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Quebec grants Saudi blogger Raif Badawi immigration certificate *PEN Case List
The Quebec government has officially given Raif Badawi an immigration certificate to come to Canada — a first step in fast-tracking the jailed Saudi blogger’s immigration process. Badawi is sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for promoting public debate on his website. CTV NEWS

Rating tech giants on privacy: Google slips, WhatsApp fails
In the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s annual “Who’s Got Your Back” privacy scorecard that rates companies’ protection of their users’ data from government surveillance and censorship, Google slipped for the first time, receiving only three stars out of five in the civil liberties group’s ratings. WIRED

Australia punches above its weight when it comes to mass surveillance
Australia is one of the world’s most intensively surveilled Western countries, with its security and other agencies demanding access to the information of more of our population than virtually any Western country, a report on the interception and accessing of communications data released by the Attorney-General’s Department revealed. CRIKEY

Wikipedia official criticizes increasing censorship against Turkish Vikipedi
A high-ranking official from Wikipedia has criticized Turkey over increasing censorship that its Turkish version — Vikipedi – has been exposed to, vowing to take legal action to stop this censorship. Wikipedia’s pages covering the results of surveys conducted for parliamentary elections was recently banned without any court order. TODAY’S ZAMAN

Iranian journalist launches project highlighting persecution of colleagues
In an effort to hold Iran’s government to account for persecuting journalists, formerly imprisoned Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari has launched Journalism is not a Crime, an initiative that aims to document the history of human rights abuses against journalists since the modern Iranian state was created in 1905. THE GUARDIAN

Ugandan radio journalist murdered, husband arrested as suspect
Police in Gulu district have arrested a man in connection with the murder of a 23-year old freelance journalist, Scovia Anena, who was working with a Christian based radio station, Favor FM. ALL AFRICA

Human Rights Watch urges Kuwait ruler to free jailed blogger
Human Rights Watch urged the ruler of Kuwait today to waive a six-year jail sentence against a blogger for criticizing neighboring Saudi Arabia on Twitter. The supreme court last week upheld the sentence against Saleh al-Saeed. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE