Bloggers In Jail

For God's sake, what is wrong with this region? We have heard of bloggers being arrested, Mahmoud in Bahrain is facing a defamation case, and now an Egyptian blogger has been sentenced to four years in jail for 'insulting Islam and [Egyptian president/dictator] Hosni Mubarak'. Egyptian Blogger Gets 4Years

What the hell is wrong with Middle East governments? Are they so weak that they cannot stand a little criticism? Is it the end of the world when somebody points out that Egypt's Mubarak is a dictator? This is not exactly news, now is it? As for 'insulting Islam', why is that considered a crime? People everywhere have different views of various religions, not all of which would be welcomed by the followers of those religions. But to throw people in jail for speaking their minds is just totally barbaric.

I'm sorry, people think what they think, and you cannot stop them from doing it. Governments cannot legislate that people must think what they think. Not real governments, anyway. I have always been unable to understand why such a populous country as Egypt, supposedly a democracy, has allowed Mubarak to continue in power for so long. They have the political mechanisms to get rid of him, don't they?

But here's the point. Nobody, in any place or at any time, should be threatened with jail time for simply saying what they believe, unless they have actually slandered, libelled or defamed someone. Journalists, bloggers, the average Abdul on the street should be free to say what they like: how can it be otherwise?

Throwing people in jail, blocking blogs, closing down newspapers, imposing censorship. These are all, ultimately, pointless, inhumane, barbaric activities. They show lack of respect for individual God-given rights. No Government can legitimately take those rights away from people. I am disgusted by the actions of the Egyptian government in this case.

Borat Banned

I know this is old news, but our wise and tolerant movie censors have decided that Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan will not be showing in cinemas in the UAE. I am so pleased they made that decision on my behalf, because I am too stupid to make it for myself.

And what's with Kazakhstan anyway? Before this movie happened I had heard the name, but couldn't place it accurately on a map, didn't know that it is bigger than Western Europe, had no clue that the capital was called Almaty, and was quite unaware that some of it is very pretty and they want tourists to go there. I think Sacha Baron Cohen has done them a great favour in the 'there ain't no such thing as bad publicity' department.

Maybe the movie was banned so we could cuddle up to Kazakhstan and get some cheap oil and gas from them? Just a thought.

Meanwhile, if the Chinese DVD Lady is reading this, please swing by, my dirhams are waiting.

Bahraini Blogger Blocked!

One of Bahrain's most popular blogs, Mahmood's Den, has been blocked by the Bahraini Government. So much for freedom of speech under a democratically-elected Government.

UPDATE 2nd November: following a meeting between Mahmood and MinInf, and his agreement to pull 4 articles about the Bandergate scandal, the block has been lifted.

Firefox Blocked!

This is just unbelievable. I was trying to download Mozilla Firefox on BetterArf's laptop. You can get to the site ok, you can hit the 'download' button, and you can read and accept the terms and conditions. And then you get the pale blue screen of death.

Itisalot (© Prometheus): WTF are you playing at now?

The Light Blue Screen of Censorship

Etisalat yesterday unblocked a bunch of big-name websites. Things like youtube, hi5, orkut, myspace, friendsreunited etc.

We are supposed to be grateful.

Although Etisalat has made no official comment on the unblocking as yet, there is speculation that it has something to do with the impending launch of rival telco du. And while some insiders are saying that du is unlikely to be 'better' than Etisalat, I'm inclined to wonder how they could actually be worse.

Plenty of sites are still blocked, however, and some are suffering from terminal tcp_errors - this is Etisalat's other kind of blocking strategy where you don't actually get to see the light blue screen of censorship...



you just get this...



Which makes you think that the site is not actually blocked, there's just some kind of technical problem that might go away if you come back later. Except it doesn't go away. This strategy is still applied to flickr.com and clickatell.com. Clickatell is interesting because it doesn't 'contravene the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE', it's simply a competitor to Etisalat's overpriced SMS service.

Etisalat Messes Up Again. Twice in a Week.

What have they done now, our favourite (actually, still, our only) phone and interweb company?
1) Banned the use of Google Talk in Internet cafés

2) Launched a ludicrous mobile service for kids in association with SpaceToon Cartoon Channel.

Really, I simply cannot comprehend how the most advanced, ambitious, and otherwise liberal nation in the Arabian peninsula (that's us, the UAE) has got itself lumbered with the most restrictive, and, to quote Emarati 'Nazi' telecoms provider in the region.

I can undestand the monopoly aspect a bit. It seems that almost all countries start off with a monopoly telephone provider. The UK did (first the GPO, which was then spun off into BT, and God it was awful), the US did, Jordan, Saudi, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait - you name it, that's how you start your telephone system. Probably because the initial investment in the network was so huge that private investors would not take the risk. But there comes a time when officially-sanctioned monopolies cease to work in the consumers' favour. I think the UAE reached this point about eight years ago.

But the Government were very very slow to act. It not only owns a controlling share in Etisalat, it also gets 50% of their annual profit as a royalty. It is said that this money is enough to pay the entire payroll of the UAE Federal Government. So in a way, using Etisalat services, and paying their extortionate charges is actually an indirect tax. And Etisalat is the largest employer of UAE nationals in the country. Under pressure from the WTO, a new telecoms provider, Du, has been set up. But guess what? It's 50% owned by the Government, and will still have to pay the 50% royalty...

So, high prices as a hard-to-spot form of taxation aside, what are we left with? Well, Etisalat seems to have set itself up as some kind of moral guardian of the nation. While I can fully understand that some locals might want to be protected against porn, pork, beer, Israel and any criticism of the country, that still leaves hundreds of thousands of websites that are wrongly blocked by Etisalat.

Whats bugs me most about this are sites that compete with Etisalat in some way, or that are only marginally connected to the moral, social and religious beliefs of the country. Things like Flickr - may contain breasts, FriendsReUnited - links to a dating site. But companies the world over that offer competing services, such as VOIP (Skype, Google Talk etc) and bulk SMS gateways are also blocked and this has absolutely nothing to do with the usual reasons for blocking: it is purely to do with Etisalat protecting its precious monopoly. Or to put it another way, denying choice to its customers.

The other dumb thing Etisalat did this week was to launch a mobile phone service that targets kids in the 6-12 age group. In collaboration with SpaceToon cartoon channel, kiddiewinkles will be able to download stuff and upload stuff, and Etisalat is trying to say that it is 'educational'. My ass. Most developed countries explicity forbid the direct targetting of very young kids by marketers for the simple reason that the kids don't know enough to make a judgment and if a TV ad tells them they have to have something then they will pester their parents until they get it. The parents, of course have to pay for it. In the case of this new abomination from Etisalat, they will have to pay, and pay, and pay, every month.

And as a follow-up, Emirates Today carried a front-page story today in which a senior Ministry of Education official said that the ban on mobile phones in public and private schools may be lifted because 'mobile phones can be used for educational purposes'. (Can't link to the story in the Toady 'cos of their lousy website, sorry).

For goodness' sake.

Friends Dis-United

Ever been to www.friendsreunited.com? It's a brilliant site that has a massive database of who was at what school / college / university / workplace at what time. I've used it in the past and got in touch with people I thought I'd lost touch with forever. Guess what?

Etisalat have blocked it! Now what on earth is all that about. What moronic, brainless, idiotic, pathetic arrogance is our wonderful ISP up to now? Tell you what, I'll undergo the pain of using their website and try to get an answer.

Wish me luck.

UPDATE: Two minutes later, I've clicked on the Feedback link, and now I'm staring in disbelief at a form that expects me to give my username and password over an unsecure connection! OK, I'll try the telephone thing.

UPDATE: After ten minutes in call-centre hell, a real bloke answered the phone. After spending a few more minutes trying to get him to grasp the speelin of friendsreunited, he gave up, and asked me to send an email to help@eim.ae. So I have, but I'm not expecting to get a reply anytime this century. I asked the guy how his application for a job with du was going, and he just laughed.

UPDATE: Just received an automated reply. My case number is a bit over 2.6 million - I really hope these case numbers are not sequential! And guess what - to find out if they've done anything about it, I have to go to their website and login with my account name and password. And it's still not a secure link. Bloody hell.

UPDATE: thanks to Jin, who has just spoken with Etisalat about this: it's classified as a 'dating' site, and is therefore incompatible blah-de-blah. This is the height of idiocy from Etisalat, Keefieboy's offence level is: VERY OFFENDED.

MinInf

MinInf? Ministry of Information, aka Ministry of Censorship. Gulf countries have traditionally had these things, ostensibly to make sure that published material does not offend Islamic and cultural values.

In this modern age, the wise leaders have realised that this is a complete waste of time. The Interweb means that anyone with a computer and a web connection can say anything they like. Jordan and Qatar have already done away with their info ministries. Possibly they think that grown-ups should be free to make their own decisions in these matters.

Kuwait's Minister of Information resigned in high dudgeon (I love that phrase, and one day might try to find out what it means - maybe I'll ask the Min of Inf) a few days ago ahead of a grilling by Islamists in the Government who thought he wasn't doing enough to stop people having fun. On a side issue, all New Year celebrations were cancelled by the government at very short notice. I really do not like the way Kuwait is going these days, and I suspect most Kuwaitis don't either. Reading Kuwaiti blogs, they feel they are being Talibanised. Yekk.

Anyhoo, big media conference on here in Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed's keynote speech imploring journos et al to do their job, and report what is happening, good or bad. There was a time, not so long ago, when doing just that could get you deported. And it's a hard habit to break out of - you do not want to be the person that pushes the envelope just that bit too far. I don't know if the Ministry of Information has a Blogging Division, but, again, I don't want to be the person that finds out about it first!

Censorship in the Gulf has always driven me a bit nutty. When I served my one-year bachelor sentence in Riyadh, I was stunned by the amount of censorship going on. If you ventured into a record shop (you had to be a male-type person to do this - femmes were actually not allowed), you might see CDs on display. The cover might feature a good-lookin' person of the female persuasion. And whatever she was wearing would be invisible because the censors would have blacked it out up to the neck. And luscious red lips were a no-no also, they would be given a black moustache treatment. You were supposed to be happy to pay good money for this!

Really, I thought Saudi was obscene. You might think that's an odd word to describe a country that seems to think it is the sole upholder of the moral values of the planet. But really, I was utterly mortified by the entire place the whole time I was there - can you describe a country as a moral pervert? I worked in an architect's office, and my colleagues were worried when I designed a free-standing spiral staircase with glass balustrading. Why? Because local men will gather at the bottom of the stairs and try to look up the skirts of ladies walking up them. For Heaven's sake. The Muttawah ('religious' police) thought they were doing a grand old job, but actually they just drag the country into disrepute.

We've never had Muttawah in the UAE, but we do still have a bit of censorship. Nipples and bum-cracks get blacked out in magazines. Etisalat, our monopoly Interweb Service Provider, still feels the need to pump everything through a proxy server that blocks a few million websites. Essex University? Nah.

PS Para about Saudi toned down a bit to protect the innocent (that's me!).