Egypt's Government Plans to Block All Online Pornography

Mohamed Salem, the head of Egypt's Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, told the Egypt Independent that the government will begin banning pornography completely from the Internet. The National Telecommunications Regulation Authority will form a committee to lay out the technical methods to manage the millions of adult websites in Egypt's cyberspace. Said Salem to the press, "The issue is becoming persistent and worrying to families."

The issue was also raised in Parliament recently. The preparations for a total ban on pornography come after Dr. Younis Makhioun, of the conservative Al-Nour Party, raised concerns that pornography was conflicting with the country's religious values. He claimed that pornography was responsible for increased divorce rates and increased cases of rape in the country, IT News Africa reports.

Egyptian ISPs already provide Internet customers with the option of blocking offensive content. For example, TEData, the country's largest ISP, offers a "family Internet service" which allows users to block "indecent content" inappropriate for children.