huridocs-tech Saudia Arabia: censorship and pornography

Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 03:17:13 -0400
To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Saudi censors say they're winning the war against porn online
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by vorlon.mit.edu id 
DAA27275

*********
See also Reuters story on Saudi Net-censorship:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35952,00.html

And, just for amusement value:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/saudi000425.html
April 25 ^× At least 40 people were killed in
violence that broke out along the Saudi-Yemen
border after Saudi police arrested a man
authorities there have denounced as a sorcerer. [...]
In Saudi Arabia, convicted sorcerers are beheaded.
*********

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_742000/742798.stm

               May 10
               By Frank Gardner in Riyadh

               The authorities in Saudi Arabia say they are
               winning the war against pornography on the
               internet.

               The director of the government organisation
               that monitors all Saudi internet traffic, Dr
               Fahad al-Hoymany, says he believes his unit is
               succeeding in blocking all the major
               pornographic sites.

               But he admits that it is hard to keep up when
               new sites are appearing almost every hour.

               The country's 30 ISPs, or Internet Service
               Providers, are all linked into a central node in
               the capital.

               For the estimated 130,000 users, access to
               the Saudi internet is controlled by this node.

               No censorship experts

               It is housed in a secure ground-floor room in
               the King Abdulaziz City of Science and
               Technology (KACST).

               There are no teams of censorship experts, just
               technicians.

               Some of them are from Finland, who operate
               filter programmes bought in from abroad.

               Dr Hoymany says the conservative and
               religious culture of the Saudi people means
               they want to be sure that if they log onto the
               net they will not be offended.

               As well as porn, the Saudi authorities block
               access to any sites they believe could stir up
               religious hatred.

               Websites giving advice on how to make your
               own bomb are also off-limits.

               [...]



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