In other instances, bloggers have gotten together to ask for the release of journalists, bloggers or political figures. This time, Colombian bloggers are bringing their voices to request the liberation of someone who doesn´t even know what freedom feels like. This time it is for Emanuel, a 3 year old born to Clara Rojas and a guerrilla fighter. Rojas was kidnapped along with presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt as they were traveling for campaign purposes. on February 23, 2002 by members of the FARC In Libertad para Emanuel [ES], a blog created for the sole purpose to provide visibility to this child, today's post does a great job summarizing blogger comments and support for this campaign: Thanks for supporting our campaign on behalf of Emanuel (Read the original post here). Thanks to all our blogger colleagues who yesterday (some are still doing it today) showed their support to this campaign to provide visibility to Emanuel. The blogs who supported this initiative are registered on the right-hand column and there, they will stay, in the hope that they will accompany us in the future on similar campaigns. It is worth highlighting the diversity of opinions expressed regarding Emanuel's kidnapping. Some citizen bloggers emphasized the necessity to demand the freedom of ALL kidnapped victims. We completely support this. We are not looking to bring Emanuel out into the public spotlight in order to hide all the other hostages. We are simply looking to bring Emanuel's case out into the open, for the unique circumstances of his kidnapping, and to complement or add emphasis to the general idea of demanding the release of all the hostages. While it is true that all the hostages should be freed immediately, the most urgent and vital need is in the case of Emanuel, for obvious reasons. This wasn't a campaign launched by an NGO or a social movement, it simply launched by a group of citizens -who support this and who believed it was possible to saturate some pixels for a just cause. If it is true what some cyberspace fanatics say, that if it doesn't exist on the Internet, then it simply doesn't exist (questionable perspective, though with some validity), then yesterday we gave a strong push towards making Emanuel visible on the web. What follows now? Over the next few days we will launch a mini-campaign to try and take this same message to two international organizations that could possibly play a part specifically in regards to Emanuel´s kidnapping. These are the International Red Cross and UNICEF. It is necessary to open a slight chink in the armor of the notion that this kidnapping is only the concern of the Colombian government, the guerrillas and influential family members of some hostages. It is their business. But it is also the civil society, the common citizens and the international community (the French have campaigned to demand the liberation of Ingrid, because she is a French citizen, while we – the common citizens- still wait for the miracle to fall in our laps.) We need for these organizations to tell us whether they have the will to play a unilateral role to demand the liberation of Emanuel and his mother. Once again, thanks to all the bloggers who supported this campaign. Here are some quotes taken from our blogging friends: Pirata Subterráneo [ES] Soy el Pirata Subterráneo, un colombiano mas, paisano tuyo, un bogotano del Barrio Ricaurte. Nací en una gran ciudad, Bogotá, y crecí entre la ciudad y el campo. Mis padres, como muchos colombianos en los últimos cincuenta años, llegaron de la provincia, eran campesinos que se fueron a la ciudad huyendo de la violencia, buscando un futuro que el campo no les ofrecía. Si algún día llegas a leer este mensaje, si sobrevives y no te matan los hombres que te rodean, guerrilleros de las FARC, o los que supuestamente quieren rescatarte, soldados del Ejército de Colombia, te sorprenderás al enterarte de que muchas de las cosas que te voy a contar, que sucedieron muchos años antes de que nacieras y que son las causantes de que hayas nacido y estés en la selva, secuestrado, separado de tu madre, muchas de estas cosas, aún no han cambiado, por el contrario, han empeorado, se han degradado (…). Someday if read this message, and if you survive, and if the men who surround you don't kill you, the FARC guerrilla fighters, or those who allegedly want to rescue you, the Colombian army soldiers, you will be surprised to find out about the tall tales that I´m going to tell you about, which happened many years before you were born and for the reasons that you were born and are in the jungle, kidnapped, separated from your mother, many of these things, they haven´t yet changed, on the contrary, they have gotten worse, they have degenerated (…).