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The Federal High Court in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa sentenced expatriate journalist and blogger Elias Kifle to life in prison yesterday. Kifle is the editor of the Washington D.C.-based blog, Ethiopian Review. He was sentenced in absentia and remains in the United States.

It was originally reported that he could receive the death penalty, which is the maximum penalty for his alleged crime of "political terrorism" in the northeast African country.

As 2010 dies down, a lot of us are looking back over the past year. This cartoon was inspired - indirectly - by one of the year's less-reported stories: the collision between the informal, off-the-cuff culture of Twitter and the rigid world of law. That conflict runs the gamut from totalitarian regimes to liberal democracies:

• In China, Cheng Jianping's mildly ironic tweet earned her a year in re-education camp.
• In the United Kingdom, Paul Chambers' frustration at an airport closure led him to tweet a joking threat to blow it up - culminating in a conviction and a £1,000-fine under Britain's Communications Act 2003.

According to a report released today [PDF] by Reporters Sans Frontières, the number of bloggers around the world arrested because of their online work jumped from 59 to 151 between 2008 and 2009, an increase of 155%. Additionally, one blogger died in prison and 61 were physically assaulted. The most infamous cases perhaps occurred during the violent unrest in Iran following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection. But RSF said the number of overall arrests and attacks can actually be traced to crackdowns in at least 10 countries.

"The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next - a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online," said Lucie Morillon, head of the group's Internet and Freedoms Desk.

Twenty-two year old law student Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman marked the first of a four year sentence in an Egyptian prison last November. His crime was "defaming the President of Egypt" on his blog. His first year in prison included isolation and physical torture.

The one thing that's made a big difference for Kareem, his supporters say, has been international attention. Now those supporters are calling for a two week campaign of snail-mail sent to the jail.