More than 70 Iranian university graduates and academics are calling for the release of Hamed Saber, an Iranian photo-blogger and computer scientist who was arrested for unspecified reasons on 21 June 2010 in Tehra. A friend has informed us that it was the first time Hamed was arrested. The same source said several of Hamed's photos of the Iranian protest movement have been published in foreign magazines without his knowledge.

Hamed is also the developer of Access Flickr, a Firefox internet browser extension that bypasses filters on the photo-sharing website Flickr in Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China and other locations where it is banned.

There is an Iranian language campaign at Free Hamed Saber

The authorities in the UAE are making very public noises about RIM's BlackBerry smartphones. Apparently they're a threat to national security.

The United Arab Emirates Telecommunications Regulatory Authority noted that BlackBerrys operate beyond national jurisdiction because their core mechanism for delivering email is operated and managed by a non-Dubai company. The main concern is simple: In their current form BlackBerrys enable all sorts of communications tricks that could have serious social, judicial and national security repercussions.

Data from BlackBerrys in UAE goes through RIM computers in the United Kingdom. That is so RIM can compress the data to speed up transfers and so that RIM can bundle it to lower the impact on battery life, and so that RIM can encrypt and secure the data for corporate management reasons.

The TRA also had a veiled threat in these statements--the words current form in particular imply that the TRA may force RIM to modify its hardware or software in the future.

Israeli police have ordered all ISPs to block access in a number of gambling sites, most of them abroad, which are suspected to be owned by Israelis:

• victorchandler.com
• keshcard.com
• stanjames.com
• thespinroom.com.

The police instructed Israeli ISPs to block the IP addresses of relevant sites and asked to respond within 48 hours. But the ISPs argued their lack of actual ability to block IP addresses and lack of authority for such blocking.

The police battle against gambling is ongoing Three weeks ago, 28 people were arrested in connection with two major sites: victorchandler.com and stanjames.com. This was in suspicion of distributing prepaid cards worth tens of millions of NIS for gambling on the websites. The need to use alternative paying cards came after the 2007 block on payments to gambling companies instigated by the credit card companies under police orders.

Behind this campaign of eradication of 'illegal gambling', is the protection of the official monopoly on 'legal' gambling  for Winner-Toto and the National Lottery.

Over 2,000 protesters marched in Turkey's largest city Istanbul against strict internet censorship in the country.

The protesters were demanding that a law preventing access to over 5,000 internet sites banned in Turkey be repealed.

They chanted slogans for removing the ban on video-sharing website YouTube and against the transportation minister, whose ministry is responsible for website bans, Xinhua reported.

Don't touch the internet, pull away your hand, the protesters shouted.

The protest was organised by the Common Platform Against Internet Censorship, a platform of over 50 organisations.

There was always dissatisfaction with internet censorship, but this was the first time people poured out into the streets, Ozgur Uckan of Bilgi University, one of the organisers of the rally, said.

Lebanon's president, Michel Sleiman, may have more than 60,000 Facebook fans, but it took the opinions of just three people for things to get unfriendly. The three  were arrested for allegedly defaming the president on the social networking website.

There is currently no specific law governing the publication of online content in Lebanon. People can – and do – say what they want across a variety of networking sites. However, it is a crime to criticise the president of the republic, as his position supposedly represents the entire country. Knock Sleiman and you knock Lebanon.

The barbs, some of which were reposted on Sleiman's official page, were not particularly caustic. You're worth my foot, as one commenter wrote, is hardly a fierce indictment of Sleiman's presidency. Similarly, you're like a snake; all you do is from under the table, should not ruffle a man hardened by a career spent in the Lebanese army. If these are the worst jibes he has to endure, Sleiman can consider his political life charmed. The accusation that Sleiman was the king of racism and sectarianism probably grated harder.

The three young men have now been charged but released on bail.

The arrests are the first to be linked to online comments and while it was a state prosecutor who initiated the judicial proceedings, the president has been kept abreast of all developments. Sleiman, who after all has the power of pardon, said he could not allow such comments to go unpunished, labelling them an abuse of freedom.

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned a decision by Turkey's Radio and TV Supreme Council (RTÜK) to ban the privately-owned TV station Habertürk from broadcasting one of its regular One on One discussion programs next month as a punishment for comments about the 1915 Armenian Genocide made by a guest on one of the previous programs.

The offending program, a debate between Yusuf Halaçoglu, the former president of the Turkish Institute of History (TTK) and Sevan Nisanyan, a journalist of Armenian origin, was broadcast on March 9, just a few days after the US House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide. It was Nisanyan's comments that upset the RTÜK.

The RTÜK told Habertürk it cannot broadcast the One on One program scheduled for 13 July and will instead have to broadcast messages chosen by the RTÜK.

Reporters Without Borders said it regarded this disproportionate punishment as censorship pure and simple and called on the RTÜK to rescind the decision. Free expression must prevail even when there are opposing opinions on sensitive issues, the press freedom organization said. It is part of the duties of journalists to organize debates in which different views are aired.

With the Syrian government poised to issue a new law on internet publishing, civil society groups, website administrators and journalists are hoping for increased legal rights but fear they will be straitjacketed by tight restrictions.

For the past two years, the Syrian authorities have been designing regulations to cover domestic internet news, which has long been operating in a legislative limbo. The absence of rules allowed dozens of independent websites to spring up between 2003 and 2005, and they quickly became a highly popular alternative to traditional state-run media.

Characterised by a to-the-point modern writing style and a willingness to publish what had previously been considered unpublishable, including criticism of government policies, personalities and gossip, the sites grew in number and influence.

That brought with it greater official scrutiny, however, and, as the authorities struggled to keep up with internet development, new forms of ad-hoc control were introduced. The telecommunications ministry increasingly blocked sites and web administrators complained of being told to take down stories that touched on sensitive issues.

In the absence of a legal framework, the websites had no way of contesting increasing censorship or knowing what was and was not permitted. Faced with such difficulties, some news sites voluntarily closed, some moved abroad – to publish without restrictions – and others considerably watered down their coverage.

No details of the e-publishing law have been formally released yet though.

The French satellite operator, Eutelsat, should share any policies and procedures it has in place explicitly to safeguard freedom of expression when dealing with governments that systematically engage in censorship, Human Rights Watch said. It should also explain its decision to suspend certain Persian-language programming from its most popular satellite after Iranian authorities began jamming its signals earlier this year.

In a letter sent to Eutelsat on June 25, 2010, Human Rights Watch repeated its requests for more information regarding the company's efforts to counter Iran's jamming of satellite signals carrying Persian-language broadcasts from BBC Persian TV and Voice of America. Human Rights Watch sent an initial letter to Eutelsat on February 8 asking the company to explain its decision to suspend the programs from its popular Hotbird 6 satellite.

A follow-up letter with additional questions, including a request for information regarding Eutelsat policies and procedures in place to protect freedom of information, was sent to Eutelsat on March 17.