Global Voices Online

In this post entitled Arabic, French or English: for “whom” the bell tolls? the Third Ijtihad talks about the use of languages in speaking with others.

Tunisian blogger Fatma Riahi, who blogs as Fatma Arabicca, has been charged with defamation on her own blog and is now being detained. A group has been formed on Facebook in support of the 34-year-old blogger, who is also being accused of blogging on Debat Tunise (Tunisia Debate).

Moroccan blogger Al Miraat posts a (fake) interview conducted with Tunisian president Ben Ali.

From Tunisia, Farhat Al Tunisi remarks [Ar]: “The similarity between the news on Tunisia that the occupying French media and Al Jazeera broadcast has reached a point which makes you think that our country is under French rule.”

Thanks to the efforts of Tunisian bloggers, Tweets about Tunisia are now being aggregated at BabTounes.

Tunisian blogger Sami ben Gharbia [Ar] traces the Tunisian President's reelection campaign site - which was set up in 2004 by a diplomat based in Washington DC. According to Fikra, this particular diplomat has around 80 domains related to Tunisia registered under his name.

Tunisia Watch [Fr], a blog monitoring freedom restrictions in the Maghreb with special focus on Tunisia, links to an open letter published by The Committee to Protect Journalists aimed at the king of Morocco urging him to reform media law and stop restrictions.

Sesawe's blog publishes an English translation of an article which appeared in France's Le Monde 2, entitled Censors of the Net, written by Claire Ulrich, which focuses on censorship, including that in Bahrain and Tunisia, to name a few.

Harvard University's Berkman Centre for Internet and Society has released a study of the Arabic blogosphere entitled Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere. About 35,000 active blogs were covered. “The goal for the study was to produce a baseline assessment of the networked public sphere in the Arab Middle East, and its relationship to a range of emergent issues, including politics, media, religion, culture, and international affairs,” announced the centre.