Handbook helps bloggers in danger

A campaign group has published a guide to help protect bloggers based in countries with tough media restrictions.

The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-dissidents, published by Reporters Without Borders, gives advice on how to blog anonymously and avoid censorship.

"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure," said the organisation on its website.

"Only bloggers provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest."

Reporters Without Borders also offers help on developing ethical and journalistic values.

Other groups claim that at least two dozen Iranian bloggers have been jailed as a result of the media clamp-down. It is estimated that there are some 46,000 bloggers in the country.

Reporters Without Borders said that countries trying to control what their citizens read and do online include China, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

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