Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) [1] has recently blocked access to Twitter accounts of a blogger @Mashi97 [2] and a human rights activist @abualkhair [3]. The move comes after the role Twitter played in the recent post-elections uprising in Iran.
Blogger Khaled al-Nasser [4] told [5] AFP that his tweets [2] 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 [3] also referred to human rights violations in his tweets.
Despite the blockage, both al-Nasser [2] and Abu al-Khair are still able to update their Twitter [6] 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 [7] that was launched last June. CITC has 81 followers, but they are not following anyone.
* Image Credit: Kharejaljasad [8]