Pirate Party Members Arrested in Tunisia

[Guest Ethan]

A few Internet activists and Pirate Party members were arrested during the free speech protests in Tunisia. The event appeared to be part of the war over free speech.

During the Tunisian government crackdown on Internet dissent, a number of members of the Pirate Party, together with free speech activists, have been arrested. A few days ago, Al Jazeera profiled the Internet wars where a number of activists were hit with phishing websites, hacking and government censorship.

More than 100 blogs have been reported to fall under government's censorship last April, but only last week a number of activists were locked out of their Facebook and Gmail accounts. For the hijacking the Tunisian Internet Agency is blamed.

Head of Communications for Facebook said that the company wasn't censoring any content, nor they had been approached by the local authorities to do anything towards anyone.

Although some activists may be recovering their material, others fail do so. For example, an activist caught in the phishing campaign nicknamed Azyz Amamy told Al Jazeera that his Facebook and email accounts had been hijacked a week ago, but he managed to recover them both within 2 hours, after Gmail and Facebook responded to his request. However, this was because he had retained control of another email account with which both accounts were registered. Nevertheless, those 2 hours were enough for the government to get the login information for his 4 blogs from his email accounts and to remove all the content.

Meanwhile, the things have escalated, with a few of Pirate Party members and Internet activists being arrested. Regarding to this event Pirate Party International issued a press release. One of those arrested is blogger and activist Hamadi Kaloutcha, while the second one is rapper nicknamed "El General". The police for questioning arrested both of them. Three more graduate students and members of the Pirate Party of Tunisia were arrested later that day. Meanwhile, no formal arrest warrants have been filed against them.

Pirate Parties throughout the world condemned these actions against freedom of speech, and called upon governments take action against the country. Meanwhile, Party members are recommended to refrain from visiting Tunisia. Up to date, it is not clear how world governments will react to those events.

Source : ExtraTorrent