'Citizens have faced arrest and jail for blogging about many different topics, said the World Information Access report.

Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task.

The report said the rising number of arrests was testament to the "growing" political importance of blogging. It noted that arrests tended to increase during times of "political uncertainty", such as around general elections or during large scale protests.

Jail time followed arrest for many bloggers, said the report, which found that the average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months. The longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7456357.stm

Is this the beginning of a slow death to Free Blogging and internet free speech?