Bassel Khartabil wins Index on Censorship Digital Freedom Award

Imprisoned internet pioneer Bassel Khartabil wins Index on Censorship
Digital Freedom Award

Palestinian-born Syrian software engineer Bassel Khartabil is the winner of
this year's Index on Censorship Digital Freedom Award, sponsored by Google.
Khartabil is a free internet pioneer who has spent his career advancing
open source technologies. On March 15, 2012, he was illegally imprisoned in
Syria. His family were given no official information about why or where he
was detained but have since learnt that he is being held at the security
branch of Kafer Sousa, Damascus.

Index CEO Kirsty Hughes said, "Following courageous and peaceful protests
in 2011, Syria descended into violence with appalling attacks on civilians
across the country - and with over 60,000 people killed over the last two
years. Up until his arrest last March, Bassel Khartabil bravely continued
to work for a cause he passionately believes in – an open and free internet
that is available to all. In a country torn apart by violence, he is a
brave advocate for peaceful change."

Bassel's friend Dana Trometer, who is collecting the Index award on his
behalf said, "Bassel deserves to be out of jail celebrating his real
freedom and digital freedom. On this Mother's day in most of the Arab
World, and as a mother myself, my heart goes out to Bassel's Mom. Bassel is
a kind and gentle friend. A loving husband and son. He did not fear being
targeted as he knew his love for Syria would save him from being persecuted
by the authorities. Bassel is aware of this award and he would like to
thank the judges and audience for trusting him with such an honour. He
would also like to pay respect to all the victims of the struggle for
freedom of speech, and, especially for those non-violent youths who refused
to carry arms and deserve all the credit for this award."

Another close friend of Bassel's, Jon Phillips, stated, "Lock-up,
Lock-out fails. Locking-up Bassel, only locks-out his personal freedom. By
locking-up Bassel, his Syrian captors are accidentally locking-out
themselves from the future. From launching Creative Commons Syria, building
the Arabic Wikipedia and bringing Internet leaders to Syria, he knew that
his free participation in global web communities required concrete
contributions locally. For these acts would make Syria a better place. One
year later, Bassel is under harsh lock-down. Now, thousands of people that
Bassel's work helped, now help him by spreading the message
#FREEBASSEL <#>. This is what truly builds Syria and connects it to the
global connected future. This award proves that his lock-up, is NOT a
lock-out of his digital freedom."

Bassel is known worldwide for his strong commitment to the open web,
teaching others about technology, and contributing his experience freely to
help the world. Bassel is the inventor of an open source software that
powers the Open Clip Art Library. He is an original contributor to the
Arabic Wikipedia and launched Creative Commons Syria. He is well known in
online technical communities as a dedicated volunteer to major Internet
projects like Creative Commons, Mozilla Firefox, Wikipedia, Open Clip Art
Library, and Fabricatorz.

For more information

For more information about Index and the Index awards, please visit:
www.indexoncensorship.org or contact Pam Cowburn: pam@indexoncensorship.org,
07749785932.

For more information about the Free Bassel campaign, please visit:
http://freebassel.org/ or contact Dana and Jon at info@freebassel.org.

Image of Bassel Khartabil:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonphillips/8578066454/

More images of FREEBASSEL:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=freebassel

Blog posts

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/37612

https://fabricatorz.com/2013/03/bassel-khartabil-wins-ind...



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Jon Phillips ✳ http://fabricatorz.com ✳ skype: kidproto ✳ irc: rejon
+1.415.830.3884 (global) ✳ +86-187-1003-9974 (beijing)
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