Egypt Gets the Tunisia Virus, Social Networks Play Crucial Role again

 
And whether the Hosni Mubarak regime will fare any better than Ben Ali's in Tunisia is yet to be seen.

But the intensity of the demonstrations should be giving the Cairo authorities a lot to think about.

Los Angeles Times reports that the protests have already been the worst in decades, with tens of thousands of people marching in the streets of Cairo to commemorate a "Day of Rage" to end the 30-year reign of President Mubarak.

At least three people have been killed in clashes with police in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that brought down the Ben Ali dictatorship in Tunisia this month.

The Washington Post reports that the protests were organized through Facebook and Twitter, adding that Twitter has been blocked in Egypt as a result of the unrest.

Ashraf Khalil of ForeingPolicy.com reports the size of the protests is extraordinary:

For starters, there was the sheer size of the turnout, which was larger than anything I've seen in 13 years of covering Egyptian protests. Tuesday was the first time I've ever been in a situation where the protesters potentially outnumbered riot police on the ground.

The Egyptian government's standard operating procedure is to overwhelm any public protest with a massively disproportionate wave of black-clad police. As a result, most protests tend to boil down to the same 500 noisy hard-core activists hopelessly penned in by thousands of riot cops.

His first-hand report of the protest is a must read.

Lori Kozlowski, blogging for Los Angeles Times, and wondering what social media really means for popular uprisings and protests around the world, writes the following:

It's almost a revolution in three easy steps. So simple, and yet the issues (and the regimes) that are being protested are nothing short of life-and-death concerns.

It leads us to a series of questions: What will social media's role be in government going forward? Will Twitter and Facebook continue to be tools for organizing revolution? How will future technologies shape the way people and their governments communicate?

Will this be the second revolution ignited by Wikileaks? We remain glued to our Internet connection.

How Facebook Became the Vehicle of Profound Transformation in Tunisia

With Ben Ali out of the picture, Tunisians are still sorting out how their revolution will bring about true democratic changes in their country.

Reports tell us activists are still demanding in the capital, Tunis, that former members of the Ben Ali regime be excluded from an interim government that will oversee a transition to democracy.

But the question remainds: how did the population of a country under the boot of a ruthless despot manage to drive him out of the country and apparently get the upper-hand in deciding the future of Tunisia?

In a nutshell, the Internet did it.

That is the conclusion of this remarkable article by Atlantic Magazine editor Alexis Madrigal, who rejects the notion that Twitter played a crucial role in the successful uprising and gives most of the credit to Facebook.

And the key, according to Madrigal's article, lies with the fact that Facebook, which had not been blocked by the Ben Ali regime, allowed activists to upload video of the protests and of the terrible consequences of police brutality against protesters.

"I think Facebook played a bigger role in this case," said Jillian York of the Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, who has been tracking the Tunisian situation closely. "There are a lot more Facebook users than Twitter users. Facebook allows for strong ties in a way that Twitter doesn't. You're not just conversing."

One early sign that Tunisians felt Facebook could be useful: Back in July, bloggers Photoshopped a picture of Mark Zuckerberg to show him holding up a sign that read, "Sayeb Sala7, ya 3ammar," the slogan for a freedom of expression campaign late in 2010. Later, Zuckerberg popped up on a sign outside the Saudi Arabian embassy carried by Tunisian protesters demanding the arrest of Ben Ali.


The Phtoshopped picture of Facebook founder Zuckerberg

Some of these video clips are gruesome, in one instance showing "brains oozing out" of the cracked skull of a protester, and played a crucial role in pushing people out on the streets to demand the ouster of Ben Ali.
 
Madrigal insists Facebook had become a magnifying glass into the atrocities of the Ben Ali police forces and the proverbial crack in the dam wall.

Madrigal again:

By January 8, Facebook says that it had several hundred thousand more users than it had ever had before in Tunisia, a country with a few more people than Michigan. Scaled up to the size to the U.S., the burst of activity was like adding 10 million users in a week. And the average time spent on the site more than doubled what it had been before.

Facebook was seeing all this from a first-row seat, and Madrigal explains how the website became, perhaps unwillingly, the earthquake that triggered the tsunami of freedom in Tunisia.

Big cheers to the Internet, yet again.

Tunisia Monitoring Group Warns Struggle for Freedom of Expression Not Over

(IFEX-TMG) - 19 January 2011 - The remarkable events in Tunisia, including the announcement of a presidential election to be held this year, call for a redoubling of efforts to fully restore all Tunisian free expression rights, says the International Freedom of Expression Exchange Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), of which WPFC is a member.

While welcoming the release of journalist Fahem Boukadous today from prison, the IFEX-TMG calls for an overhaul of the legal system that allowed the journalist to be jailed in the first place, simply for doing his job.

"My feelings of joy are indescribable. Despite repression and life in prison and underground over the past years, I never stopped believing that the Tunisian people would finally turn a new page of democratic rule," Boukadous told the IFEX-TMG. He was jailed in July on a four-year sentence after reporting on social unrest in the Gafsa region in 2008, in a clear breach of international legal standards. He was released today under the general amnesty for political prisoners.

The IFEX-TMG, a coalition of 20 IFEX members from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America, believes that its long running campaign for free expression rights will take on even greater significance in the run up to the vote, and likely beyond it.

As well as monitoring the situation in Tunisia since 2004, the IFEX-TMG currently supports campaigns to challenge political control of the judiciary, ensure the right of civil society groups to gather peacefully and promote media freedoms and the right to information.

"These rights must be secured to ensure the widest possible participation and a fully informed electorate," said IFEX-TMG Chair Rohan Jayasekera of Index on Censorship in London. "In particular, support must go to independent lawyers and judges challenging the politicised judiciary in Tunisia - the Ben Ali regime's principal weapon against independent journalists - especially if the courts have any say in future disputes over the election process."

The rules should be changed immediately to remove the president's power to choose 60% of the members of the Superior Council of Magistrates, the body responsible for appointing, disciplining and assigning judges, and new elections for the Council must be held imminently. The judiciary will have a central role in fairly addressing any disputes that arise from the voting process, which makes fresh elections for the Council a priority.

Article 8 of the Tunisian Constitution states: "The liberties of opinion, expression, the press, publication, assembly, and association are guaranteed and exercised within the conditions defined by the law."

The IFEX-TMG supports three demands made by Tunisian judges and lawyers: to change the system for electing members of the country's Superior Council of Magistrates so the majority of members are elected by judges, and not selected by the President; to give the Council sole responsibility for the management of the judicial system; and to reform the law to prohibit the forced relocation of judges who fail to toe the presidential line.

The coalition also calls on the new government of national unity to end the regime's policy of obstructing independent trade unions, human rights and civil society groups and the use of court orders and procedural challenges to stop them from meeting. The right to peaceful freedom of association is an essential prerequisite to a fully participatory election.

The interim government must also take immediate steps to guarantee the rights of the media to report on the upcoming election campaign fully, freely and professionally.

The Ben Ali regime deployed a range of methods against the independent press including the seizure of newspapers, financial controls, denial of registration to independent media outlets and physical assault and imprisonment.

The Tunisian authorities must quickly pledge to end these practices: to immediately open up the broadcast media registration process to all; to lift all registration requirements on new print media; and to investigate attacks on journalists, lawyers and civil rights activists, prosecuting the perpetrators.

Only these clear steps will send the appropriate message to those who seek to obstruct free expression and free and fair elections in Tunisia.

"The IFEX-TMG recognises that just as the work of free expression defenders did not end with the conclusion of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's rule, it will not end with the election of a candidate to replace him," added Jayasekera. "Many of the restrictive practices at play in Tunisia are framed by established legislation or administrative rules. Tunisian rights advocates will still have to campaign hard to see the laws changed and rules liberalised over the year to come."

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
ARTICLE 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Cartoonists Rights Network International
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
Index on Censorship
International Federation of Journalists
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
International Press Institute
International Publishers Association
Journaliste en danger
Maharat Foundation (Skills Foundation)
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Norwegian PEN
World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International

All Tunisian Political Prisoners Freed, Including Journalist Fahem Boukadous

Relentless pressure by protesters on the streets of Tunis and elsewhere are keeping the transitional government's feet to the coals.

The message is clear: a clean break with the past or else.

Reuters reports that all political prisoners in that country have been released:

Tunisia freed all its remaining political prisoners on Wednesday, including members of a banned Islamist movement, government minister Najib Chebbi told Reuters.

"All the political prisoners have been released today," said Chebbi, an opposition party leader who is now regional development minister in a coalition government. Asked if that included members of the banned Islamist Ennahda movement, he said: "There are no more Ennahda prisoners in jail."

Among the freed prisoners is journalist Fahem Boukadous, who, after being released from a hospital in July, he was taken to a prison in the southern city of Gafsa to serve a four-year sentence for bogus charges of "belonging to a criminal association" and "harming public order."

International press freedom organizations, including WPFC, urged the Ben Ali regime to immediately free Boukadous, who was suffering from poor health and was imprisoned without access to his medication.


Fouad Mebazaa shortly after being declared interim president of Tunisia (EPA photo)

Today, under pressure by constant protests in the capital, Interim President Fouad Mebazaa, in his first public appearance, announced a "total break" with the past and "a revolution of dignity and liberty" after the popular uprising forced the exile of Ben Ali, reports Al Jazeera.

He also vowed a complete investigation into the finances of the Ben Ali family, of which 33 members have been arrested, according to Tunisian TV reports quoted by Al Jazeera.

Swiss authorities have quoted Tunisian officials as saying that the Ben Ali family has deposited some US$620 million in secret accounts in that country.

We hope this popular uprising will bring about true press freedom and freedom of expression to a country that has been ravaged by the corruption and lack of accountability of a "quasi mafia."

Death Toll in Tunisia as High as 50; Youth Anger Escalates

Live ammunition has been the response of the regime of President Ben Ali in the face of one of the worst crisis in his 23 years in power.

Human rights groups, citing hospital sources, report that the number of fatalities among protestors "has passed 50," while the violence is spreading up to the suburbs of the capital, Tunis.


An injured Tunisian demonstrator is carried away in the town of Regueb (EPA photo)

Also, World News Australia reports that security forces prevented a peaceful march by journalists, artists and lawyers that had demanded an end to the violence.

World News Australia:

Staff at the regional hospital in Kasserine, 290 kilometres (180 miles) south of Tunis, meanwhile halted work for an hour to condemn the high number of victims.
  
"It is chaos in Kasserine after a night of violence, of sniper firing and pillaging," said Sadok Mahmoudi from the regional branch of the Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT).
  
"The number killed has passed 50," he said, citing figures issued by medical staff in the town's hospital for the past three days.
  
The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said at least 35 people were killed on Saturday and Sunday in Kasserine and nearby Regueb and Thala -- remote, farming areas with high rates of youth unemployment.

The riots erupted after a graduate student set himself ablaze in protest for high unemployment, economic stagnation and government corruption. He eventually died of his wounds.

Another spark to the violence, which started in neighboring Algeria, was the publication by Wikileaks of a US State Department cable revealing deep corruption in the Ben Ali administration, calling his family "a quasi mafia."

Reports of high fatalities in the unrest coincide with acknowledgement by the authorities that riot police are using live ammunition to contain the disturbances.

President Ben Ali, meantime, is struggling to deal with the crisis and on a television address on Monday promised the country to create 300,000 new jobs, while calling the protestors "gangs of thugs."

As the old say goes, facts are stubborn things, and decades of neglect and corruption are coming back to haunt the Ben Ali's regime.

Backlash in Tunisia Didn't Take Long

And according to news sorces, at least five bloggers and cyberactivists have been arrested or harassed in that North African country.

The news comes on the heels of several attacks on Tunisian government websites this week by Anonymous that have disabled several of them.

The regime of perennial President Ben Ali is confronted with one of the worst crisis in his long reign, with youth riots from neighboring Algeria rapidly spreading throughout his country.

The Los Angeles Times reports that at least two people have been killed in the demonstrations, mostly staged by young Tunisians frustrated with high unemployment and economic stagnation.

The riots started after 26-year-old gradute student Mohamed Al Bouazzizi set himself ablaze last month in protest for the lack of jobs in the country. Al Bouazzizi, who was visited in the hospital by President Ben Ali (below), died of his wounds on Tuesday.


(EPA photo)

The LA Times:

Security forces arrested two bloggers and detained 22-year-old rapper Hamada Ben Amor, who became famous in his homeland with the outspoken song "President, Your People Are Dying," the news service Agence France-Presse reported.

A journalist in Tunis, the capital, who requests anonymity for security reasons, said in an e-mail interview that clashes continued Friday in the northern farming town of Siliana between security forces and residents. Banks and some government buildings there had been set on fire, the journalist said.

But there is another ingredient fueling the riots in Tunisia: one of the US State Department cables published by Wikileaks confirming what we have been denouncing for years already —that the Ben Ali regime is deeply corrupted and terrified of being found out:

"Whether it's cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your yacht, President Ben Ali's family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets what it wants," the dispatch read. "With Tunisians facing rising inflation and high unemployment, the conspicuous displays of wealth and persistent rumors of corruption have added fuel to the fire."

According to Reporters without Borders, the situation is even more dire for bloggers and cyberdissidents, informing that it "has monitored at least five such cases but the list could well be longer."

Four or five police plainclothes officers arrested the blogger and activist Hamadi Kaloutcha at his home at around 6am, seizing a computer and a central processing unit. They told his wife they were taking him to the nearest police station and “just have a few questions for him”, and “that will only take a few hours”. There has been no news of him since.

Cyberdissident Sleh Edine Kchouk, a student activist, was arrested by police in Bizerte (north of Tunis) and his computer seized.

Tunisian rapper El Général – real name Hamada Ben Aoun – was also reportedly arrested in Sfax, about 270kms southeast of Tunis. In his song, “President, your people are dead”, he challenged President Ben Ali over corruption and unemployment. His video is hugely popular among young Tunisians and widely circulated online.

Further, there has been no news of Slim Amamou and Azyz Amamy, two netizens based in Tunis. Slim Amamou was briefly detained on 21 May 2010 just ahead of a demonstration against web censorship which he planned to hold outside the information ministry in the capital. Several human rights activists, who asked for anonymity, said he is being held at the interior ministry. Azyz Amamy apparently covered clashes a few weeks ago in Sidi Bouzid. His blog is currently inaccessible (http://azyz404.blogspot.com/), and his Facebook page has been deactivated.

The reaction by the Ben Ali regime to this crisis has been blaming the messenger. No surprise here.

Anonymous Knocks down Tunisia's Official Websites

Anonymous, the "hacktivists" who took down a number of websites that undermined the financial interests of Julian Assange and his Wikileaks, have found a new target and blown it off the Internet.

This time around is the government of Tunisia, whose official website and other offical cyberproperties have been taken down as part of "Operation Tunisia" or "#OpTunisia," as this Anonymous poster (below) advertises.


(Poster by Anonymous)

TechWatch:

According to a report from security experts Sophos, Operation Tunisia has taken down the official government website, and a number of others including the site of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, using denial of service attacks.

The attacks began on Monday, and the government site is still down this morning. So why Tunisia? Due to the levels of censorship and oppression the government has brought on the people of the country. The Guardian notes that Tunisia (along with other Arab nations) has tried to stifle the flow of WikiLeaks related information.

Anonymous, via its website, has warned the Tunisian government, who has blocked free access to classified information provided by Wikileaks, not to keep "the truth hidden from its citizens," and has promised retaliation if the demands are not heard.

Here's the full warning:

A time for truth has come. A time for people to express themselves freely and to be heard from anywhere in the world. The Tunisian government wants to control the present with falsehoods and misinformation in order to impose the future by keeping the truth hidden from its citizens. We will not remain silent while this happens. Anonymous has heard the claim for freedom of the Tunisian people. Anonymous is willing to help the Tunisian people in this fight against oppression. It will be done. It will be done.

This is a warning to the Tunisian government: attacks at the freedom of speech and information of its citizens will not be tolerated. Any organization involved in censorship will be targeted and will not be released until the Tunisian government hears the claim for freedom to its people. It's on the hands of the Tunisian government to stop this situation. Free the net, and attacks will cease, keep on that attitude and this will just be the beginning.

We do not forgive, We do not forget, Expect us.
 
Anonymous, who has adopted the same imagery as the "V for Vendetta" film, are the self-proclaimed cyber-bodyguards of Assange and his website, and have conducted successful attacks against the websites of Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, three companies who rejected to process financial transactions for Wikileaks.

Hurricane Wikileaks Heading Toward Bank of America?

(EPA photo)

One of the planet's most powerful financial institutions is bracing for the mind-blowing winds unleashed by Wikileaks and its leader Julian Assange.

The New York Times reports that Bank of America is in full counterespionage mode after Assange announced last year his website possesses incriminating information that could deeply embarrass the financial institution.

The New York Times:

Since then, a team of 15 to 20 top Bank of America officials, led by the chief risk officer, Bruce R. Thompson, has been overseeing a broad internal investigation — scouring thousands of documents in the event that they become public, reviewing every case where a computer has gone missing and hunting for any sign that its systems might have been compromised.

In addition to the internal team drawn from departments like finance, technology, legal and communications, the bank has brought in Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm, to help manage the review. It has also sought advice from several top law firms about legal problems that could arise from a disclosure, including the bank’s potential liability if private information was disclosed about clients.

What Bank of America fears is that Assange and his website have attained unprecedented credibility with the international community and that any leaks pertaining to the US largest banking institution could have devastating consequences.

The threats, of course, come on the heels of deep resentment among the American public against the US financial community, which has been accused of triggering a worldwide recession at the expense of the American taxpayer.

At the core of this controversy is an alleged five-gigabyte harddrive apparently belonging to a high Bank of America executive containing some 200,000 documents that could expose that institution's allegedly shameless practices.

While BoA wrings its hands wondering whether Assange's threats are legitimate or not, the onslaught against Wikileaks gathers steam in Washington, and the frantic scramble searching for an angle to bring Assange to justice has found a new ally.

Conservative Representative Darrell Issa, a powerful member of the incoming US Congress, has expressed strong criticism against the Obama administration for not having been able to nail Assange.

Issa told Fox News that Assange has turned the US government into a "paper tiger" and called Assange a "criminal."

But whether you have your money in Bank of America or not, you need to stop and think. Did that institution have anything to do with the financial debacle that vaporized the saving of millions of investors and came close to trigger the collapse of the world's finances?

It makes you wonder whether who is the criminal and whether Assange is wielding the scissors in front of another paper tiger.

A new Sedition Act in the United States?

Those are very heavy words that send chills down the spines of press freedom advocates throughout the world, including us.

Julian Assange and his Wikileaks website have triggered such a storm of resentment and vindictiveness, some fear the new US Congress, which assembles next month in Washington, will come determined to stop him at any price.

And that price would be turning the 1917 Espionage Act into a weapon of mass censorship reminiscent of the infamous 1798 Alien and Sedition Act, which in the hands of a government determined to nail Assange would set the press freedom clock back by a couple of centuries.

Former US Representative Bob Barr writes on his Atlanta Journal and Constitution blog that federal prosecutors are so frustrated in their search to find an opening to indict Assange, their allies in Congress are willing to bestow an obscene amount of power on them to bring him down.

According to Barr, the legislative way to unleach this power would be to beef up the 1917 Espionage Act, a relic of World War I paranoid tendencies, to "criminalize the publication of information critical of government policies and actions," writes Barr.

Unfortunately, this very dangerous trend has the backing of the majority of the American public. Barr again:

Many legal scholars, not prone to the pressures of public sentiment (which polls suggest strongly supports prosecuting Assange), correctly argue there simply is no proper basis for a case against the WikiLeaks founder under the Espionage Act, federal conspiracy laws, or other statutes.  In recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, several constitutional scholars eloquently presented the case for not prosecuting Assange; based on a fair reading of the First Amendment to the Constitution, current law, and sound policy.

One of those who testified, the Hudson Institute’s Gabriel Schoenfeld, also noted in an interview with Politico that the government was “not going to be able to threaten or touch Julian Assange,” pointing out that there were clear conflicts with the First Amendment in steps the Justice Department appeared to be taking in an effort to construct a case against him.

And Barr, citing legal scholars and constitutional experts, gives a stern warning of what would happen if these zealots would have their way:

Reading the Espionage Act the way Assange’s critics would have us do, would open a Pandora’s Box of virtually unlimited reach.  As Benjamin Wittes, a legal analyst from the Brookings Institution, explained on his blog, such interpretation would reach even “casual discussions of such disclosures by persons not authorized to receive them to other persons not authorized to receive them – in other words, all tweets sending around those countless news stories, all blogging on them, and all dinner party conversations about their contents.”  There wouldn’t be enough jails to hold us all.

The 1789 Sedition Act expired three years later before the Supreme Court would have a shot at it. In any instance, it was a toxic law that would have devastated one of the fundamental tenets of the American democracy, the right to free speech.

More than 200 years later, a government tantrum is threatening to repeat the same mistake.

Tunisia's War on Civil Liberties Intensifies with Year's End

Dec. 22, 2010 — The International Freedom of Expression Exchange Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), a coalition of 20 IFEX members, including WPFC, is deeply alarmed by a series of violations in the past week in Tunisia of the right to access information, free expression, and free movement, as well as a blatant assault on a journalist.

On 19 December, in the suburbs of the capital Tunis, plainclothes security agents besieged the homes of the members of the legitimately-elected Board of the Association of Tunisian Judges (AMT). They also prevented independent judge Hamadi Rahmani from heading toward the venue of a general assembly held by the state-backed AMT board.

The IFEX-TMG regards the political manipulation of the judiciary as a major threat to free expression in Tunisia, making it possible for the state to jail or prosecute independent journalists such as Fahem Boukaddous and Mouldi Zouabi.

The legitimate board of the AMT was dissolved in 2005 after it called for the Tunisian judiciary to be allowed its right to independence in line with international standards, and its members have been persecuted since then. It issued a statement on 20 December condemning the police siege imposed on their homes over the weekend.

They said that the Tunisian state's "interference in their private lives" and the "obstruction of their right of movement has exceeded all legal and moral limitations in its treatment of the members of the legitimate board, simply for defending the independence of the judiciary."

Rohan Jayasekera, deputy Chief Executive of Index on Censorship and IFEX-TMG Chair, said he expected the state to ignore their objections. "Meanwhile the persecution of independent judges continues and the state goes on claiming that the question of political control of the Tunisian judiciary is 'an internal matter' for the regime to manage."

The IFEX-TMG is urging the EU to play a larger role in influencing its economic partner to respect free expression, put an end to violations against journalists and independent judges and fully respect its commitment to abide by the independence of the judiciary.

In other incidents, on 17 December, Assabilonline journalist Zouhair Makhlouf was violently assaulted in front of his family near his home prior to leaving to cover protests in the Southern town of Sidi Bouzid. Police agents have been harassing other journalists and preventing them from covering the protests.

International media reported many arrests and a violent police crackdown on the protests, which erupted after a young grocer set himself alight after police seized his goods and local frustration over high unemployment in the region fanned anger. Most local media did not report the incidents.

Finally, in line with Tunisia's long and notorious record of Internet censorship, the IFEX-TMG Facebook page has been censored in Tunisia and visitors have been receiving a '404' error message. The IFEX-TMG website is already censored in Tunisia.

"We suggest the EU take a firmer lead in the New Year and urge the Tunisian authorities to abide by their commitments to respect human rights in its partnership agreement with them, signed nearly 15 years ago," said Jayasekera. "The EU should see that commitment met before they even think about extending that relationship. It will be in their benefit as well as Tunisia's."

For more information visit http://ifex.org/tunisia/tmg/

Arabic Network for Human Rights Information
ARTICLE 19: Global Campaign for Free Expression
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Cartoonists Rights Network International
Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
Index on Censorship
International Federation of Journalists
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
International Press Institute
International Publishers Association
Journaliste en danger
Maharat Foundation (Skills Foundation)
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Norwegian PEN
World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
World Press Freedom Committee
Writers in Prison Committee, PEN International