Internet filtering on the rise in MENA, - Middle East and North Africa - says new report

A new study published by the research group Open Net Initiative on Internet content controls in the Middle East and North Africa claims web censorship, both in scope and in depth, is increasing in the majority of countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. Fourteen out of the eighteen countries surveyed in the study censor Internet content using technological means.

By ALEXANDRA SANDELS

ONI


BEIRUT, August 13, 2009 (MENASSAT) — While governments in the Middle East and North Africa continue to make investments in media and IT projects, they are also investing in censorship technologies to prevent their citizens from accessing a wide spectrum of content considered objectionable by authorities.

That is the conclusion of the 2009 report on Internet content controls in the MENA region issued by Open Net Initiative–– a partnership among groups at four US, UK, and Canadian universities: Toronto, Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford, funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

During the last few years there has been heavy investment in media and IT infrastructure projects in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, among other MENA countries.

Take Dubai and Abu Dhabi for example. In addition to existing regional media and IT hubs such as Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City, the UAE recently launched a new content creation zone in a bid to support media content creators in the MENA region. The new zone, based in neighboring Abu Dhabi, seeks to employ Arab media professionals in film, broadcast, digital and publishing. Major international media organizations such as CNN, BBC, the Financial Times, and Thomson Reuters are among the partners of the zone.

There is also the Jordanian plan that has emerged, to create a free IT zone in the capital Amman, which would give sales and income tax breaks to the IT and business firms based in the zone. Jordan’s plans to build an IT zone is part of its strategy to increase the number of Internet users from 26 percent to 50 percent and increase employment in the sector.

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget the Doha Center for Media Freedom –– the Qatar-based international institution founded in 2007 to boost press freedoms and provide refuge for threatened journalists in the region.

On the other side of the spectrum, when it comes to building free IT zones, more media hubs, and institutions in support of free speech and the protection of outspoken journalists are the somber statistics on web censorship, repressive media laws, and persecution of media workers and bloggers in the region that gives a bleaker outlook for the future of IT Arabia.

The MENA remains one of the world’s most heavily censored regions, the report claims. Not only is web censorship on the rise but so is the number of bloggers and cyber-dissidents being jailed for their online activism.

“Our latest research results on Internet filtering and surveillance in the Middle East and North Africa confirm the growing use of next generation cyberspace controls beyond mere denial of information," said Ron Deibert, ONI Principal Investigator and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Center for International Studies, University of Toronto. "The media environment of the Middle East and North Africa region is a battle-space where commercially-enhanced blocking, targeted surveillance, self-censorship, and intimidation compete with enhanced tools of censorship circumvention and mobile activism."

According to ONI’s most recent round of testing, Internet filtering across the region is increasing, both in terms of scope and depth. While political censorship tends to be the most common type of filtering, social filtering is becoming more prevalent, says the study.

The countries that practice the highest amount of political filtering are, according to the report, Iran, Bahrain, Syria and Tunisia. The “ social filters” can mainly be found in the Gulf and include Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. They usually filter pornography, LGBT sites, and pages containing information on sexual health.

Recently, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have caught the attention of these regimes, especially when it comes to activists in Arab countries who use these sites for political campaigning and social activism.

ONI says that the blocking of social networking sites remains commonplace in MENA. Syria and Tunisia both block YouTube and Facebook, and the photo-sharing site Flickr is filtered in Iran and the UAE. The UAE and Saudi Arabia censor certain YouTube videos but do not block the entire site.

The report also states that several Arab countries have started to block outspoken and “morally objectionable” content in Arabic that was previously accessible.

The countries that do not filter any sites at the moment are Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and the West Bank, according to ONI testing.

However some of them do instead use surveillance software to keep an eye on the browsing habits of those using the Internet in public. In free-wheeling Lebanon, for example, a country whose citizens enjoy perhaps the greatest amount of freedoms compared to any other country in the region, some Internet café operators have apparently admitted to using surveillance software to monitor their clients in a bid to protect security or prevent them from accessing pornography. In Egypt, Internet café users must provide their names, phone numbers, and email addresses before using the Internet.

According to ONI, there has been an overall increase in the monitoring of Internet activities, particularly in Internet cafés, by the authorities in the past two years.

Nokia spy system

Most governments are supposedly not transparent about their censorship practices, confusing Internet users by displaying various different “error messages.” Such actions also stem from Western companies who, on the one hand, build IT infrastructure needed for development in the region and then also provide the filterers with technologies and data used to censor the web.

"Governments…. continue to disguise their political filtering, while acknowledging blocking of social content, and censors are catching up with increasing amounts of online content, in part by using filtering software developed by companies in the U.S,” said Helmi Noman, the OpenNet Initiative's Middle East and North Africa lead researcher.

Most recently, the leading mobile phone company Nokia found itself in the midst of a scandal when media reports surfaced about the company selling an electronic surveillance system to Iran, which human rights activists say can target political dissidents. The “monitoring center” was delivered to Irancell by the cell-phone giant and Germany’s Siemens. According to a Nokia spokesman it was sold to the Islamic Republic for "lawful intercept functionality,” a term supposedly used by the mobile-phone industry to refer to law enforcement's ability to intercept phones, read e-mails and monitor electronic data on communications networks.

Iranian journalist Issa Saharkhiz says he recently fell prey to Nokia’s spy system and claims he was arrested due to Nokia’s technology, with authorities using his Nokia cell phone to track him down and take him into custody.

Apart from heavy Internet filtering, MENA is also home to a series of repressive media laws. Earlier this spring, The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urged a radical change in the media laws in the region, claiming that the laws in most countries still permit the jailing of journalists for undermining the reputation of the state, the president, the monarch or religion.

These types of laws are often used to hinder reporting of corruption and government actions, according to ONI. Bloggers and cyber-dissidents have not been exempt from the region’s current hostile media environment; research conducted by the US-based press freedom watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists, claims Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia are four of the worst countries in the world to be a blogger in.

Laws and regulations used to control access in MENA range from press and publication laws, to special emergency and anti-terrorism laws and Internet-specific telecommunication law decrees. Morocco, for example, uses its anti-terrorism legislation, passed following suicide bombings in Casablanca in 2003, to persecute journalists. The bill provides the authorities with sweeping legal powers to arrest journalists for publishing content deemed to “disrupt public order by intimidation, force, violence, fear or terror.”

So is there any good news at all? Well, even though “increased filtering is the rule and unblocking the exception,” as ONI puts it, there are a few highlights of the latter included in the report.

Syria, for example, has unblocked the Arabic-language version of Wikipedia, Morocco has lifted a ban on several pro-Western Sahara independence websites, and Libya has started to unblock previously filtered political sites. Meanwhile, Sudan has lessened its censorship of LGBT and dating sites since ONI’s last report.

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The Story of a wise Imam

As salam Alaikum wr br

A Wise Young Muslim Boy Many years ago, during the time of the Tâbi'în
(the
generation of Muslims after the Sahâbah), Baghdâd was a great city of
Islam.
In fact, it was the capital of the Islamic Empire and, because of the
great number of scholars who lived there, it was the center of Islamic
knowledge.
One day, the ruler of Rome at the time sent an envoy to Baghdad with
three
challenges for the Muslims. When the messenger reached the city, he
informed the khalîfah that he had three questions which he challenged
the
Muslims to answer.The khalîfah gathered together all the scholars of
the
city and the Roman messenger climbed upon a high platform and said,
"I
have come with three questions. If you answer them, then I will leave
with
you a great amount of wealth which I have brought from the king of
Rome."
As for the questions, they were: "What was there before Allâh?" "In
which
direction does Allâh face?" "What is Allâh engaged in at this
moment?"The
great assembly of people were silent. (Can you think of answers to
these
questions?) In the midst of these brilliant scholars and students of
Islam
was a man looking on with his young son. "O my dear father! I will
answer
him and silence him!" said the youth. So the boy sought the
permission of
the khalîfah to give the answers and he was given the permission to
do
so.The Roman addressed the young Muslim and repeated his first
question,
"What was there before Allâh?"The boy asked, "Do you know how to
count?""Yes," said the man."Then count down from ten!" So the Roman
counted down, "ten, nine, eight, ..." until he reached "one" and he
stopped counting"But what comes before 'one'?" asked the boy."There
is
nothing before one- that is it!" said the man.
"Well then, if there obviously is nothing before the arithmetic 'one',
then how do you expect that there should be anything before the 'One'
who
is Absolute Truth, All-Eternal, Everlasting the First, the Last, the
Manifest, the Hidden?"Now the man was surprised by this direct answer
which he could not dispute. So he asked, "Then tell me, in which
direction
is Allâh facing?""Bring a candle and light it," said the boy, "and
tell me
in which direction the flame is facing.""But the flame is just light-
it
spreads in each of the four directions,North, South, East and West. It
does not face any one direction only," said the man in wonderment.The
boy
cried, "Then if this physical light spreads in all four directions
such
that you cannot tell me which way it faces, then what do you expect of
the
Nûr-us-Samâwâti-wal-'Ard: Allâh - the Light of the Heavens and the
Earth!?
Light upon Light, Allâh faces all directions at all times.
"The Roman was stupified and astounded that here was a young child
answering his challenges in such a way that he could not argue
against the
proofs.
So, he desperately wanted to try his final question. But before doing
so,
the boy said,"Wait!
You are the one who is asking the questions and I am the one who is
giving
the answer to these challenges. It is only fair that you should come
down
to where I am standing and that I should go up where you are right
now, in
order that the answers may be heard as clearly as the questions."This
seemed reasonable to the Roman, so he came down from where he was
standing
and the boy ascended the platform. Then the man repeated his final
challenge, "Tell me, what is Allâh doing at this moment?"The boy
proudly
answered, "At this moment, when Allâh found upon this high platform a
liar
and mocker of Islam, He caused him to descend and brought him low. And
as
for the one who believed in the Oneness of Allâh, He raised him up and
established the Truth. Every day He exercises (universal) power (Surah
55
ar-Rahmân, Verse 29).
"The Roman had nothing to say except to leave and return back to his
country, defeated.
Meanwhile, this young boy grew up to become one of the most famous
scholars of Islam. Allâh, the Exalted, blessed him with special wisdom
and
knowledge of the deen. His name was Abu Hanîfah (rahmatullâh 'alayhi-
Allâh have mercy on him) and he is known today as Imâm-e-A'dham, the
Great
Imâm and scholar of Islam.


[Adapted into English from "Manâqib Abî Hanîfah" written by Imâm
Muwaffaq
Ibn Ahmad al-Makki (d. 568 Hijri). Dar al - Kitâb al-'Arabiy, Beirut,
1981/1401H.]Biography of Imam Abu Hanifa - by Dr. G.F. HaddadLife of
Imam
Abu Hanifa No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG -
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Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For you are the All-Hearing, the All-knowing. (Al Qur'an 2:127)
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