the internet in the mideast the internet in the mideast and north africa and north africa

120 Pages·2012·0.44 MB·English

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Copyright 8 June 1999 by Human Rights Watch
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 1-56432-235-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-64033

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This report was researched and written by Eric Goldstein, deputy director of the Middle
East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. It was edited by Hanny Megally, executive
director of the division, Dinah PoKempner, deputy general counsel of Human Rights Watch, and
Michael McClintock, deputy program director. Jagdish Parikh, Human Rights Watch=s online
research associate, provided helpful comments on the draft. We are also grateful for the
generous and expert input of outside readers Grey E. Burkhart and David Banisar, who bear no
responsibility for any assertions or errors in the report. Sara Eggerling, Middle East and
North Africa division associate, formatted the report.

Human Rights Watch wishes to thank the J.M. Kaplan Fund for making possible the
translation of portions of this report into Arabic.

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Note: This report cites many web pages and web-site addresses (uniform resource locators,
or URLs). Since the preparation of the report, some of these may have been modified, relocated,
or rendered unavailable.

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I. SUMMARY........................................................................................................................................................................1

II. RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................................................................................3

III. LEGAL STANDARDS PERTAINING TO ONLINE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.....................................................7

IV. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................................................12

V. THE INTERNET IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: A CAUTIOUS START..............................................16

VI. CYBERCENSORSHIP: ITS VARIOUS FORMS..........................................................................................................27

VII. GOVERNMENT-IMPOSED FILTERING SCHEMES VIOLATE
THE RIGHT TO FREE EXPRESSION....................................................................................................................30

VIII. CONTENT AND CARRIER: THE QUESTION OF LIABILITY.....................................................................................34

IX. HOW USERS CAN PROTECT THEIR RIGHTS TO PRIVACY AND ANONYMITY .................................................36

X. COUNTRY PROFILES...................................................................................................................................................41
Bahrain...................................................................................................................................................................41
Iraq..........................................................................................................................................................................42
Jordan....................................................................................................................................................................45
Morocco.................................................................................................................................................................49
Saudi Arabia.........................................................................................................................................................51
Syria.......................................................................................................................................................................55
Tunisia....................................................................................................................................................................58
United Arab Emirates.......................................................................................................................................66

APPENDIX A: Table showing Internet use in the Middle East...................................................................71

APPENDIX B: Uniform letter requesting information on Internet policies, sent by Human Rights
Watch in May 1999 to governments of the region..............................................................................73

APPENDIX C: Replies to Human Rights Watch letter received from officials of Iraq, Jordan,
Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen...............................................................................................................76
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The Internet dramatically empowers persons in the exercise of their right to seek,
receive, and impart information and ideas regardless of frontiers. Online communication must
therefore be fully protected by international guarantees of the right to freedom of expression.
In the Middle East and North Africa, Internet use is growing rapidly after a slow start.
Today, all countries except Libya, Iraq, and Syria allow the public to access the Internet
through a local service provider. But in a region where nearly all governments abridge the
right to freedom of expression in significant ways, many have taken a cautious approach toward
a medium that permits persons easily, inexpensively, and rapidly to exchange information in ways
that elude state control.
Governments have adopted various means to restrict the flow of information online. Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates impose censorship via proxy servers, devices that
are interposed between the end-user and the Internet in order to filter and block specified
content. In many countries, including Jordan, taxation and telecommunications policies keep
Internet accounts quite costly and thus beyond the means of manyCwhether or not this is the
objective of these policies. Tunisia has enacted the region=s most detailed Internet-specific
legislation, which is in large part designed to ensure that online speech does not escape the
government=s tough controls on critical speech in other media. In the majority of countries
where Internet-specific laws have not been enacted, legal or de facto constraints on freedom
of speech and of the press have a chilling effect on what is expressed online, especially in
public forums like open bulletin boards and Achat-rooms@ (online discussions where
participants communicate in real time).
And in a region where many governments routinely tap the phones of dissidents, Internet
users in many countries, including Bahrain and Tunisia, suspect that the right to privacy of
correspondence is being violated by government surveillance of e-mail. One Bahraini spent
more than a year in jail on suspicion of e-mailing Apolitical@ information to dissidents abroad.
Fortunately, some governments in the region have taken a more hands-off attitude toward
the InternetCeven as they enforce laws that curb other means of expression. This has created
paradoxical situations in Egypt and Jordan, where newspapers or articles that the authorities
censored became quickly available online without repercussions for those who read, posted, or
forwarded them. Algeria, Morocco, and the Palestinian Authority have made little if any effort
so far to control online content, allowing Internet users access to a wealth of political and
human rights information that the local print and broadcast media cannot publish.
This report surveys in a noncomprehensive fashion the Internet policies of governments in
the region as they affect the right to freedom of expression. Human Rights Watch identifies
policies, laws, and practices that violate or endanger this right. By offering this critique
while proposing a set of principles to guide policies and legislation, Human Rights Watch

1
2 The Internet in the Mideast: Free Expression and Censorship

seeks to encourage governments to strengthen protections for freedom of expression at this
early stage of the Internet=s development.