A Cuban blogger meet-up scheduled for December 6 is in danger of being cancelled by the authorities. The event, which has been in the planning stage for months and had 25 confirmed attendees, is being deemed “counterrevolutionary.” This is according to a recent conversation between officials from the Interior Ministry and one of the island's most well-known bloggers and Best of Blog winner Yoaní Sánchez of Generación Y [es].

Sánchez received a summons notice, which she photographed and published on her blog, for her to appear at a local police station. Her appointment with government officials took place last Wednesday, and immediately following the event, she posted about the details:

El encuentro es breve y el tono enérgico. Somos tres en la oficina y el que lleva la voz cantante se ha presentado como el agente Roque. A mi lado, otro más joven, me observa y dice que se llama Camilo. Ambos me anuncian que pertenecen al Ministerio del Interior. No están interesados en escuchar, hay un guión escrito sobre la mesa y nada que yo haga los distraerá. Son profesionales de la intimidación.

El tema me lo esperaba: estamos cerca de la fecha para el encuentro de blogger que, sin secretismo ni publicidad, hemos estado organizando desde medio año y ellos me anuncian que tenemos que suspenderlo. Media hora después, cuando ya estábamos lejos de los uniformes y de las fotos de líderes en las paredes, reconstruimos aproximadamente sus palabras:

“Queremos advertirle que usted ha transgredido todos los límites de tolerancia con su acercamiento y contacto con elementos de la contrarrevolución.Eso la descalifica totalmente para dialogar con las autoridades cubanas.

La actividad prevista para los próximos días no puede ser realizada.

Nosotros, por nuestra parte, tomaremos todas las medidas y haremos las denuncias pertinentes y las acciones necesarias. Esta actividad, en los momentos que vive la Nación, de recuperación de dos huracanes, no será permitida.”

The encounter is brief, the tone energized. There are three of us in the office, and the one with the singer’s voice introduces himself as Agent Roque. At my side, the younger one watches and says his name is Camilo. They announce that they are with the Interior Ministry. They are not interested in listening. There is a script on the table and nothing will distract them. They are professionals of intimidation.

The subject I expected: we are approaching the date of the blogger meetup we have been organizing, with neither secrecy nor publicity, for the past six months and which they proclaim must be cancelled. About a half hour later, when we were away from uniforms and photos of leaders on the walls, we tried to reconstruct what was said.

“We want to advise you that you have transgressed the limits of tolerance in your closeness and contact with elements of the counterrevolution. This disqualifies you totally to conduct dialogue with Cuban authorities.

The activity scheduled for the next few days cannot take place.

We, for our part, will take all measures and will lodge the pertinent charges and take the necessary actions. This event- in these moments which the nation is living, recuperating from two hurricanes- will not be permitted.”

(translation of Sánchez' post by Babalú blog)

Sánchez was not the only blogger to be summoned by government officials. Claudia Cadelo of Octavo Cerco [es] also received an unexpected visit by the police. She writes about the surprise in her post titled “Me too!,” where she also posts a photo of the summons:

Con Reinaldo Escobar en el teléfono, aún sin conexión, y enterándome por él de todo lo ocurrido, no tuve tiempo a expresar mi frustración ante la anulación de nuestro primer encuentro de bloggers, pues en ese mismo momento un policía tocó a mi puerta para entregarme mi respectiva citación:

Presentarse mañana en la estación de policía de Zapata y C a las 2 pm.

With Reinaldo Escobar (Yoaní Sánchez' husband) on the telephone, and still without connection and learning about everything that happened, I did not have time to express my frustration for the cancellation of our first blogger meet-up, and in that very moment a police officer knocked on my door to hand me my own citation:

Present yourself at the police station at Zapata and C at 2 pm.

Cadelo posted a photo of herself holding the summons, smiling, flashing a peace sign and a sign in the background ironically saying “I Love Minint” (Ministry of the Interior). The image drew the attention of Enrisco del Risco, who sees the photo as a sign that “times are changing” and writes [es]:

La sonrisa y el orgullo con que enarbola un papel que cada vez da menos miedo. El desafío y la complicidad. Y ese cartel al fondo que lo dice todo diciendo lo contrario con una gracia reservada para cosas menos serias. Los tiempos cambian porque ella sabe que no está sola, que ahora mismo mirando esa foto –con un punto de angustia, es cierto- estamos todos nosotros.

The smile and the pride that lifts her role and provides less and less fear. The challenge and the complicity. The sign in the background tells all and the opposite with a humor reserved for less serious things. The times are changing because she knows that she is not alone, that right now looking at that photo - certainly with a bit of distress - are all of us.

In spite of the warnings from government officials, Sánchez says that the meet-up will go on as planned. In a recent AFP news article [es], Sánchez writes that these types of intimidation tactics by the government only draws more attention to her blog and an increase in traffic. She also thinks that the summons was excessive since the meet-up was not political in nature, and that the bloggers was an informational gathering to learn about techniques and share experiences.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/96766?ns=guardianpageName=UK+news%3A+De+Menezes+family+mounts+silent+protest+in+front+of+inquest+jurych=UK+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Jean+Charles+de+Menezes%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CUK+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Sandra+Lavillec7=2008_12_05c8=1129138c9=articlec10=GUc11=UK+newsc12=Jean+Charles+de+Menezesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FUK+news%2FJean+Charles+de+Menezes" width="1" height="1" //divpRelatives of Jean Charles de Menezes stood before his inquest jury in protest yesterday wearing T-shirts saying: "Unlawful killing, your legal right to decide."/ppOn the day the jury were sent out to consider their verdict after 35 days of evidence about the fatal shooting of De Menezes by police, the dead man's cousins withdrew from the hearing./ppEarlier this week the coroner, Sir Michael Wright, told the jury he was not going to allow them to consider unlawful killing as one of their verdict options. He said unlawful killing was tantamount to accusing an individual or individuals of murder or manslaughter and was not a verdict that would be available to them./ppHe also said it was not available should they consider that the death occurred as a result of a series of decisions and mistaken beliefs on the part of the Metropolitan police as an organisation. He left the jury with two verdicts to consider: lawful killing and an open verdict. /ppWright told the jurors just as they sat down yesterday that lawyers for the De Menezes family would no longer be present at the hearing. "You will notice Mr Mansfield and Miss Hill and their instructing solicitors are no longer in their places," Wright said. /pp"The evidence and legal submissions are now all over and we have all had their assistance throughout these very important stages. But I understand that from this point they will no longer be here. There's absolutely no difficulty about that. No disrespect is meant by it to anyone."/ppSeconds later Vivian Menezes Figueiredo, Alessandro Pereira, Patricia da Silva Armani and Erionaldo da Silva stood up and removed their coats to unveil their T-shirts. They walked slowly and in silence from their seats at the back of the courtroom towards the jury. Standing in line, they waited 30 seconds in full view of the jury before filing out of the court. /ppThere was no response from the jury or coroner, who quickly resumed his summing up of the evidence to the jury./ppHe spoke of the differing accounts from police officers and members of the public over whether police had warned De Menezes before he was shot./ppWright said C12, the specialist firearms officer who fired the first fatal shot, had given evidence that he had shouted "armed police"./pp"C12 asserts positively that he did. C2 [the second firearms officer] does not claim to have shouted anything, neither did he hear anyone else./pp"C5 remembers hearing more than one shout of 'armed police'./pp"No other civilian in the carriage hears C12 shouting anything."/ppIn his legal ruling to the jury, the coroner said they must dismiss unlawful killing as an option and consider first a verdict of lawful killing. To find that De Menezes was lawfully killed the answer to two questions had to be yes. /ppWas there an honest belief, albeit mistaken, that he represented an immediate mortal danger and threat?/ppWas the force used no more than was reasonable in the circumstances?/ppWright said that if the answer to these questions was no they should record an open verdict. /ppThe jury retired yesterday at 2.39pm to consider their verdict. The inquest comes after two inquiries by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and a criminal trial at which the Met was found guilty of breaching health and safety laws in regard to the Brazilian's death. /ppDe Menezes was killed with seven shots to the head and one to the shoulder by police who mistook him for the terrorist suspect Hussain Osman./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/menezes"Jean Charles de Menezes/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8lzyZ_qWDh6jC5YE18YonyVLtdE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8lzyZ_qWDh6jC5YE18YonyVLtdE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/8513?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+17+judges%2C+one+ruling+-+and+857%2C000+records+must+be+now+wiped+clearch=Politicsc3=The+Guardianc4=DNA+database+%28Politics%29%2CCivil+liberties%2CPrivacy%2CCriminal+justice+%28politics%29%2CCrime+-+UK+%28News%29%2CUK+news%2CPolitics%2CPolice+%28politics%29c5=Unclassified%2CPolicy+Society%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Alan+Travisc7=2008_12_05c8=1129220c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=DNA+databasec13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FDNA+database" width="1" height="1" //divpThe fingerprints and DNA samples of more than 857,000 innocent citizens who have been arrested or charged but never convicted of a criminal offence now face deletion from the national DNA database after a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights in Strasbourg./ppIn one of their most strongly worded judgments in recent years, the unanimous ruling from the 17 judges, including a British judge, Nicolas Bratza, condemned the "blanket and indiscriminate" nature of the powers given to the police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to retain the DNA samples and fingerprints of suspects who have been released or cleared./ppThe judges were highly critical of the fact that the DNA samples could be retained without time limit and regardless of the seriousness of the offence, or the age of the suspect./ppThe court said there was a particular risk that innocent people would be stigmatised because they were being treated in the same way as convicted criminals. The judges added that the fact DNA profiles could be used to identify family relationships between individuals, meant its indefinite retention also amounted to an interference with their right to respect for their private lives under the human rights convention./ppThe case provoked an expression of disappointment from the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and the promise that a working party, including senior police officials, will report back to Strasbourg by next March on how the government will comply with the judgement./pp"The government mounted a robust defence before the court and I strongly believe DNA and fingerprints play an invaluable role in fighting crime and bringing people to justice. The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgement."/ppIt is thought that the policy in Scotland, where DNA samples can only be held for a maximum of five years and only in serious violent and sexual cases, even if the suspect was not convicted, will be the first option to be looked at./ppThe Strasbourg court ruling came in a case brought by two Sheffield men who asked for their DNA records to be destroyed. The first man, Michael Marper, aged 45, was arrested in 2001 and charged with harassing his partner, but the case was dropped three months later after the couple were reconciled. He had no previous convictions. /ppIn the second case, a 19-year-old named only in court as S was arrested and charged with attempted robbery in January 2001 when he was 12, but was cleared five months later. /ppBoth asked the South Yorkshire police to remove and destroy their DNA samples and profiles and fingerprints. But police said they needed to retain them "to aid criminal investigation"./ppTheir lawyer, Peter Mahy, said last night: "This is a fantastic result after a seven-year hard fought battle against the UK government . We are obviously delighted that the European court of human rights found in our clients' favour. It will be very interesting to see how the government respond - they should start immediately to destroy the DNA records of innocent people on the DNA database. "/ppThe ruling will have a major impact in shaping the future development of the DNA database in Britain and its use across Europe. Set up in 1995, the British DNA database which now holds the samples of 4.3 million individuals in Britain, including children, is already proportionately the largest in the world. /ppThe Home Office acknowledged yesterday that its plans to extend the retention of DNA to low level, so-called non-recordable offences, including littering and minor traffic offences were now dead in the water. /ppTony Bunyan of Statewatch, the European civil liberties monitoring group, also said it put a question mark over EU plans to share fingerprint and DNA data across the 27 member states./ppThe Association of Chief Police Officers said the ruling would have profound impact on their use of DNA technology. They pointed out that over a four-year period from May 2001, 200,000 DNA samples taken from unconvicted suspects, had led to 8,500 individuals being linked with 14,000 offences including 114 murders and 116 rapes./ppBut Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "This is one of the most strongly worded judgements that Liberty has ever seen from the court of human rights. The court has used human rights principles and common sense to deliver the privacy protection of innocent people that the British government has shamefully failed to deliver."/ppThe Equality and Human Rights Commission said it welcomed the judgement and would work with the Home Office and the police to ensure the implications of the ruling were implemented./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/dna-database"DNA database/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/civilliberties"Civil liberties/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/privacy"Privacy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/justice"Criminal justice/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/ukcrime"Crime/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/police"Police/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4UKhRguM-yB7MKwhwsSdrYovHoU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4UKhRguM-yB7MKwhwsSdrYovHoU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Egypt is gripped with the story of a gruesome murder, in which two university students were killed, in the upscale Sixth of October City’s Sheikh Zayed district. One of the victims is the daughter of Moroccan singer Laila Ghofran.

This murder follows in the heels of yet another horrifying crime which claimed the life of Lebanese singer Suzanne Tameem, in Dubai, and in which an Egyptian businessman is accused of hiring a hitman to have her killed.

“Two girls were brutally killed in 6th of October city … But it became the talk of town because one of the victims is the daughter of 3rd degree Moroccan singer called Laila Ghofran,” writes Egyptian Chronicles.

And to make the incident more interesting to the readers, some papers started to spread rumors about the victims' lifestyle.

Taboohat writes about how the media and society as a whole are dealing with the murder:

كنت اعدة امام التليÙزيون Ùرض عليا من امي وجدتي مشاهدة البيت بيتك
واللي كانت مستضي٠اللواء معرÙØ´ مين رئيس مباحث 6 أكثوبر
واللي اعد يحكي علي الدلائل المؤكده اللي Ù…Ùيش حاجة منها مؤكد واللي برضوا انا مش مهتمة بيها هنا
بس بجد اللي صدمني او وخضني هو انهاء الÙقرة بتليÙون من والد نادين واللي عمل حوار اد كده صدام
نبدأ والد ناين بالسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبراكاته
وحشر ÙÙŠ النص حلÙان برب الكعبة والصلاة علي النبي والحمد والشكر لوزارة الداخلية ليه عشان اثبتوا براءة وشر٠بنته
…
للحظة نسيت ان البنت اتقتلت وحسيت انهم بيدورا لها علي عريس
واÙتكرت تاني اما اكمل السيد اللواء ان الطبيب الشرعي اثبت انها بيت بنوت وان كل اصدقاء الاب كانوا بيبركوله ويهنئوا امام النيابة …
بنته طلعت عزراء بجد ..
… ملعون ابوا ده مجتمع اللي خلي كل اللي Ùارق مع اب بينتوا اتقتلت من اسبوع ان بيتوا طلعت عزراء
وملعون ابوا ده مجتمع اللي حيÙضل يحاسب البنات علي عزريتها وهي عايشة وهي ميتة
مش مهم انها اتقلت.. المهم انها عزراء I was watching “El Beit Beitak” talkshow on the television with my mother and grandmother, and they were hosting some police officer who was talking about the crime, but what really grabbed my attention was the conversation he had on the phone with the parent of one of the victims - Nadine - who after saluting the audiences started to swear in the name of God that his daughter was innocent and that she was living alone and thanked the Ministry of Interior because they have proved that she was virgin.
And for a moment I forgot that the girl was murdered and thought that they were looking for a groom for her, especially when the officer said that the medical examiner has proved that the girl was virgin, and then all those who knew the victim's parents congratulated them because their daughter is now officially a virgin.
Damn such a society that makes a parent of girl who has just been murdered less than one week ago to care to prove that his daughter was virgin.
Damn such a society that punishes girls based on their virginity, whether they are alive or dead.
It's not important that she has been brutally killed, it's only important that she is still virgin.

Sunni militants kill 13 police officers captured in south-eastern Iran in June, says authorities.

Sunni militants kill 13 police officers captured in south-eastern Iran in June, says authorities.

psmallEmma Hughes a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/"the Inquirer/a, Thursday 4 December 2008. 13:15:00/small/ppi Facebook activist unfairly detained /i/ppCROATIAN POLICE officers swallowed their pride yesterday and apologised for detaining a web activist who put up posters calling for an anti-government rally – although the authorities denied any political motivation for the act. The detained man was part of a 80,000 member group on social notworking site Facebook..../pimg width='1' height='1' src='http://feeds.theinquirer.net/c/554/f/7127/s/27faf54/mf.gif' border='0'/div class='mf-viral'table border='0'trtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=Croatia's police say sorrylink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/04/croatia-police-say-sorry" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif" border="0" //a/tdtd valign='middle'a href="http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=Croatia's police say sorrylink=http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/12/04/croatia-police-say-sorry" target="_blank"img src="http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif" border="0" //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853579181/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41922388/a2.htm"img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/25853579181/u/89/f/7127/c/554/s/41922388/a2.img" border="0"//a

h4PC Power grab put on hold/h4 pstrongComment/strong Today’s revelation that the police raid on the offices of Damian Green, MP, had been carried out without a full warrant may yet return to haunt the police officers who authorised it..../p

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at the entrance of an Afghan intelligence headquarters Thursday, killing at least one police officer, officials said.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Suicide bombers killed at least two police when they attacked two government offices in the southeastern Afghan town of Khost Thursday, a police officer said.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=ZX4VSldW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=xaHP6dvB"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=xaHP6dvB" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.reuters.com/~f/reuters/topNews?a=lhNXLevN"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/reuters/topNews?i=lhNXLevN" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reuters/topNews/~4/YLgMii5gE1U" height="1" width="1"/

A police officer filmed last year striking a black woman outside a nightclub died on Snowdon after taking sleeping tablets, an inquest was told.