Hblog: Human rights blogging

Saddam's Cyber Palace and Where is Read? are both excellent blogs about Iraq. The latter is written by Salam Pax who lives in Iraq and has been writing since late 2002.

This in the preface to the book: 'In the build-up to the invasion, thousands of people visited Salam's website every day, hooked on his uninhibited and grimly compelling account of the slide into war - and the last days of a long dictatorship.'

Could we do this in Zimbabwe? I want to try. Will be running a half day seminar in Harare next year for interested human rights activists and the poor journos who lost jobs when independent media were banned in the country. The Blogger crew have kindly offered to host us :)

I only wonder whether it would work in Zimbabwe when there is so little international attention there. At least the Baghdad Blogger was able to ride on the crest of the massive traditional media wave that was gathering around Iraq. We'll have to apply to other bloggers' sense of justice and get them to publicize and spread the word far and wide.