Posts Tagged ‘Middle East’
March 23rd, 2010
United Arab Emirates’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has ordered ISPs to block a
Facebook page supposedly authored by Allah. The TRA has also said it will ban the unnamed author, who claimed he believes in no god but himself, from holding an internet account. The author behind the page soon has over 600,000 followers and answers questions on the site.
March 17th, 2010
A
media ban on a corruption trial involving several leading Jordanian figures and the former Minister of Finance has been issued by a military court in Amman. The case, involving the
Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company, first came to light after revelations in the media. Now only reports personally approved by Attorney General Yousef Faouri may be published, in order, court officers claimed, to allow the judicial authorities to work calmly on the case.
March 17th, 2010
Afghanistan has watered down plans to
ban the media from reporting on live attacks. Authorities had claimed such reports would embolden militants, but an outcry resulted in a new resolution being hammered over three days. The new resolution bars the press from showing the faces of security personal or broadcasting “disturbing” images, but allows media to report on live attacks. The law does not define “disturbing”. Afghan journalists’ groups said they remained suspicious of the motives behind the new guidelines, which they believed could be used to
cover up government failings.
March 17th, 2010
A recent report by the OpenNet Initiative has revealed that search terms in both Arabic and English relating to homosexuality are censored in some Middle Eastern countries. The study showed that the level of censorship on Microsoft’s Bing ranged from
‘substantial’ to ‘pervasive’ and ‘selective’ in Algeria, Syria, Jordan and United Arab Emirates. Other sexually explicit search terms were also found to be censored.
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Tags: Tags: Algeria, censorship, homosexuality, Internet censorship, Jordan, Microsoft, Middle East, sex, Syria, United Arab Emirates,
May 20th, 2009
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies is an independent regional organisation which aims to promote human rights and democracy, and engages in dialogue between cultures.
