Two Azerbaijani bloggers were sentenced to jail on Wednesday. Charged with "hooliganism", the pair were arrested shortly after posting a satirical video online which mocked the government's alleged purchase of a dozen - suspiciously priced - 41,000 dollar donkeys from Germany. Read more and watch the video...

An unemployed drunkard shot to fame last month in Cuba when a video of him storming a TV report to demand food began circulating on the Web. His outburst got him a prison sentence, making him a symbol of Cuban poverty and repression. Read more and watch the video

Why was Saturday's opposition rally in Moscow strikingly different from previous events? Because not one protestor was beaten or arrested. Even stranger - pro-Kremlin counter activists themselves were detained by the police. Which beggars the question; is the Russian government warming to the idea of freedom of speech? Read more and see the images...

Yoani Sanchez, our Observer in Cuba, is under permanent surveillance. She decided to photograph the men who camp outside her house. Unfazed by the affair, she comments: "at least since they've been there, nobody pisses on the steps anymore." Read more...

On February 11, Iran marked the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. We put four questions before our Iranian Observers both inside and outside the country (read the others). Here, one of them defends the revolution and says he is happy in his country. Read more...

Lawyer and human rights defender Stanislas Markelov, 34, was shot dead on 19 January after leaving a press conference not far from the Kremlin. His death has not come as a great surprise in Russia, where mysterious killings end up lost to a culture of impunity. Read more...

Russian authorities are in a flap about "Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo", who they say "promotes religious hatred". The upset means that along with The Simpsons and Family Guy, Mr Hankey and his South Park friends will soon disappear from Russian television screens. Read more...

Blogger Yoani Sanchez, who's been commenting on Cuba for the Observers since its launch, has been selected by Time Magazine as one of "the world's most influential people". Fidel Castro, on the other hand, didn't quite make it. Read more...

A group of around thirty neo-Nazis marched through Washington on Saturday to protest against illegal immigration. One man who took part in the rally tells us why he's proud to hail Hitler, while a free speech activist explains why he has the right to say something that, in a European country, could have him put behind bars. Read more...

Seeing Cuban students openly criticise the Castrist regime in front of Parliamentary President Ricardo Alarcón is not easy to imagine. But it's true. And the proof, in this video sent to the BBC by an anonymous source, has now become a huge online hit. Is the nearing end of Fidel Castro's reign bringing about improvements in freedom of speech, or is it a publicity stunt to better outside views of the authorities? Our Observer in Cuba, blogger Yoni Sanchez, gives us her opinion. Read more...

UPDATE (12.0207 / 17.00): One of the students, Eliecer Avila, was uncontactable for just over a day, leading to the belief that he has been arrested. He reappeared this Monday in an interview on Cuban television (see in post), where he denounced the way the foreign media ‘manipulated' his statement.