Blogger and activist Ahmad Mansoor after his release last November

Ahmad Mansoor, UAE's most famous blogger who was detained last year for several months with four other activists for signing an online petition calling for reforms in his country, was denied entry to Kuwait few days ago. The UAE5 including Mansoor were released with a pardon on the 28th of November. Recently, Human Right Watch press conference in Dubai which was planned to release the organization's report on the decline of freedom of expression in the Gulf wealthy state was raided by state security police called off.

Through his twitter account, Mansoor was the one who reported the details of this raid on HRW's press conference. More than a week after, Mansoor went to Kuwait and was denied entry, which makes him the second human rights defender to be denied entry in Kuwait in a very short time period after Kassab Al-Otaibi (@Dr_Kassab ) a Saudi opposition activist based in the UK. Mansoor reported what happened to him in the airport through twitter, as Kuwait was having its vote for parliamentary elections; one of the reasons why there wasn't much attention paid for the incident the UAE blogger had to go through.

Mansoor tweeted:

I'm Kuwait airport now. Prevented from entering. Too bad that this happens in Kuwait; the only democracy in #gcc !!

— Ahmed Mansoor (@Ahmed_Mansoor) February 2, 2012

#gcc: after an interrogation for about an hour, I was told that I can not enter by the State Security officers.#kuwait #uae

— Ahmed Mansoor (@Ahmed_Mansoor) February 2, 2012

#gcc #kuwait #uae further told that if I can not find a ticket back, I would be detained until then.

— Ahmed Mansoor (@Ahmed_Mansoor) February 2, 2012

#gcc #kuwait #uae: off course, preventing me from entering kuwait was based on instruction from UAE authorities.

— Ahmed Mansoor (@Ahmed_Mansoor) February 2, 2012

Not sure though why authorities in UAE first let me leave Sharjah airport to start with and put Kuwait in this situation. #gcc #kuwait #uae

— Ahmed Mansoor (@Ahmed_Mansoor) February 2, 2012

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With all of the social media successes throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, it would be all too easy to overlook the struggles faced by bloggers and netizens throughout the region. And yet, 2011 was an extraordinary difficult year for free expression, from Egypt's shutdown of the Internet to the numerous harassed, arrested, and detained bloggers from the Maghreb to the Gulf.

Iran: No room for free expression

Less than a week into 2012, Reporters Without Borders puts the number of jailed netizens globally at 126. Within the list, Iran stands out, as my colleague Fred Petrossian writes:

In 2011, the Iranian regime was faithful to its reputation as an enemy of internet as it continued to repress bloggers and even threaten their lives. Blogger Sakhi Rigi got a record breaking 20-year jail sentence. Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, who is serving 15 years in prison, struggled for his health and for a period was deprived of contact with his family and lawyer. RSF talked about the plight of seven netizens in Iran in July 2011. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. While a few bloggers likeShiva Nazar Ahari andHossein Derakhshanwere released on bail, others like Mohammad Reza Pour Shajari may face charges of ‘Waging War Against God' (moharebeh), for which a death sentence can be pronounced. As Omid Reza Mirsayafi's tragic death shows, the more a blogger is isolated and deprived of a network, the more he is in danger.

Egypt, Syria, Bahrain among the region's worst

But while Iran may rank worst in terms of the number of bloggers detained, life for bloggers in much of the rest of the region has been no picnic. In Syria, where the uprising that started last spring shows few signs of abating, several prominent bloggers were arrested in 2011, threatening countless more into silence. Razan Ghazzawi, a former Global Voices contributor, spent fifteen days in prison in December until being released on bail, but still faces trial for “weakening the national sentiment,” among other charges. Hussein Ghrer, released in early December, also faces trial. Meanwhile, Tal Al-Mallohi, the teenaged blogger imprisoned in 2009, is serving a five year sentence.

Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah poses with his wife and fellow blogger Manal Hassan in Tunis just one month before his arrest

A third country in the region ranks among the worst in 2011, though one wouldn't know it from following mainstream media coverage. Bahrain, where a nascent uprising was all but quashed early in the year, levied harsh punishments on several bloggers in 2011, including Global Voices Advocacy contributor Ali Abdulemam, who was sentenced in absentia to fifteen years in prison and is currently in hiding.

Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam at the 2009 Arabloggers Workshop in Beirut

Elsewhere in the region, the struggle continues

Though perhaps less systematically, other countries in the region targeted bloggers as well in 2011. Prior to the fall of Ben Ali, Tunisian bloggers Slim Amamou (a Global Voices Advocacy contributor) and Azyz Amami were briefly imprisoned. Amami was then arrested again and beaten by police in September. Though the arrest was not for his blogging but for a joke told near a police station, it demonstrated the tenuous state of free expression in the country.

In Morocco, a blogger and several activists were arrested in September, while Saudi Arabia went after video bloggers who had been documenting poverty in the oil-rich country. And in the UAE, a female blogger was summoned for interrogation over a tweet.

Fighting for a better 2012

Though this represents only a fraction of those intimidated, harassed, and imprisoned in 2011, it is illustrative of the continued struggle faced by bloggers, activists, and other netizens in the region. And as 2012 kicks off with such a large number of bloggers in prison, it is apparent that there is more work to be done to ensure that the right to free expression is guaranteed for everyone. And fortunately, a growing number of grassroots organizations in the region are taking up the fight for digital rights. But nevertheless, bloggers must be ever vigilant, and consider the risks they face as they take their activism online. Global Voices salutes these brave bloggers and will continue to make sure their voices are heard throughout the world.

Photo credits: Jillian C. York.

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UAE Blogger Ahmed Mansoor (IFEX)

Update 1 [28 Nov 2011/1 PM GMT]: The day after the court decisions were made, Attorney Mohammed al-Roken told The Associated Press the public prosecutor’s office confirmed President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s pardon of the five activists as the country celebrates its national day.

Last April, Five activists were arrested in the United Arab Emirates for signing an online petition that demanded reforms in the wealthy Gulf country one of them was blogger Ahmed Mansoor. After the beginning of their trials last June, the five detainees have complained several times from the mistreatment they're getting in prison and from the campaigns bashing them and their families online, one of the reasons that made them take the decision to enter a hunger strike in protest of the violation of their rights and against the fact that they have no right to appeal to court's decisions.

They refused to attend the court hearings as they considered their trials unfair, however, this did not stop the Emirati court from making the decision in a 10 minutes session on the 27th of November to sentence each of Nasser bin Ghaith, a war veteran and a university lecturer at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, Fahad Salim Dalk, Ahmed Abdul-Khaleq, a stateless of the UAE, and Hassan Ali al-Khamis to two years in jail while prominent blogger Ahmed Mansoor received a 3 years sentence. The five activists were charged for violating article 176 which prohibits insulting state officials, a charge that the detainees denied and instead assured their respect for the UAE figures and their good intentions to demand reforms for the good of their country.

The five activists completed 13 days of hunger strike when they their sentences came out, however, there are no reports yet of whether they are still on hunger strike or not. The court does not allow them to appeal and according to Human Rights Watch, the panel that made the decision was consisted of four foreign judges. The coalition of Alkarama (Dignity), Amnesty International, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Front Line Defenders, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Index on Censorship, said that “the interim assessment of civil liberties lawyer Jennie Pasquarella raised disturbing questions about the politicization of the case against the men and called for all five to be released immediately and unconditionally and the charges dropped. The groups also called on the UAE authorities to open an independent judicial inquiry into the decision to prosecute the five men.”

When reading the report done by the seven human rights groups, one can see that the five detainees did not have a fair trial. Lawyer Jennie Pasquarella who attended their trials said that the court did not permit access for the detainees to all documents included in their trials. Pasquarella also said that the authorities have interfered in the process as some of the sessions were held secretly and only attended by security representatives. She also said that the court depended on the testimonies of four lawyers representing people who claim to have been victims of the statements made by the activists. The UAE5 have repeatedly refused the charges of inciting violence when writing their reform demands in the locally banned online forum UAE Hewar.

Two days before the court's decisions were made, Dr. Charlotte Peevers, a barrister based in the United Kingdom, on behalf of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) published a briefing paper on suppression of free expression that included threats and intimidation made against the UAE five activists known as “UAE 5”. When reading the 13 pages long paper, one can read several horrific insults and threats made against the activists, most of them supporting prosecuting the detainees to death for ‘betrayal of the country'. After hearing the court's decision, a relative of one of the detainees, blogger Khalifa Al-Nuaimi, was beaten and assaulted by a pro-government supporter who was quoted by Human Rights Watch witness saying: “Even if the detainees are released from jail, we will put them on trial ourselves.”

More than a week ago, a female twitter user from the UAE named Rawda Hamed posted on her account saying that she was summoned for interrogation. Hamed is known on twitter for her support of the UAE5 and she claimed to have entered hunger strike in solidarity with them. Hamed said in her last tweets that this is the fourth time she was called for interrogation and since the 16th of November, she hasn't tweeted any new posts. Unfortunately, no one knows any information about her or any contact information to reach her through.

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"Justice for UAE detainees" as published by blogger Khalifa AlNuaimi

An online petition is the only common factor between five detained activists in the United Arab Emirates. Ahmed Mansour, Nasser Bin Ghaith, Fahad Al-Sihhi, Hassan Ali Al Khamis, and Ahmed Abdulhaleq Ahmed are the names. Mansour is a well known blogger and an outspoken secular activist from Dubai, while Bin Ghaith comes from a wealthy family and has served as a consultant for the army beside being a war veteran, a decorated pilot, a columnist, and a lecturer. The other three names are not very well-known for readers outside the UAE as the topic of their trials became a taboo inside the wealthy-family-ran Gulf state. Ahmed Abdulhaleq Ahmed, according to AFP, is a stateless of the UAE, a community that is denied all the rights for documents, and public access to education, medication, and employment; another taboo that the UAE does not like any light shed at, especially by foreign media.

Bin Ghaith was shocked to have been detained. According to his brother, as interviewed by AP, Bin Ghaith was detained for an article he published in www.darussalam.ae a week before his arrest last April. A day before his trial which he refused to show up to beginning of October, Bin Ghaith wrote a letter talking about his case and mentioning that his arrest had to do with opinions he posted in online forums. However, media and local talks link the five detainees in one circle which is the online petition they signed with more than a 100 Emiratis demanding reforms and more freedoms including giving power to the parliament and reconstructing its hierarchy and voting system.

The same blog that published Bin Ghaith's letter, Emirati blogger Khalifa Al-Nuaimi wrote the trial's details that he attended. He said the five activists did not show up yet the trial started with a testimony from the representative of the information ministry answering questions about some online forum. The representative said those who wrote ‘insulting' comments in the forum cannot be identified, that the web hosting company is American, that the forum's manager cannot be identified, and that the website has been blocked in the UAE since 2010. Al-Nuaimi writes what happened in the trial without specifying which forum they are referring to, who wrote in this forum other than Mansour, and what specifically were the written comments.

In general, the UAE seems to have succeeded in blocking a lot of information and details from the world about this specific trial which is moderated by a court specialized in anti-regime and terrorism cases. When making a decision, this specific court does not allow any appeal. Al-Nuaimi in the same post talked about the games the authorities play through the state security police by grouping people in front of the court to insult the activists and call them ‘traitors', while Bin Ghaith in his letter talked about the mistreatment that he faced while getting arrested and in the last six months he spent in jail. He expressed his shock over the justice system of his country that he never realized its ugly truth until his arrest, and according to different sources, he was denied treatment for a recent skin disease he caught during his time in prison.

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In Bahrain, cyber activists and bloggers are facing intense scrutiny from the authorities and also from those who support the current government, says France24.

“Mohamed Al-Maskati, better known under the pseudonym of “Emoodz” has been held in an unknown location since the 30th of March. The young man has been particularly active on his blog and social networks, where he discussed recent events in his country and in the Arab World. According to the organization “Reporters without Borders“, Al-Maskati reportedly received threats via Twitter shortly before his arrest from a member of the royal family. Web users have been campaigning for his release ever since, by setting up a “Free emoodz” thread and this blog on the micro blogging site.

And like Al-Maskati, dozens of influential bloggers and campaigners for freedom of expression have been targeted by the authorities”

Dubai, supposedly open minded oasis with business and foreigner friendly environment, a blogger demanding reform was arrested. Eurasia Review says,

“An emirate paper said on Sunday that police in Dubai had arrested a blogger and a human rights activist, Ahmad Mansur, who has reportedly urged free elections and called for reforms in the country.

The National paper said police in Dubai had started a criminal investigation against Mansur but declined to specify the charges.”

Even more surprising that “oepn” Dubai's about face are events in Egypt. Middle East's season of fury's toast and pride is now slipping. Los Angeles Times reports that a blogger was sentenced to three years in prision for criticizing the military.

“Maikel Nabil Sanad was arrested March 28 after writing on a blog that “he was providing evidence proving that the military has been deceiving Egyptians” during and after the 18-day revolt that started Jan. 25 and ended with Mubarak’s ouster. A military council of top generals now runs the country.

Human rights advocates expressed puzzlement at Sanad’s sentence, especially after his lawyers were assured on Sunday that his judgment wouldn't be announced until Tuesday. But late Sunday he was discreetly found guilty and sentenced to jail.”

What sort of democracy was promised to the people of Egypt where criticizing military is a punishable crime? and the sentence is given out “discreetly”?

It is clear that those who desire and demand status quo are not willing to relent, they are willing to hit back at any effort to install truly open system. When “free” Egypt feels the need to fear bloggers, what can we expect from others who still proudly wear their autocracy?

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Skype's CEO said that “Bahrain provides one of the most energetic environments to support and encourage innovation - with a talented local workforce and forward-thinking economic development strategies that help support business and broaden regional presence”. He added that “The Middle East and Africa has a young, tech savvy population and we believe that Bahrain will play a central role in making Skype even more popular in the region.”

The announcement was part of Bahrain's vision of national economic strategy called ‘Vision 2030′ which includes telecommunications and information systems.

Indeed, Bahrain is a regional leader with regard to Information Technology in general and the Internet in particular. Internet penetration rate in the UAE reaches the level of 88%, higher than Israel's penetration rate, which is about 72%. In addition, Bahrain has been located at the top of the Middle Eastern countries by the 2010 UN report on the level of e-government readiness.

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And while the UAE will cut off some BlackBerry services such as BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry Web-browsing as of October 11, 2010, Saudi Arabia had ordered the kingdom's three mobile phone providers, Etihad Etisalat-Mobily, Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Zain Saudi Arabia, to block all BlackBerry's services, including e-mail and instant messaging, starting from tomorrow, Friday, August 6th, 2010.

This ban, which according to both countries, will remain in place until BlackBerry applications are in full compliance with local regulations, will seemingly affect more that 500,000 BlackBerry users in the UAE and 700,000 users in Saudi Arabia.

The main reason of the ban seems to lie in the way BlackBerrys handle data and in the judicial and security concerns of the encrypted communications sent to computer servers outside of the two countries. Since BlackBerry’s Messages are sent in an encrypted format through BlackBerry’s servers in Canada, which are run by the manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM), both Gulf states regulatory bodies are upset that they are unable to monitor the data traffic on BlackBerry's handsets.

The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulation Authority says that “in their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns.”

However, and as explained by CPJ Advocacy Coordinator Danny O'Brien:

With suitable technical investment in domestic Internet monitoring, the UAE can decode a great deal of BlackBerry traffic without RIM’s help. When it comes to secure, encrypted communications, neither RIM nor any other telecommunication provider will be able to help them beat the encryption and spy on their own journalists or readers. The power lies far less in the hands of RIM, and far more in the hands of savvy Net users’ choice of the right tools.

According to Dr. Christopher M. Davidson, a Gulf specialist and author of “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success“, the United Arab Emirates’ ban on BlackBerry email and messenger is “primarily a response to mounting political opposition“:

It is also a stark reminder of the current regime’s disingenuous attitudes, its invasive censorship practises, and its intensifying control over the flow of information between the country’s citizens, its millions of expat residents, and all of their contacts with the outside world. Unlike other smartphones, such as Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone, data transferred using BlackBerrys has proved difficult to intercept and monitor for third parties, including the UAE’s state security services and other ill-intentioned eavesdroppers.

This interpretation seems to be confirmed by the recent arrest of several BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates for allegedly trying “to organise a protest against an increase in the price of gasoline” using Blackberry messages:

BBM user Badr Ali Saiwad Al Dhohori, an 18-year-old resident of Ras Al Khaimah, has reportedly been held in Abu Dhabi since 15 July. The authorities were able to trace the organiser, known as “Saud,” because he included his BlackBerry PIN in a BBM message he sent calling for the protest. They held Saud for a week and interrogated him to trace those he had been messaging. Accused of inciting opposition to the government, he has lost his job. At least five other members of the group have reportedly been summoned by the police or are still being sought.

In the main time, the pressures from government authorities worldwide on Blackberry maker, the Canadian Research In Motion, are growing for access to Balckberry data. In an attempt to prevent an outright ban in India, RIM has recently agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its BlackBerry services:

The company has offered to share with security agencies its technical codes for corporate email services, open up access to all consumer emails within 15 days and also develop tools in 6 to 8 months to allow monitoring of chats

In Kuwait, at the request of Kuwait's communication ministry, RIM has reportedly agreed to block 3000 pornographic websites by the end of the year, and is working with Kuwait on “legal controls that would guarantee national security on the one hand, and the rights of citizens…to use the device's services on the other.”

In Bahrain, the widely used BlackBerry chat groups have been banned since April 2010 over the “chaos and confusion” that would result from sharing and distributing local news through these groups.

Back in 2007, RIM has reportedly provided its encryption keys to the Russian Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) “which, in turn, provided access to the Federal Security Service (FSB)“.

Update 1 (August 5th 2010): Indonesia is considering banning BlackBerry services. Gatot Dewabroto, spokesman for the Ministry of Communication and Information declared: “We don’t know whether data being sent through BlackBerrys can be intercepted or read by third parties outside the country.”

Update 2 (August 6th 2010): It has been reported that the Algerian government is reviewing the use of BlackBerry. “We are looking at the issue. If we find out that it is a danger for our economy and our security, we will stop it,” the Telecommunications Minister Moussa Benhamadi said.

Update 3 (August 6th 2010): Lebanon is considering to assess security concerns relating to the use of BlackBerry in the country. “We are studying the issue from all sides — technical, service-wise, economic, financial, legal and security-wise,” the acting head of the Telecoms Regulatory Authority told Reuters. “We are discussing this with the concerned administrations and ministries.”

Update 4 (August 6th 2010): Yestrday, August 5th, 2010, the Tunisian mobile operator, Tunisiana, announced that it will suspend the email function of the Blackberry phones for three days citing concerns about security risks.

Written by Sami Ben Gharbia · comments (0)
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Bing search engine is active in 41 languages and it offers a Web filtering system based on keywords entered into the system in advance, according to different countries. In this way, Bing avoids a free Internet usage among countries in the Middle East while performing search using terms with a sexual orientation - in English and Arabic.

The study was conducted between 2 and 15 January 2010, by inspecting 100 keywords in Arabic and 60 English. The list contains sexual terms as well as those which do not have sexual meaning (terror, violence, politics, women's rights and religion). The search was made using Bing search engine in four countries, which operates different levels of Web filtering: United Arab Emirates, Syria, Algeria and Jordan.

The results showed that Bing search engine filter terms in Arabic and English through which users can reach sexual and LGBT content. The experiment revealed that Bing search engine is filtering also some of these keywords in English when searching for images.

While performing a search using one of these keywords, the user will be noticed (in Arabic or English) that the search result may include adult content, determined by the search engine settings depending on region or country.

Bing search engine does not allow users in the Middle East to control the filtering or to turn it off. On the other hand, the study reveals that if user in the Middle East choose and use the search engine's version that matches to one of the western countries, it will not filter the list in question.

Internet filtering performed by Bing search engine is not complete; it only deals with sexual content and only in the local versions in the Middle East of the search engine. However, even so, this activity of Microsoft is a further evidence of regional governments' efforts to block websites, primarily for reasons of maintaining the values of morality, culture and religion of the local societies.

Unfortunately, this study highlights the role of organizations such as Microsoft in the issue of Internet filtering and the efforts of Middle Eastern governments to constrict free Internet in the Middle East.

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Naoufel Chaara is a talented Moroccan blogger. His website [Ar] has been recently nominated for the Deutsche Welle's 2010 BOBs international award in the Best Arabic Blog category. Naoufel's usually caustic views on people and power in his country and the Arab world, often pack a strong punch with his pretty sizable readership.

One would expect that a dissenting voice is mainly threatened by local power's systems of censorship, but Naoufel's surprise was so big when he learned that his blog was actually banned outside of his country's frontiers.

In the following short interview, the blogger explains how he came to know about the ban and if this impacts on his writings.

Can you introduce your blog and the kind of topics you cover?

How did you learn that your website was blocked in some Arab countries?

How do you explain the censorship?

What was the reaction of your blog's readers?

Will this ban influence the way you write on your blog?

Are there ways to circumvent this censorship?

Any final thoughs?

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According to the Arabian Human Rights Initiative website, this case emanated from a case filed against the magazine by the Abu Dhabi Media Company over user comments about an article published on the site,

The case is based on an article published by the magazine in its issue No. 55 on May 4, 2009, under the title “Abu Dhabi TV: Emirate TV only in name”; http://www.hetta.com/new/news.php?do=view_subject&id=&ids=78 by the writer Enas Borini. The article criticized the way the Emirate TV channels are being administrated. The article did not exceed the permitted criticism, but the chairman of Abu Dhabi Media considered comments on the article “defaming him” and filed a complaint to the General Prosecution, which in turn decided to refer the case under number 8585 for the year 2009 to the Court on June 14, 2009.

Gulf News also reports that comments on online articles are now considered defamatory,

The comments were considered by the complainant and the Public Prosecution as slander and defamation.

The chief editor has said that they will be appealing the decision, we'll update you as the situation unfolds.

Written by Victor Ngeny · comments (2)
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