The Layalina Review
VOL. V NO. 7, March 13-March 26, 2009 Specifically, the report singles out 12 nations that have “systematically restricted their populations from accessing online news and information deemed ‘undesirable,’” continues the news site. Among these countries are Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. “We're not talking network management issues here but, rather, the imprisonment of cyber dissidents, online news and information censorship and government-sponsored efforts to scramble or jam online content… It's not a pretty picture,” comments journalist Roy Mark of eWeek. Alexandra Sandels forMenassat highlighted censorship abuses in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Syria and Egypt in light of the Reporters Without Borders report. In 2008, a special governmental commission was established in Saudi Arabia “to tackle terrorism, fraud, pornography, defamation and ‘violation of religious values’ on the internet, notes Menassat. Additionally, prominent Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan was detained for several months without official charges after he posted an entry on his blog about the “advantages” and “disadvantages” of being a Muslim. “In Tunisia, bloggers have become fed up with the strict web censorship policies of President President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali to the extent that they organized a ‘day against blog censorship’ last year,” reports Menassat. Websites including Dailymotion, YouTube and Facebook are filtered regularly in Tunisia because of content critical of the president’s policies Likewise, “Syria has blocked more than 160 websites deemed critical of the government, as well as social media sites such as Facebook, Skype, YouTube, and the popular blog platform blogspot,” continues Menassat. Five cyber-dissidents are currently behind bars in Syria for their online writings. Most recently, a Syrian court sentenced a 64-year old dissident on Sunday to three years in prison for "weakening national feelings" after he published articles that were critical of the political system, reports the International Herald Tribune. In Egypt, cyber-dissidents such as the April 6 movement, writes Menassat, “are more often facing higher risks of battling the government as they become bolder in their online criticism of the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.” According to Reporters Without Borders, at least three Egyptian cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned in Egypt. Because of Egypt’s record, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a letter to President Mubarak protesting ”the relentless campaign of persecution against internet journalists and bloggers by Egypt’s various security services.” In the letter the CPJ criticize the fact that bloggers, “who lack the relative institutional protections provided to some - though not all - journalists who work in traditional print and broadcast media, have been targeted with particular ruthlessness.” Meanwhile, Egypt began circulating a resolution among delegations from the 47 countries serving on the UN Human Rights Council that reportedly calls for further “limitations” on speech that could be construed as defaming religions, reports the Taipei Times. According to the news site, “Egyptian and international human rights groups said they feared the change could leave human rights law open to misinterpretation.” Associate Middle East director at Amnesty International Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui remarked that “it’s ironic that Egypt is portraying itself as a protector of these principles of freedom of expression and religion, when it imprisons people for their religious beliefs.”
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Related Stories e-Censorship in the Arab World Blogging: A Gateway to Empowerment and Peril Recent Issues Vol. V No.6: 02/27-03/12, 2009 Vol. V No.5: 02/27-03/12, 2009 Vol. V No.4: 01/02-01/15, 2009
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