· April, 2010

Stories about Middle East & North Africa from April, 2010

Egypt: Using Online Media & Digital Devices to Release Detainees

  21 April 2010

Earlier this month, the April 6 Youth Movement staged a protest in front of the Egyptian Peoples Assembly calling for more political freedoms and an end to Egypt's restrictive “emergency law”, which might be renewed this year, and might be enforced as well by a new “Counter-Terrorism law” which is expected to be extremely repressive. The Egyptian security forces responded to the protesting citizens with a brutal violence, making a score of arrests and convictions.

Bahrain Bans BlackBerry Chat Groups

  12 April 2010

Bahrain recently banned the use of BlackBerry chat groups citing concerns over the “chaos and confusion” that would result from sharing and distributing local news through these groups, according to Abdullah Yateem, the Culture and Information Ministry assistant undersecretary for press and publication. With this move Bahrain set a precedent...

Tunisia: WAT.TV, the 3rd video-sharing website to be blocked!

  2 April 2010

Few days ago, the Tunisian regime has blocked access to WAT.TV, a social networking and media-sharing website, which is believed to be the 3rd video broadcaster on the Internet in France. This is also the third video-sharing website to be blocked in The country. First they blocked Dailymotion on September...

Lebanon: First Threatened Voice

  2 April 2010

Lebanon has been known and envied in the MENA region for its free cyberspace. Well not any more since March has marked Lebanon's first cyber censhorship incident. Layal Al Khatib has more details in this post.

Censorship Without Borders: A Moroccan Blogger's Experience

  1 April 2010

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...