In the holiday paradise Vietnam, social media are allowed only to provide and exchange personal information. Bloggers and cyberdissidents who dare to question the government's legitimacy or domestic policies are ruthlessly suppressed. Political blogger Bui Thanh Hieu (1972) nevertheless uses the Internet to criticize politically hot topics, such as Vietnam's territorial claims within China as well as its handling of land disputes with the Catholic Church. In response to this, Hieu was arreste...

'State of Nature' and 'State of exception' have become the only two options for the people of Bangladesh recently, where writers, bloggers and publishers are getting killed by Al-Qaeda affiliates and persecuted by the Government. Empowerment of polarizations such as 'secular' verses 'Islamists' have also empowered the ruling regime and Islamist extremist groups. Severe censorship on all kind of media has suffocated freedom of expression. New public spheres that had emerged in the internet era...

Bisrat Woldemichael Handiso (1983) is an Ethiopian journalist who worked as an editor for different local newspapers. He was one of the founders of the Ethiopian Journalists Forum (EJF), an independent association made up of largely young journalists who advocate for greater press freedom in his country. In this function he ran trainig workshops and discussions on press freedom, visited journalist in prison and hospital and facilitated medical assistance for them. EJF was accused of being an ...