Stories about Middle East & North Africa from July, 2010
Iran: Campaign to Free Jailed Photo-Blogger Hamed Saber
More than 70 Iranian university graduates and academics are calling for the release of Hamed Saber, an Iranian photo-blogger and computer scientist who was arrested for unknown reasons on 21 June 2010 in Tehran.
Web filtering In the Middle East using Bing Microsoft's search engine
Research conducted earlier this year examined the extent of Internet filtering in Arab countries made using Bing search engine of Microsoft for terms with a sexual orientation. Bing search engine is active in 41 languages and it offers a Web filtering system based on keywords entered into the system in...
A Jordanian student sentenced to two years in prison over IM
According to the Next Web - Middle East, citing the Ammannet website, a Jordanian computer engineering student, by the name of Imad Al-Ash, has been arrested since February, 2010, and sentenced on July 13th, 2010, by state security court to two years in prison over charges of lèse majesté for sending an IM (Instant Message) to his friend
For the first time in Israel – blocking Internet gambling websites
On July 2010 an article was published which received no proper attention so far – for the first time the Israeli police ordered Internet Service providers to block access to websites. The news was posted on ‘Haaretz’ websites in Hebrew and English as well as on ‘Globes‘, but without significant...
Israel – Another step in government restrictions on the Web
Two weeks ago, when police directive was published for the first time in Israel, instructing the Internet providers to block access to some gambling websites, the economic Committee of the Knesset (Israeli parliament) approved, on July 13th, a bill requiring Internet service providers to inform their clients about the dangers...
Egypt: Blogger Released After More Than two Years in Detention
After about three years of detention, the Egyptian blogger Mus'ad Abu Fagr was finally released on Tuesday, June 13th, 2010. Though more than eight release orders were issued to him since his arrest on 26 December 2007, the Ministry of Interior used to renew each time his detention. The decision to set Abu Fagr free came as part of an effort to reduce growing tensions between Egyptian Security Services and Sinai Bedouins.
Lebanon: Three Arrested for Facebook Postings
Lebanese Naim George Hanna, 27, Antoine Youssef Ramya, 29, and Shebel Rajeh Qassab, 27, have been arrested for posting Facebook statuses against the Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. The Lebanese online community is outraged because of the invasion of their cyberspace and here are some of their reactions.
Mass Gmail Phishing in Tunisia
Lately, Internet users in Tunisia started complaining about difficulties accessing their Gmail account, and rumors began to circulate about an imminent censorship of Google's email service. Since the new wave of censorship that banned popular websites, such as Flickr, Wat.tv, Blip.tv, Metacafe.com, Agoravox.fr and countless of Tunisian blogs, paranoia about...
