Social Media sites like Twitter deserve Nobel for pro-democracy protests in Egypt, Libya & China?

The latest country to join the wave of protests inspired by Tunisian 'Jasmine Revolution' is China, where the authorities managed to muzzle the uprising even before it took off.

Tunisia uprising began in 2010 and ended successfully with the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The revolution sparked off a wave of anti-government protests in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Libya among other Arab World nations. The Egyptian movement against President Hosni Mubarak also ended in success after less than twenty days of protests.

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But before the resignation of the President came the ugly face of government crackdown which included the January 28 internet blackout in Egypt. Learning that the uprising was organized through platforms like Twitter and Facebook, the Egyptian authorities blocked internet, besides disrupting mobile phone services in a bid to thwart the dissidence. With the demonstrators of the other countries also following the footsteps of the Egyptian protests, all the other countries that were hit by the pro-democracy protests also imitated the Egyptian authorities. Iran sabotaged the opposition-fueled protests by slowing down broadband speeds, jamming mobile services, and blocking websites by keyword filtering. Iran, Yemen and Bahrain intensified the communication blockade by gagging the mainstream media as well.

China joined the list of Tunisia-inspired countries on Sunday when activists called for a 'Jasmine' revolution, which was also planned and organised online. It was, however, suppressed within two hours after police and security forces descended at the discussed protest sites ahead of the demonstrators. Although the Tunisia-inspired revolt wilted, it intensified the concerns on the freedom of expression besides stringent security review of the internet in countries such as Iran, North Korea and China.

The Nobel Committee's beliefs: Democracy, Freedom of Expression takes center-stage

Democracy and related issues of freedom of expression and human rights have always taken the center-stage for the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which chose to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to the Liu Xiaobo "for his long and non-violent

struggle for fundamental human rights in China. " Xiabo was awarded with world's top accolade despite strong opposition from the communist country which sees pro-democracy and human rights activists as dissidents.

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the "fraternity between nations" of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement.

Keeping in line with these beliefs of the Nobel Committee, a Norwegian parliamentarian nominated anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Justifying his choice in a blog post, Snorre Valen said WikiLeaks was "one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency."

"It is always easier to support freedom of speech when the one who speaks agree with you politically. This is one of the "tests" on liberal and democratic values that governments tend to fail. For instance, western governments have a long history on tolerating oppressive regimes that are "friendly-minded". Internet companies assist China in censoring search engines. And many countries respond to Wikileaks' obvious right to publish material that is of public interest, by seeking to "shoot the messenger"," Snorre Valen, a member of the Socialist Left party, begins his blog post, titled 'Why I nominated WikiLeaks for the Nobel Peace Prize'.

In fact, Twitter was considered for the honor in 2009 for its help in facilitating communications during election protests in Iran.