The number of arrested bloggers in the world reached the record level,
states the annual report of Washington University, indicating that the
ones criticizing the Government and revealing cases of human rights
violation are the most frequent targets.
Since 2003, 64 people have ended up behind bars just because they have published their criticism on blogs. More than half of them were arrested in China, Egypt and Iran. Compared to 2006, last year the number of arrests had increased threefold, mostly due to political reasons.
The cases of government corruption are among the most common reasons for imprisonment, as well as the cases of human rights violations or preventing protests from being organized. The increased number of arrests is proving the importance of the political role of blogs.
The average prison sentence for the arrested bloggers is 15 months whereas the longest one known to the public is 8 years.
It is assumed that the actual number of arrested bloggers is much bigger than the official one. The Committee to Protect Bloggers http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/ informed that 344 people in Burma who are believed to have their own blogs, have been arrested. However, this data has not been confirmed yet.
Source: On.net “Blogger hunt”
More information about the imprisonment of bloggers in Cuba, Egypt and Malaysia can be found on the Global Voices Online website.
