Stories about Middle East & North Africa from September, 2009
Egypt: Another journalist to be deported
To continue the series of harassing or deporting journalists in Egypt, like Travis Randall, Philip Rizk and Wael Abbas; Per Bjorklund, a Swedish journalist and blogger has been detained in Cairo airport upon his arrival. He’s been stopped by security and is to be deported back to Prague without an...
Egypt: Bargaining Bloggers to stop opposing the Government
“You will be behind the sun” was the expression used by the Dean Abdul Hadi, General Inspector of State Security at Fayoum (Egyptian Province), while he was interrogating the Egyptian blogger AbdelRahman Fares last Friday, 25 September, 2009, who blogs at Lesany Hoa elKalm (My Pen Is My Tongue). Hours...
Egypt: Blogger warned by state security if he goes on writing on the internet
The Egyptian blogger Abdel Rahman Fares was summoned to State Security headquarters, where he was blamed for his online writings. Fares was warned that he would be arrested if he goes on blogging, and asked to give up both his online and offline activities. Fares is blogging at Lesani Howa...
Egypt: Detained blogger assaulted and asked to convert to Islam in exchange for his freedom
The lawyer of the arrested blogger Hani Nazeer still not allowed to visit his client. However, the Christian blogger Nazeer managed to contact The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information revealing that he was assaulted and asked to convert to Islam in exchange for his freedom: He and other inmates...
Yemen: Editor of an opposition website kidnapped
On the night of Friday, September 18th, 2009, the Yemeni Editor of the opposition Socialist Party's website, Al Eshteraki, Mohammed al Maqaleh has been kidnapped in the capital Sana'a by security forces. According to eyewitness reports cited by the International Federation of Journalists : five gun wielding masked men in...
The Power of 140 Characters: Twitter in the Middle East
The massive, sustained protests in Iran this past month against the regime’s apparent falsification of the presidential election results was enabled by widespread employment of new communication technologies. Among them is Twitter, the micro-blog which enables its users to distribute short messages of no more than 140 characters (‘Tweets’) via...
Syria: Blogger Kareem Arbaji Sentenced to Three Years in prison
On September 13, 2009, the Syrian State Security Supreme Court sentenced the young blogger Kareem Arbaji to three-years prison for “publishing mendacious information liable to weaken the nation’s morale,” under article #286 of the Syrian penal code. The thirty- one years old economics graduate, Kareem Arbaji, has been detained for...
Once again, Syria bans Facebook
Editor's Note: Facebook has been blocked in Syria consistently for the past two years; therefore, the statement that a ban will be “reintroduced” is incorrect. The linked article from ‘Al Quds Al Arabi’,” which has since been removed, did not actually claim that Syria planned to reintroduce a ban. The...
Tunisia: Journalist and blogger Abdallah Zouari rearrested
Tunisian blogger and former political prisoner Abdallah Zouari has been arrested yesterday, 15 September 2009 by plainclothes agents in the southern city of Zarzis. During the 8 hours of arrest, blogger Abdallah Zouari was asked to disclose the passwords of his email accounts and interrogated about his most recent report...
Egypt Interrogating Netizen for a Blog Comment
On September the 3rd, 2009, Khaled elBalshy, the Editor-In-Chief of the Al-Badeel newspaper, who maintains a personal blog at http://elbalshy.blogspot.com, was interrogated by the Interior Ministry's Internet Crimes department for a comment on one of his blog posts left by an anonymous visitor. The comment was in response to a...
Danish-Egyptian Biometric ID-Card Scrutinized Before Take-off
Danish aid is advanzing a joint venture that will sell sofisticated biometric identification technology to the Egyptian Ministry of Communication. NGO questions lack of oversight and evaluation of whether the technology can be used to advance surveillance.
The Other Voice: Women in the Cyberspace Discourse in the Middle East and Islamic World
http://www.dayan.org/Women%20and%20the%20internet.pdf Tel Aviv Notes, Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University – 30 August 2009. In recent years, the Internet has become a swift and accessible means of communication, thanks in part to the proliferation of personal blogs and, even more recently, micro-blogs (through “Twitter”). Users are now able to transmit short...
Anonymous Blogging guide now available in Arabic
Download PDF The Anonymous Blogging with WordPress and Tor guide is now available in Arabic thanks to this translation by Yazan Badran and Mohammad Al abdallah. The guide outlines several methods of protecting one’s identity in order to avoid retaliation and can considerably reduce the risks that a blogger’s identity...
Egypt: American blogger and activist detained,Laptop Confiscated
Last night, Tuesday 1st September 09, the American activist and blogger Travis Randall, who participated in a small march supporting Gaza earlier this year, was detained by security officers for tow hours upon his arrival at Cairo International Airport. Security officers gave no explanation for the detention. Furthermore, they confiscated Randall's laptop and cell phone.
