (Berber) name, tough luck. Moroccan human rights groups recently...

The war on Gaza continues into its seventeenth night. I find myself longing for the day when I don't feel I have an obligation to tell this story anymore. Life seems to have been put on hold; at work, at home, as I eat, as I write, I feel like...

Late last week, Syria News Wire reported on the efforts of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in sending aid to Gaza. The humanitarian group, which is a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has been successful in sending 11 lorries of 230 tons of...

It is often said that protests don't accomplish much of anything. Despite their effective use all over the world for thousands of years, in today's world, protests as a means of social change seem to have lost their power. It's not necessarily a reflection of apathy on the youth of...

This article was originally published on Global Voices Online.

Twitter is the new blogging, or so the story goes. Never has that been more apparent than in times of crisis: During the Mumbai attacks, Twitter users provided up-to-the-minute coverage, and today, as Israeli airstrikes continue to hit...

This piece was originally published on Global Voices Online.

Following the end of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, violence and tensions have escalated between Israel and Gaza. Today, Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza in what the AFP calls "one of the bloodiest days of the decades-long Middle...

Algerian-American blogger The Moor Next Door has reported on a campaign set up by Moroccans to encourage President-Elect Barack Obama to make his first speech abroad in...

When Hossein Derakhshan was arrested last month, the media was up in arms. Less than 48 hours after the first report, The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Washington Post had all picked up on the story, even though the arrest had not yet been confirmed. A...