Saudi Arabia blocking Twitter pages of activists

Ahmed Al-Omran — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:49:13 +0000

Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has recently blocked access to Twitter accounts of a blogger @Mashi97 and a human rights activist @abualkhair. The move comes after the role Twitter played in the recent post-elections uprising in Iran.

Blogger Khaled al-Nasser told AFP that his tweets which included links to other websites like a Human Rights Watch report on Saudi Arabia which may have bothered censors. Human rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair also referred to human rights violations in his tweets.

Despite the blockage, both al-Nasser and Abu al-Khair are still able to update their Twitter accounts, due to the fact that you don’t need to access your account in order to send new tweets. Ironically, Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission has a Twitter account that was launched last June. CITC has 81 followers, but they are not following anyone.

* Image Credit: Kharejaljasad

Global Voices Advocacy » Ahmed Al-Omran

Saudi Arabia blocking Twitter pages of activists