Bloggers work on U.S. image in the Middle East
WASHINGTON — Walid Jawad was tired of all the chatter on Middle Eastern blogs and Internet forums in praise of gory attacks carried out by the “noble resistance” in Iraq.
A page from the Web site Arabs Gate, one of the sites where a State Department blog team has contributed to the debate.
So Mr. Jawad, one of two Arabic-speaking members of what the State Department called its Digital Outreach Team, posted his own question: Why was it that many in the Arab world quickly condemned civilian Palestinian deaths but were mute about the endless killing of women and children by suicide bombers in Iraq?
Among those who responded was a man named Radad, evidently a Sunni Muslim, who wrote that many of the dead in Iraq were just Shiites and describing them in derogatory terms. But others who answered Mr. Jawad said that they, too, wondered why only Palestinian dead were “martyrs.”
The discussion tacked back and forth for four days, one of many such conversations prompted by scores of postings the State Department has made on about 70 Web sites since it put its two Arab-American Web monitors to work last November.
The postings, are an effort to take a more casual, varied approach to improving America’s image in the Muslim world.
- "At State Dept., Blog Team Joins Muslim Debate", New York Times (9/22/07)
accuse 14-year-old of terrorism:
!!Documentary Campaign!!!
Spanish authorities have prosecuted a child for terrorism! Incredible but true!
14-year-old Èric Bertran e-mailed companies requesting labeling in
Catalan language, using the "Phoenix" monicker from the Harry Potter
books. The Spanish police accused him of organizing an Al Qaeda cell.
The authorities took him all the way to the Spanish High Court.
From August 27 to September 2, we're getting the word out, through
blogs, press releases, and other media. Here's the idea: We want this
film about the Èric Bertran case to be seen as many times as possible
from September 3rd to 9th, so that it ends up ranking in the "most
watched" circuit.
Through this coordinated effort, with the help of new communications
and information technologies, we hope to get some international
coverage of this case, and the true deficit of democracy in the
Spanish State, as well as the fact that the Catalan people are now
demanding their right to define themselves as a sovereign nation.
The documentary has been uploaded to YouTube in five parts. Here's the
link to the first part of the video, for the purposes of the mass
viewing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIiRFSCgGu4
Read more about the bogus terrorism charge at: www.victoralexandre.cat
Juvenile Èric Bertran was prosecuted for demanding labelling in Catalan language, a right given to him by the Spanish Constitution. This is a democratic state within modern Europe?
Watch the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3666585673568780060&hl=en
Or, see the film in 5 parts on YouTube, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIiRFSCgGu4
There's even a play! http://www.ericielfenix.cat/