The blogroll – use with caution

If you own a computer and are interested in politics, then you've probably come across a political blog. The most prominent examples include 'Left Foot Forward', 'Order Order' (Guido Fawkes) and Nick Robinson's blog for the BBC. Their impact on world politics is greater than you might think, and they provide some interesting commentary.

However, writers all over the world are paying heavy prices for expressing their opinions online. The great thing about blogging is the difficulty of controlling it, considerable in comparison to broadcast and printed media. In countries where regimes are in power, there is much fear of the power of blogs to inspire and invoke, resulting in mass suppression of opinion.

In February 2007, blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman's criticism of Hosni Mubarak and his Egyptian dictatorship earned him four years in jail. In a laughable haemorrhage of justice, a court session lasting five minutes saw his university press for him to be charged for insulting the president, and Islam, through his blog. Personally insulting the president on a website warrants political dialogue, not a prison sentence.

Amnesty International said the ruling was "yet another slap in the face of freedom for expression in Egypt". Fellow blogger Amr Gharbeia told the BBC it would not stop Egyptian bloggers from expressing opinions as "it is very difficult to control the blogosphere".

A top United Nations official was kicked out of the Sudan in 2006 after writing blog posts criticising the country's military. Jan Pronk pushed the Sudanese government for years to end what a USA Today editorial called "the mass orgy of rapes and killings". Political blog 'Sudan Watch' summed the situation up well:

“What now? Not only was Jan Pronk one of the few who knew what was really going on in Sudan, he was a voice of those suffering in Sudan and the only civil servant willing to risk his neck over the past year to tell the world what is really going on in Darfur and warn of what needs to be done.”

Blogs should always be seen as a credible source of news. Though they're often partisan with political alignments, they also lead the way in bringing common sense analysis of news to the public view. Remember that a visit to Al Jazeera's opinion blog will give you commentary on the Middle East by experts and people on the ground for nothing more than the price of a broadband connection.

The blogosphere can be joined by anyone with a few clicks on WordPress, Blogger or even Facebook. Express your opinions, criticise whatever you want to criticise, and improve your writing skills for free. The number of blogs in February this year stood at 156 million - take the opportunity to join in on a growing network.