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Cairo:  As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: "Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas."The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world -- a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades.

Egyptian authorities have blocked internet and mobile services in a bid to quell anti-government protests, but the measures may have come a bit too late. Activists spread the word online about Friday's protests, detailing the list of public squares where people should gather.Calls for action circulated on Twitter and Facebook since early on Friday morning.Twitter user rassdwda wrote: "#Egypt protests begin from mosques & churches, #Muslims #Christians 2gether#Jan25".Another user named eacusa tweeted: "#Jan25 #Egypt Good news, morale in Cairo still high, veteran activists from 60s & 70s r spreading knowledge of predigital ways 2 coordinate."

The internet has galvanised dissidents, but the key events that fuelled the uprising happened offline Middle-class, urban, web-savvy – the archetypal media image of the young protesters who have shaken Egypt's dictatorship this week captures only part of the reality.This generation of dissidents, most of whom have lived their entire lives under the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak, have rejected the moribund landscape of formal politics that has ensnared many of their liberal elders since Nasser's 1952 revolution.

Members of the Central Intelligence Organization who were terrorizing villagers in Manicaland Province have removed registration numbers from their cars, after an SW Radio Africa SMS news alert on the 6th August. The SMS exposed the names of officers involved in the violence and gave the registration numbers of the cars used.The alert exposed the use of a white Nissan double cab ABM0196 used by a CIO officer identified as Shingi, ABM0155 used by the Officer in Charge of Chipinge CID known as Chizemo and another similar truck ABM0203, used by a CIO known as Matake.On Friday Makoni South legislator Pishai Muchauraya told Newsreel; ‘After that exposure by SW Radio Africa the CIO’s involved in that violence removed the number plates of the cars operating in Chipinge. They also confronted some of our members, including some drivers, asking us why we are putting them on the internet including their registrations numbers and names.’

Following the recent massive wave of online censorship carried out by the Tunisian censor, targeting major social websites, such as the popular video-sharing websites, flickr, blogs aggregators, blogs, facebook pages and profiles, the anti-censorship movement adopted very creative, outspoken and brave tactics in protesting the online censorship. A censorship that is not only harming the country's average Internet users but is also affecting professionals whose work is relying on web 2.0 services and platforms, like youtube, flickr and other media-sharing websites.

 After December 5th – the date that will be remembered in Italy’s history as ‘No Berlusconi Day’ - the colour purple gained sufficient media attention to guarantee it significance beyond any momentary trend. It’s the symbolic colour of a battle for the affirmation of democracy, for the respect of our Constitutional Charter as the foundation of civilised living, for the defense of a free and plural information system, for the construction – in short – of that cultural and political renovation process that has been far too long delayed in this country.

The following is a guest post from Ali S. Novruzov, an Azerbaijani who blogs over at "In Mutatione Fortitudo." He describes how the arrests and convictions of Azerbaijan's "donkey bloggers" have pushed the country's youth activists into finding creative ways to get their message out using new technologies. Back on July 8, late at night, I received an alarming text message. Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, two prominent Azerbaijani bloggers and youth leaders had been assaulted that evening and were still at the police station. To get the latest updates, I immediately logged in to Facebook. There, at first still in shock, a handful of Azerbaijani youth activists were just beginning to pass on the news and spread the word.

An official in Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's administration says the international community's reaction to the case of two bloggers given jail sentences last week is biased, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. Ali Hasanov, head of the Azerbaijani president's Social and Political Affairs Department, said Azerbaijani law "applies equally to everyone and there is no special treatment for intellectuals and those who are closer to the West, like the bloggers." A Baku court on November 11 sentenced Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli to two and 2 1/2 years in prison, respectively, on hooliganism charges for an altercation at a Baku restaurant on July 8. International organizations such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have strongly condemned the case and said the charges against the bloggers are politically motivated.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's embattled opposition leaders accused the government of becoming more brutal than the shah's regime in Web statements Saturday, and authorities announced a new Internet crackdown aimed at choking off the reform movement's last real means of keeping its campaign alive.Two of Iran's top pro-reform figures said police used excessive force against anti-government protesters who took to the streets last week on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who lead the protest movement rejecting the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June re-election, said authorities wielding batons even struck women on their heads. They called such treatment an ugly act that was not even seen during Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's response to the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled him.

The U.S. State Department has told Cuba it deplores last week's ``assault'' on blogger Yoani Sánchez, one of the toughest of several expressions of support for the Havana writer.Sánchez and fellow blogger Orlando Luis Pardo said they were beaten Friday by presumed state security agents to keep them away from a ``march against violence.'' Blogger Claudia Cadelo and another woman were detained in the incident, but without violence.``The U.S. government strongly deplores the assault,'' said a State Department statement issued late Monday. ``We have expressed to the Cuban government our deep concern . . . and we are following up with inquiries to [the three bloggers] . . . regarding their personal well-being and access to medical care.''

Observers of the Egyptian April 6th Facebook Group and its online mobilization in 2008 lavished attention on the possibilities of so-called “Facebook activism.” Western journalists and activists alike touted the potential of using Facebook to organize, a process imagined as “tapping into the ready-made structure of online social networks to make joining a group as quick as a click of a button.” On the valuable piece of real estate known as the Washington Post’s op-ed page, Nir Boms hailed Facebook as the latest weapon against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. “Facebook,” he claimed, “is quickly turning into a hotbed of ‘actual’ activism - a cause for alarm for many autocratic regimes in the Middle East....” Newsweek’s Jack Fairweather called Facebook “an important platform for dissent” in the Middle East.

They are concerned about pollution and toxic emissions. More than a thousand Guangzhou residents held a protest on Monday against local officials building a rubbish incinerator near their homes.There were many middle-class people among the protesters—which is unusual, compared with the hundreds of thousands of demonstrations held by peasants across the Chinese countryside each year.

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT).We have just discovered free Thai language news site Liberal Thai blocked by a transparent proxy redirecting users to Thailand's ICT ministry.Liberal Thai is a new websites which has been translating news articles in English into Thai making them accessible to Thai readers, particularly those from Political Prisoners in Thailand.The only news article which might be suspect is LT's Thai translation of “Thailand's Political Muddle” from October 28's Asia Sentinel. PPT's coverage of this article and, indeed the article itself in English, are not blocked.

As the debate in Congress continues over health care reform, activists are continuing to put the pressure on. In a new article at The Nation, Peter Dreier writes that momentum for reform is growing, with groups like Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and MoveOn having organized hundreds of protests in front of insurance company offices around the country, at the homes of insurance company CEOs, and at the annual conference for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) in Washington, D.C. over the last month, calling for a robust public option.Rather than simply providing an alternative to the private insurance, other organizations – like the California Nurses Association, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Mobilization for Health Care for All – have continued to fight for a universal single-payer health care system that would get rid of insurance companies altogether. Over the last month, more than 100 people have risked arrest at sit-ins at the offices of  insurance companies in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.

MADISON, W.Va. - A Climate Ground Zero activist has been sentenced to 20 days in jail for blocking a road to a Massey Energy office during a mountaintop removal mining protest. The group has been committing acts of civil disobedience all year, many targeting Virginia-based Massey. Twenty-two-year-old Joseph Hamsher is the first to get jail time instead of fines. Hamsher pleaded guilty to conspiracy and trespassing in Boone County Magistrate Court on Tuesday, and will serve 10 days on each charge. A court official said Wednesday he could have been fined more than $1,800.

About 200 citizens, including health care providers and patients, supported Medicare for All, a single payer plan, by marching to the Aetna office in New York City on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. This video shows some of the marchers on their way from the downtown office of Bristol-Meyers Squidb to the office of Aetna, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies.The marchers were in solidarity with 17 who were arrested at the Aetna office earlier in the day, staging a sit-in in the lobby of the building to call for an end to insurance abuse and support real health care reform, Medicare for All.

On September 27th, the Mobilization for Health Care for All launched a national campaign of "Patients Not Profit" sit-ins at insurance company offices to demand an end to a system that profits by denying people care. We want the real "public option": Medicare for All, a single payer plan that cuts out the profit and puts patients first.Together, through this campaign, we can turn the tide and win the fight for health care for all. To succeed, we need to organize sit-ins in as many cities as possible in the month of October. The campaign began with the local leadership of Private Health Insurance Must Go (PHIMG) in New York City on September 29th and continued in Chicago on October 8th and in 9 cities across the country on October 15th. The next wave starts on October 28th and we will continue to organize actions in as many cities as possible until we win health care reform that ensures that the insurance companies no longer stand between the American people and the health care that we need. It's time to cut out the profit and put patients first with Medicare for All.

Sam Pullen, 31, was arrested on Thursday, October 15, in Los Angeles at a sit-in at the Blue Cross health insurance office. He is refusing to give information to police, vowing to stay in jail until Blue Cross stops denying care to those who need it most. He is being supported by the group Mobilization for Health Care for All, which coordinated sit-ins and rallies in nine cities across the country yesterday in which 54 people were arrested to end insurance abuse and win health care for all.Pullen was inspired to action by his mother, who was denied coverage for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant by Blue Cross when he was a teenager. Weakened by her cancer treatments, Pullen’s mother staged a one-woman sit-in at the insurance company office, resulting in the approval of the transplant that extended her life for years. Thanks to the transplant, she lived long enough to see Pullen reach 18 years of age.Here is Sam’s story.

Citizen Initiative for Constant Light mobilized 30 million people in Turkey to turn off and on their lights to demand that the government act against corruption. The action resulted from public outrage after a car crash openly revealed connections between government, police and the mob. Turkey is a secular nation with a tradition of democracy. But it also has a tradition of human rights abuse. The influence of corruption extends throughout society through local patronage systems undeterred by any investigative reporting from a mass media industry, which is itself complicit in the corruption. As a result, the corruption issue has historically sparked only apathy and hopelessness in Turkish civil society.

MoveOn creates electronic advocacy groups to influence government on issues of peace and social justice.  It is a grassroots organization aimed at involving ordinary people in politics in order to narrow the gap between public opinion and legislative action.  With a network of over 600,000 “online activists,” MoveOn helps busy but concerned citizens find their political voice by organizing “electronic advocacy groups” around issues such as campaign finance, environmental and energy issues, impeachment, gun safety, and nuclear disarmament.