The Southland Times reports, ‘Pupils join protest to support human rights’ -
Southland Girls’ High School pupil Charlotte Leask signing a gumboot to symbolise Amnesty International’s “Give Google the Boot” protest.
Girls’ High joined activists nationwide in a protest to defend human rights in cyberspace as part of this year’s Amnesty International Freedom Challenge.
Last year Google launched a self-censoring Chinese search engine, which affects Chinese users by restricting search results for topics such as human rights and political reform.
These restrictions go against the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, which guarantees freedom of expression, Amnesty International says.
The school’s challenge aims to free Chinese journalist Shi Tao and Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer who are in jail for simple internet activities.
Tao is serving a 10-year sentence for sending an e-mail containing information on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. While Amer, a student activist, is serving four years for writing a blog criticising his university and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Students raise funds, from The Timaru Herald -
Julia said the campaign was about shutting down repression and rebooting human rights. This year’s theme was internet repression and working to end the restriction of freedom of expression on the internet.
She said it was based on Kareem Amer, who was imprisoned for blogging his thoughts on the government and journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in 2004 for posting information on the web instructing fellow journalists how to handle media coverage of Tiananmen Square.
Roncalli students fighting for freedomAll of these students did a great job in this wonderful opportunity to voice their concerns for innocent victims like Kareem and Shi Tao. We at the Free Kareem Coalition truly appreciate it and strongly encourage other students in the world to take their lead and support the battle for human rights and free speech.
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