Now 36-year-old Brazilian blogger Ednaldo Figueira joins these two poor souls. Figueira, however, was not in prison. He was shot down in the streets of his home town, Serra do Mel.

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After receiving death threats, Figueira was shot six times on June 15 by gunmen on motorcycles outside his workplace, according to Reporters Without Borders.

In addition to being a blogger, Figueira was also the publisher of the newspaper O Serrano and a politician in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. He was the head of the Serra do Mel branch of the Workers Party, the same party of former Brazilian president Ignacio Lula de Silva and the current president, Dilma Rousseff.

He was a vocal opponent of Serro do Mel's mayor, Josivan Bibiano de Azevedo of the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party. In his newspaper, Figueira had recently published an expose of the city's finances. In his blog, he frequently commented on corruption issues.

Ricardo Gama

Ricardo Gama

Figueira was not the first Brazilian blogger to be shot. Although thankfully he survived, Ricardo Gama, 40, was shot by gunmen in a car in the streets of Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana neighborhood in March. He was struck in the head, neck and shoulder.

On his blog, Gama, like Figueira, was highly critical of city politics and corruption among the city's political classes, including alleged connections to drug gangs.

Figueira photo from blog serro do mel

Blogger Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace was one of eight imprisoned Bahrainis to receive life sentences. Al-Singace. Another blogger, Ali Abdulemam, was given 15 years after being tried in absentia.

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Al-Singace, who was arrested last August upon his return to Bahrain from abroad, is the head of the civil society movement El Haq. He had been arrested previously.

Abdulemam, who was also the editor of a popular online message board, Bahrain Online, had been arrested several times over the years by the Bahraini government. He was arrested the last time in September of 2010 and freed in February of 2011.

Both men have reported torture at the hands of their jailers.

Twelve others arrested around the uprisings have been handed sentences of from two to 15 years.

The life sentence gives Al-Singace the unfortunate distinction of passing Hossein Derkahshan of Iran as the blogger who has received the longest jail sentence. Burma's Nay Phone Latt had received a sentence of 20 years and six months, which was later reduced to 12 years.

To call these sentences outlandish and disproportionate would be something of an understatement.

Al-Singace photo via IFEX

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) are essentially specific destinations for brands. Companies will be able to buy their brand and attach it to a URL. So instead of seeing Pepsi.com, the soda manufacturer could have Pepsi.soda or something similar. It will not be cheap to get your own TLD, with an $185,000 application fee and $25,000 a year to run the registry. Yet, some Internet advocates are crying foul, saying that gTLDs will create new headaches in cybersquatting, trademark issues and excessive spam.

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The price tag for a gTLD may cut down on the overall instances of cybersquatting, except for the most affluent spam networks and domain registries. ICANN will be accepting applications for new top-level domains between January 12 and April 12, 2012.

ICANN is providing safeguards to ward off mass cybersquatting. The Applicant Guidebook has gone through seven significant revisions since 2008 that incorporated 1,000 or so comments from the public. The evaluation procedures provide for background screening of pre-applicants that measure business history and look for history of cybersquatting. It will conduct string-similarity reviews to determine if the domain is like anything else currently on the Internet and assess the potential security risks of creating a new TLD.

There are currently 22 TLDs that range from the original .com to .org and .net. ICANN's final approval of the gTLDs will certainly make that number skyrocket but the question is what the final affect on the Internet will be. Are gTLDs the first salvo in a new Web land rush or will it be a source of new innovation for the next decade of Internet development?

The Biggest Thing to Happen to the Internet Since .Com?

Forrester analyst Jeff Ernst believes this is one of the biggest things to happen to the Internet.

"I think this is probably the biggest change to the the Internet since we have had it," Ernst said over the phone. "A lot of the biggest brands are figuring out the requirements. It makes a lot of sense as a brand owner to have as much control over your brand as possible. Why be stuck behind .com when you can own your own primary domain and control the secondary domains you issue within your domain?"

Ernst points out that there are stringent technical guidelines to obtaining a gTLDs and the ability to administer it. There is a nine-month application process and brands must have the ability to effectively administer secondary domains. This could increase corporate IT spending as brands feel the need to get their own TLDs but then must adhere to ICANN's policies.

"Many of the biggest brands are planning to apply for their .brand TLD, but many marketing leaders I've talked with look at this as a nuisance and are skeptical about whether Internet users will embrace them," Ernst said in a blog post.

Lauren Weinstein, the co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility lambasts ICANN in a blog post, calling ICANN and the domain registries the "Domain Industrial Complex" and calling shame to all that helped approve this decision.

"Has the horrific economic saga of the last few years taught us nothing?" Weinstein wrote. "Is there no sense of ethical or moral outrage among those persons who are truly concerned about creating the best possible future for the entire Internet and Internet community, not just for a comparatively few "domain exploitation" tycoons and would-be tycoons?"

Today, those fatwas were challenged by women across Saudi Arabia in a campaign called Women2Drive; challenged and, thanks to social media, witnessed in real time.

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In addition to a coordinating Facebook page, the day of protest driven by the kingdom's women, and many of their husbands and fathers, has a Twitter hashtag, #women2drive, both de rigeur these days for any protest in the Middle East.

Orders were given to Saudi police, including presumably the religious police, not to bother women who drove today, possibly because of the global attention on the day, which is the start of the campaign. Perhaps the hope is that women will not continue to drive, as is the hope of the campaigners, but limit their protest to this one day. There may also be a misapprehension that the attention is due solely to press coverage. Given the widespread presence of "women2drive" on the Web, that may prove a miscalculation. If anyone is arrested, it will surely make it onto Twitter and if it makes it onto Twitter, it will probably make it to the more established media outlets.

Manal Al-Sharif, whose arrest after posting a video of herself driving on YouTube lent fire to this movement, was not part of the protest today. She was allowed out of prison only after she signed an agreement not to take part and with the understanding that she could be hauled back to jail at any moment.

Saudi Arabia has not seen large-scale, Arab Spring-inspired protests. In fact, the kingdom sent its own soldiers into Bahrain to help violently put down that country's protests, which damped them down but did not destroy them. This movement, however, has to be seen as an effect of the same forces and hopes that powered the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East.

I asked people I know in the countries of the Arab Spring to tell us how they think things currently stand and what role technology continues to play there. This post is the first of three. Today we take a look at Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain. The next will cover Syria, Morocco and Yemen and the final post will examine the effects of the Arab Spring on a radically interconnected world.

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Tunisia

Fabrice Epelboin is a French tech writer and entrepreneur who led ReadWriteWeb's France site. He has long been involved with Tunisian issues with a focus on technology. He recently launched, along with Tunisian partners, a citizen journalism site, Fhimt.com and is rolling out a number of Tunisia-based projects through a new NGO co-founded with Heykel Djerbi and Khelil Ben Osman called ATLN.info.

"Censorship has totally stopped until a few weeks ago, when a military court (the only legitimate court remaining in the country) decided to block half a dozen Facebook pages. More recently, a group of lawyers tried to push for a ban on porn, but the Internet authority, ATI, asked for a clear signal from the government.

"Slim Amamou, Bylasko, Aziz Amami and Lamia Slim (first two are former contributors to ReadWriteWeb France) started a tour in France where they were invited onto major TV shows and met with the press."

Egypt

Ahmed Zidain is the Egyptian writer for MideastYouth and the crowdsourcing site CrowdVoice. He was involved in the protests and is keeping a close eye on the developing situation. He was kind enough to contributed an article on the revolution and the Internet to ReadWriteWeb in February.

"The image is very vague, to be honest. No one knows the exact dates of the forthcoming 'secret' general elections, or even the presidential elections. The Military Council infamously detains bloggers and invites activists and media personnel 'for a coffee.' This council is apolitical, and the (political) space is now open mostly for Islamists and extremists. One of the anti-militarist activists, Maikel Nabil, was sentenced to 3 years by a military court, because of an article published on his personal blog. And now he's serving his sentence in Marg Prison.

"One of the most famous Twitter trends among the elite is #NoSCAF. SCAF stands for the 'Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.' Activists are calling on Facebook for an open sit-in in Tahrir Square beginning on the 8th of July. Most of the bloggers and activists are calling for a civilian presidential council to rule Egypt out of the transition period, rather than the infamous SCAF.

"Tahrir is a major tourist-attraction now, more than the Giza Pyramids. We call it revotourism, or revojournalism, because a lot of tourists and journalists travel to Egypt specifically to cover Tahrir's events."

Bahrain

The Bahraini founder of CrowdVoice responded briefly. Not only is this person very busy with projects centering on the Web, but Bahrain is a difficult place to be right now. It is only the second country to see a blogger die in government custody.

"Censorship remains on the rise, and activists are increasingly cautious with their Internet activities and presence as people were tracked down and arrested for their tweets and Facebook messages.

"Our site has been censored in the country since the 17th of February merely for collecting information on the protests."

Now You

Are you Bahraini, Egyptian, Tunisian? What do you see in your present and future? What is the status of communications technology? What is its future in your country. If you've recently been in the country, or have heard from friends and family recently, please help add depth to our picture of the Arab Spring.

Stories fade from public view as the media (and that includes us) moves on to other issues. But this is such an epoch-making wave of change that we think it's important to keep on it and revisit it as we move forward. We need your help to do that.

Next time: Syria, Yemen, Morocco

Jasmine photo by Celeste Hutchins, Tunisia photo from BRQ, Tahrir and Bahrain photos via Al Jazeera.

I asked people I know in the countries of the Arab Spring to tell us how they think things currently stand and what role technology continues to play there. This post is the first of three. Today we take a look at Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain. The next will cover Syria, Morocco and Yemen and the final post will examine the effects of the Arab Spring on a radically interconnected world.

Sponsor

Tunisia

Fabrice Epelboin is a French tech writer and entrepreneur who led ReadWriteWeb's France site. He has long been involved with Tunisian issues with a focus on technology. He recently launched, along with Tunisian partners, a citizen journalism site, Fhimt.com and is rolling out a number of Tunisia-based projects through a new NGO co-founded with Heykel Djerbi and Khelil Ben Osman called ATLN.info.

"Censorship has totally stopped until a few weeks ago, when a military court (the only legitimate court remaining in the country) decided to block half a dozen Facebook pages. More recently, a group of lawyers tried to push for a ban on porn, but the Internet authority, ATI, asked for a clear signal from the government.

"Slim Amamou, Bylasko, Aziz Amami and Lamia Slim (first two are former contributors to ReadWriteWeb France) started a tour in France where they were invited onto major TV shows and met with the press."

Egypt

Ahmed Zidain is the Egyptian writer for MideastYouth and the crowdsourcing site CrowdVoice. He was involved in the protests and is keeping a close eye on the developing situation. He was kind enough to contributed an article on the revolution and the Internet to ReadWriteWeb in February.

"The image is very vague, to be honest. No one knows the exact dates of the forthcoming 'secret' general elections, or even the presidential elections. The Military Council infamously detains bloggers and invites activists and media personnel 'for a coffee.' This council is apolitical, and the (political) space is now open mostly for Islamists and extremists. One of the anti-militarist activists, Maikel Nabil, was sentenced to 3 years by a military court, because of an article published on his personal blog. And now he's serving his sentence in Marg Prison.

"One of the most famous Twitter trends among the elite is #NoSCAF. SCAF stands for the 'Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.' Activists are calling on Facebook for an open sit-in in Tahrir Square beginning on the 8th of July. Most of the bloggers and activists are calling for a civilian presidential council to rule Egypt out of the transition period, rather than the infamous SCAF.

"Tahrir is a major tourist-attraction now, more than the Giza Pyramids. We call it revotourism, or revojournalism, because a lot of tourists and journalists travel to Egypt specifically to cover Tahrir's events."

Bahrain

The Bahraini founder of CrowdVoice responded briefly. Not only is this person very busy with projects centering on the Web, but Bahrain is a difficult place to be right now. It is only the second country to see a blogger die in government custody.

"Censorship remains on the rise, and activists are increasingly cautious with their Internet activities and presence as people were tracked down and arrested for their tweets and Facebook messages.

"Our site has been censored in the country since the 17th of February merely for collecting information on the protests."

Now You

Are you Bahraini, Egyptian, Tunisian? What do you see in your present and future? What is the status of communications technology? What is its future in your country. If you've recently been in the country, or have heard from friends and family recently, please help add depth to our picture of the Arab Spring.

Stories fade from public view as the media (and that includes us) moves on to other issues. But this is such an epoch-making wave of change that we think it's important to keep on it and revisit it as we move forward. We need your help to do that.

Next time: Syria, Yemen, Morocco

Jasmine photo by Celeste Hutchins, Tunisia photo from BRQ, Tahrir and Bahrain photos via Al Jazeera.

Now, the United Nations has proclaimed that Internet access itself is a human right.

UN seal photo by Julian Rotela Rosow

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Last Friday, the United Nations released a report entitled "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

Its author, Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue, wrote:

"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states. Each State should thus develop a concrete and effective policy...to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of population."

Beyond simply stating that the Internet is a good idea and access is to be prepared, the statement insists on member states prioritizing it due to it being a human right.

"(This report emphasizes) the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also arange of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole."

So it is not, in itself, a human right. Rather, due to its importance in contemporary global society, it enables the realization of those rights - rights such as freedom of expression - and as such, must be maintained.

How this will play out with nations lacking in wealth and infrastructure is worth considering, especially in light of the rapporteur's definition of the Internet.

"(T)he Internet has two dimensions: access to online content, without any restrictions except in a few limited cases permitted under international human rights law; and the availability of the necessary infrastructure and information communication technologies, such as cables,modems, computers and software, to access the Internet in the first place."

My specialty, if I can be said to have one, is not international law. However, although this is not a binding document, so far as I know, the bully pulpit of the United Nations makes it impossible to ignore. Of course, many will ignore it, but it will now do so with a de facto admission of less than full membership in the family of nations.

And that is how it should be.

U.N. building photo by Steve Cadman | other sources: Los Angeles Times

Now, the United Nations has proclaimed that Internet access itself is a human right.

UN seal photo by Julian Rotela Rosow

Sponsor

Last Friday, the United Nations released a report entitled "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

Its author, Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue, wrote:

"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states. Each State should thus develop a concrete and effective policy...to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of population."

Beyond simply stating that the Internet is a good idea and access is to be prepared, the statement insists on member states prioritizing it due to it being a human right.

"(This report emphasizes) the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also arange of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole."

So it is not, in itself, a human right. Rather, due to its importance in contemporary global society, it enables the realization of those rights - rights such as freedom of expression - and as such, must be maintained.

How this will play out with nations lacking in wealth and infrastructure is worth considering, especially in light of the rapporteur's definition of the Internet.

"(T)he Internet has two dimensions: access to online content, without any restrictions except in a few limited cases permitted under international human rights law; and the availability of the necessary infrastructure and information communication technologies, such as cables,modems, computers and software, to access the Internet in the first place."

My specialty, if I can be said to have one, is not international law. However, although this is not a binding document, so far as I know, the bully pulpit of the United Nations makes it impossible to ignore. Of course, many will ignore it, but it will now do so with a de facto admission of less than full membership in the family of nations.

And that is how it should be.

U.N. building photo by Steve Cadman | other sources: Los Angeles Times

The election saw interim president Goodluck Jonathan elected for a full-term. Nigeria is not noteworthy for its repressive attitude to the Internet. In fact, Jonathan was the first presidential candidate anywhere to announce his candidacy on Facebook.

Update after the jump.

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The Internet and mobile block were electronic expressions of a more traditional military action. In Abuja, government forces were out in force, blocking roads and isolating the city, hoping to dissuade, ready to quell, violence.

Around 30 world leaders arrived for the inauguration.

As one Twitter user, @biodunolusesi, commented: "Abuja's just out of over 12 hrs of telecom/data lockdown! No phone, no Internet for the entire democracy day. Hello!"

Nigeria has seen political violence, especially as it surrounds the issues of the country's large oil deposits, environmental desolation around some of the drilling grounds and accused profiteering by the companies exploiting the resource and the government officials managing it.

Still, shutting down the Internet and mobile networks? It's a bad precedent.

***

Update: Doug Madory, an analyst at Renesys responded to our question:

So, unlike Egypt, Libya and Syria, Nigeria did not technically shut their Internet down in a global context. Effectively, though, it seems they did just that.

Abuja mosque photo by Shiraz Chakera, voting photo by Jeremy Weate | other sources: allAfrica

On May 14, a group of 75 Silicon Valley technologists, computer science students and others met at Stanford for a Cloud to Street hackathon designed to create tools Egyptian activists have requested.

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According to the post on Stanford's d.school blog, participants "included computer programmers, web designers and social scientists both from Stanford and Silicon Valley, as well as a number of Egyptian activists that joined in via videoconference" and two who attended in person.

This hackathon resulted in three workable prototypes.

"In addition to the constitutional crowdsourcing platform, the Hackathon produced a web platform to allow interested citizens to train themselves to monitor the September 2011 Parliamentary elections. The third was an interactive tool to inform Egyptian citizens about candidates for that election, and once they are elected, to inform Parliamentarians of their concerns and rate them on their efforts to delivers."

One of the attending activists, Ahmed Salah, reminded participants that the two qualities any successful tool created for democracy activists in Egypt need to be have are, they must be "free (since most activists are unemployed) and they need to be secure (to prevent people like him from being thrown in prison)."

According to We are all Khaled Said, Cloud to Street hopes to organize a second hackathon in the coming month, this one to be held in Cairo.