Evil Regimes Continue To Fight The Internet

Read this chilling story about the apparent proliferation of internet journalists arrested by authoritarian regimes:

Nearly one-third of journalists now serving time in prisons around the world published their work on the Internet, the second-largest category behind print journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an analysis released Thursday.

For the second year in a row, CPJ's annual survey found the total number of journalists in jail worldwide has increased. There were 134 reporters, editors and photographers incarcerated as of Dec. 1, nine more than a year ago.

Among the 24 nations that have imprisoned reporters, China topped the list for the eighth consecutive year with 31 journalists behind bars - 19 of them Internet journalists.

Cuba was second with 24 reporters in prison. Nearly all of them had filed their reports to overseas-based Web sites.

As technology advances, it's only going to become more difficult for these regimes to control the dispersal of information.  It almost becomes a fool's errand.  Still, it's disturbing to observe their frantic attempts to silence dissent.  At some point they may have to make a choice:  concede that they can't keep up with the technology or impose a digital divide where only the governing class has access to certain technologies.  It's a catch-22.  If the regimes take the former path, they will most assuredly lose their grip over their citizens but will see their economies boom because of the unleashed creativity and freedom.  If the regimes take the latter path, their nations will continue to fall further behind the rest of the modern world and exist in a self-imposed state of comparative primitivism (i.e., North Korea).  

Those of us who actually host blogs or just enjoy reading those written by others should be forever thankful that we can do so without fear of having the door kicked in by government goon squads seeking to haul us away during the dead of night.  Our freedom of speech is something that we certainly take for granted.  It would serve us well to remember this whenever we post or happily peruse the posts of others.