On June 8th, the World Information Access released its "Blogger Arrest Report," which indicated that 64 people around the globe have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog since 2003. The arrests were for blogging about various things, such as government corruption, human rights abuses, or criticizing public policies or officials. Many of the bloggers arrested were put in jail, with the average jail time being 15 months and the longest jail time 8 years. Over half of the arrests were made in China, Egypt and Iran. The report credits the increased importance and popularity in blogging for the increase, and predicts that the number of bloggers arrested would increase from the 36 arrests in 2007. The full story may be found at
http://www.wiareport.org/index.php/56/blogger-arrests