Here is the dishonorable list of the Ten Worst countries for bloggers. The list is not surprising, not the inclusion of Tunisia or China.

It is in these countries where bloggers are censored most often.

The list is produces by the exceptionally organization Committee to Protect Journalists, I quote selectively:

1. BURMA

Burma, which heavily censors print and broadcast media, has also applied extensive restrictions on blogging and other Internet activity. Private Internet penetration is very small—only about 1 percent, according to the Internet research group OpenNet Initiative—so most citizens access the Internet in cybercafés. Authorities heavily regulate those cafés, requiring them, for example, to enforce censorship rules. The government, which shut down the Internet altogether during a popular uprising in 2007, has the capability to monitor e-mail and other communication methods and to block users from viewing Web sites of political opposition groups, according to OpenNet Initiative. At least two bloggers are now in prison.

Lowlight: Blogger Maung Thura, popularly known as Zarganar, is serving a 59-year prison term for disseminating video footage after Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

2. IRAN
3. SYRIA
4. CUBA

5. SAUDI ARABIA

An estimated 400,000 sites are blocked inside the kingdom, including those that tackle political, social, or religious issues. Self-censorship is widespread. Aside from “indecent” material, Saudi Arabia blocks “anything contrary to the state or its system,” a standard that has been interpreted liberally. In 2008, influential clerics called for harsh punishment, including flogging and death, for online writers guilty of posting material deemed heretical.

Lowlight: Blogger Fouad Ahmed al-Farhan was jailed without charge for several months in 2007 and 2008 for promoting reform and the release of political prisoners.

6. VIETNAM

7. TUNISIA

Internet service providers are required to submit IP addresses and other identifying information to the government on a regular basis. All Internet traffic flows through a central network, allowing the government to filter content and monitor e-mails. The government employs an array of techniques to harass bloggers: conducting surveillance, restricting bloggers’ movements, and undertaking electronic sabotage. Online writers Slim Boukhdhir and Mohamed Abbou have served jail time for their work.

Lowlight: In a March address, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali warned writers against examining government “mistakes and violations,” saying it was “an activity that is unbecoming of our society and is not an expression of freedom or democracy.”

8. CHINA
9. TURKMENISTAN
10. EGYPT

It is most likely that CPJ’s website is banned in all these countries so many bloggers will not be able to read about their countries own oppression. But why would they need to in the first place? They are living that oppression like this courageous Tunisian:

Global Voices Online

A blogger in Tunisia: My life with the censor
By Slim Boukhdhir

The specter of government opposition to blogging, journalism, and free expression in general in Tunisia is so intense that the mere appearance of a specific name online is enough to push the government to block the Web site where it appears, even if that site is not critical of the government.

My personal story with blocking and hacking is a long one; my blog The free pen was blocked inside my country as soon as I created it. Every time I changed its address throughout 2006 and 2007, the Tunisian censor would track it down and block it. From one instance of obstruction to the next, the censor finally said his final word when he decided to hack the blog in its entirety in May 2007. He did this using advanced technology that removed all of my material, and replaced it with an image of skeletal remains to symbolize that free expression lives or dies at his whim.

After that, I did not consider creating another blog by the same name; I wanted this hacking incident to remain as a stain of shame, providing further proof that the alleged freedom of expression exalted in my country’s official statements is nothing more than an illusion that only exists in official speeches.

This is not all. Before the censorship of my blog ever occurred, out of all the Arab governments only the Tunisian regime decided to block the Web site of Al-Arabiya news channel, as of November 12, 2005. This occurred after the site published impartial reports about the human rights situation in Tunisia, which I submitted in my capacity as a correspondent for the site. The site remained blocked for nearly four years and was only unblocked two months ago when it became evidently clear that I was no longer a correspondent.

The Tunisian government then went on to block many sites simply because they had published materials written by me, including the Web site Al-Watan. It became such that the mere presence of my name on a site became synonymous with it getting blocked, even though I am merely a writer who dispenses letters and words, and not bullets from a gun.

I was then put in jail and the regime was given an eight-month respite from my blogging, and from the words of truth I penned and sent out across Web. When I got out of prison, I found that the censor had upgraded his arsenal. He no longer blocked the Web sites that published my writing; instead he would only block the links and the specific pages that featured my materials. This is what the censor did when I wrote an article for the site Qantara in Germany, where I detailed the Tunisian government’s assault on independent journalists criticized the charades that are the elections in Tunisia, Algeria, and Mauritania.

The regime blocked only those two articles, and spared the remainder of the site so as to avoid the accusation of having blocked yet another Web site in its entirety. In effect, the regime is sending a clear message that its problems reside with Slim Boukhdhir and not with this or that international Web site.

The government forgot just one simple matter: It has never succeeded in breaking this pen in spite of all its attempts, and it never will.

Tomorrow is a new dawn.