Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
ONI Blog: Popular site "Tagged" Blocked in Qatar
According to one user of Qatar Living, popular site "Tagged" has been blocked by QTEL, which operates in 17 countries and is currently Qatar's only Internet service provider (Vodafone has also been given a license and will begin service soon, ...
ONI Blog: Website Blockings in Bahrain
A new government crackdown by Bahrain’s Ministry of Information has led to the blocking of over 60 websites ranging from Google Translate to social, political, religious, and human rights sites, according to the Bahrain Human Rights Society and Global Voices Online,...
- Posted on 25/Jan/2009; tagged in Bahrain, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), ONI, Political filtering, Proxy blocking
ONI Blog: Syria blocks personal blog of human rights activist
This article was originally posted on Global Voices Advocacy by Sami Ben Gharbia
Syrian authorities have blocked access to the personal blog of the 26-year-old Syrian Human rights activist and blogger Mohammad Al-Abdallah who is blogging at Raye7wmishRaj3 (I’m...
ONI Blog: Internet Censorship in Saudi
Saudi Arabia has one of the most restrictive Internet filters in the world, yet according to BusinessWeek news reports, the Saudi censorship regime is vastly unlike that of most countries. Employing a mere twenty-five people, the country’s Communication and...
- Posted on 30/Nov/2008; tagged in Saudi Arabia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Surveillance, ONI, Political filtering, Social filtering, Voluntary filtering
ONI Blog: Users' initiatives to block Web sites
An Arabic Web site called Ehjeb (Arabic for the verb "to block") is becoming increasingly popular especially in Web forums. The site, still in beta version, offers to facilitate blocking of web sites by sending URLs of questionable Web sites...
- Posted on 24/Oct/2008; tagged in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Political filtering, Social filtering
ONI Blog: UAE blog blocked after analyzing impact of US financial crisis on UAE economy
The UAE ISPs blocked access to the Arabic blog Mujarad Ensan (Just a man) a few days after the blogger published a post sarcastically entitled "Lough with me and say: Our economy is in a good condition" in which he...
- Posted on 14/Oct/2008; tagged in United Arab Emirates, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Political filtering
ONI Blog: Cyber war brings down influential Shiite Web sites
ONI is currently monitoring a cyber war waged by a group of Sunni Muslims who managed to hack significant Shiite and Iranian Web sites, the number of which has reached 300, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency. The agency...
- Posted on 20/Sep/2008; tagged in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Conflict and security filtering
ONI Blog: Tunisian journalist sues government agency for blocking Facebook, claims damage for the use of 404 error message instead of 403
Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied El-Hen filed a suit this week in a Tunisian court against the Tunisian Internet Agency for blocking the social networking Web site Facebook, according to a report by Reuters (Arabic). The journalist...
- Posted on 12/Sep/2008; tagged in Tunisia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Human rights, Social filtering
ONI Blog: Facebook is unblocked in Tunisia by presidential order
Internet users in Tunisia were able to access the social networking Web site facebook today after it was blocked by the country's ISPs last month without giving any reason. Interestingly, the President of Tunisia Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali himself ordered the...
- Posted on 03/Sep/2008; tagged in Tunisia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Political filtering
ONI Blog: Online censorship in Tunisia
Sami Ben Gharbia of Global Voices posted an excellent review of recently blocked blogs, social networking Web sites (including facebook), and video sharing sites. The post also presents users' reaction to online censorship and the anti-censorship campaigns organized...
- Posted on 24/Aug/2008; tagged in Tunisia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Political filtering
