In Iran, the blogger Sattar Beheshti died in unknown circumstances following his arrest on 31 October 2012. The available information suggests that he died from blows received during interrogation. No one has been arrested for his death.

In Bangladesh, the blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was hacked to death near his home in the capital, Dhaka, on 15 February 2013.

In Pakistan, the 14-year-old blogger Malala Yousufzai only narrowly survived being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen on 9 October 2012.

Mass arrests

About 180 netizens are currently detained in connection with their provision of news and information. The world’s five biggest prisons for netizens are China (with 69 detained), Oman (32), Vietnam (31), Iran (20) and Syria (18).

Mass arrests and raids on news outlets have taken place not only in Syria but also in the Sultanate of Oman and in Iran, on “Black Sunday”. In Sri Lanka, nine employees of the online newspaper Sri Lanka Mirror were arrested in a raid in July 2012.

Vietnam continues to arrest netizens and give them long prison sentences. The well-known blogger Dieu Cay got 12 years. In China, Tibetan monks are jailed for trying to inform the outside world about the many cases of self-immolation. Azerbaijan goes after bloggers who stray from the official line.

The conditions in which netizens are imprisoned are often appalling and mistreatment is frequent. Some detainees, especially in Iran, are denied the medical treatment they need and risk dying in detention.

Threats and violence

Nineteen bloggers were openly threatened on Islamist websites and at demonstrations in Bangladesh in February 2013 in connection with the trial of several former leaders of Islamist parties including Jaamat-e-Islami on war crimes charges.

The “Courage for Tamaulipas” Facebook page, which covers organized crime violence in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, angered drug traffickers, who are offering 600,000 pesos ($46,000) to anyone who could identify the page’s editor or the editor’s family.

Ruy Salgado, a Mexican blogger who ran El Santuario, a website famous for its coverage of corruption, gave up his online activities because of the threats he was getting.

The families of netizens, especially those who are detained, are often subject to harassment, pressure and threats. This is the case in Iran, especially for the families of Iranian journalists and bloggers who are based abroad, and in Vietnam.

Imprisoned Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan, the creator of the “Justice and Truth” blog, suffered a additional blow last July when her mother took her own life by setting herself on fire outside the headquarters of the People’s Committee in Bac Lieu, Tan’s home province, in an act of despair about the way Tan was being treated. Tan is now serving a 10-year jail sentence.

Trial of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning

US Army Private Bradley Manning confessed before a court martial on 28 February 2013 that he passed military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks, including US embassy cables, the files of Guantanamo detainees and videos of air strikes in which civilians were killed, in particular the “Collateral Murder” video that showed a US helicopter crew killing Reuters journalists.

He said his motive was to enlighten the public about what goes on and to “spark a debate about foreign policy.” He explained that he initially tried to give the files to the New York Times andWashington Post but could not find anyone who seemed interested. He also claimed that he chose the material with care in order to ensure that it would not cause any harm.

Manning is facing up to 20 years in prison. Many NGOs have criticized the conditions in which he was being held as humiliating.

DataCell, a company that collected donations for WikiLeaks, meanwhile complained to the European Commission about Visa Europe, MasterCard Europe and American Express after they stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks in December 2010. In a preliminary decision in November 2012, the commission said a block on processing donations for his organisation by credit card companies was unlikely to have violated EU anti-trust rules.