Wikileaks boss Julian Assange arrested in London. Assange was arrested on outstanding rape and sexual assault charges from Sweden. Should Assange prove guilty of assaulting a woman in that country, it will put a severe ding in the public face of Wikileaks, an organization that seems highly centralized on and by Assange.
Should the prosecution prove inspired by pressure by the U.S. and others embarrassed by the release of diplomatic cables, it will probably give the organization a huge boost in credibility and justify the “infowar” in which many of his supporters fancy themselves soldiers.
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His arrest has inspired a raft of digital vigilante attacks against companies that have dissociated themselves from Assange’s organization and even a possible threat against a group opposed to DDOS attacks.
Read a comprehensive listing of ReadWriteWeb stories on Wikileaks or a turn-by-turn recounting of recent events.
Iranian web dev sentenced to death. Iranian born Canadian resident Saeed Malekpour was sentenced to death Saturday for “Internet offenses.” These included such charges as “taking action against national security by designing and moderating adult content websites,” as well as “agitation against the regime” and “insulting the sanctity of Islam.”
Derakshan freed on bail. Hossein Derakhshan, also known as “Hoder” and “the blogfather” was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison in Iran for…well, who knows? Probably insulted Islam somehow or other. He is also Iranian-Canadian. He was a critic of the regime, visited Israel, then became a proponent of the regime, for all the good it did him. He was released, temporarily, on $1.5 million bail this week.
“Derakhshan’s family is immensely happy to see him released and hopes that the upcoming appeals court ruling could keep him from returning to prison.”
Hamed Saber released. Photographer, Flickr-user, developer of a Flickr circumvention plugin Hamed was released this week after being arrested. The rationale behind the arrest was never stated. Perhaps it was the plugin, perhaps the photos he took of the election distress and the fact he shared them on Flickr.
Government blocks “Tunileaks” site.
“The Tunisian government, known for its restriction on freedom of expression, rapidly blocked the access to Tunileaks. They first blocked http://tunileaks.appspot.com/ (without the https). One day later, they blocked Google App Engine’s IP address (209.85.229.141) in order to block Tunileaks under https, making appspot.com partially unavailable in the country.”
Assange photo by New Media Days | green sun photo by Hamed Saber
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