OK, technically she isn't in jail. But the Global Voices editor is at the center of a somewhat ridiculous enforcement action by Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal. Or it would be ridiculous if the consequences for Oiwan weren't so grave. Oiwan recently wrote a post criticizing Hong Kong's obscenity laws by way of a mischievious bit of "civil disobedience", if posting a link to a slightly naughty picture (NSFW) can be considered civil disobedience. This has been going for a few weeks but I have not written about it, rather to my shame as Oiwan has consistently pulled Imagethief posts into Global Voices.

Fortunately, Rebecca MacKinnon has done a superb job of documenting the situation and its implications, and linking out to all the related sources, incluing Oiwan's original post (in Chinese) and Roland's translation.

If you are a blogger, video or photo sharing site user, or social network user and your links cross borders, or if you are interested in censorship and the applications of different local regulations and mores to a global medium, then you should pay attention to this.

Update:

Rebecca's update from July 18 is here.