Saudi Arabia denies its citizens access to thousands of selected religious, human rights and politically objectional web pages and to most gambling and pornographic Internet sites, a study has found
A report by Harvard University Law School's Berkman Center for Internet
and Society recognized the Riyadh government as a leading Internet censor. Forbidden sites include entertainment, humor,
religions other than Islam, human rights and pornography, Middle East Newsline reported.
The Saudi government uses software called SmartFilter, created by Secure
Computing in San Jose, Calif., to block most of the pornographic, gambling
and drug-related sites. But the SmartFilter software is also customized with
blacklists provided by Saudi security agencies, the Saudi Internet
administrators said.
Among the pages selected by security agencies are some
that are critical of Saudi Arabia's political situation, like the Web sites
of Amnesty International and the Saudi Institute, another human rights
watchdog group.
Saudi Arabia granted citizens Internet access in 1999. The kingdom spent
the two previous years constructing controls so that all traffic would be
filtered by the government and security services.
The report was completed with the cooperation of the kingdom's
Internet Service Unit which controls web access in the kingdom. It said
2,038 out of 64,557 web pages requested were blocked by Saudi authorities.
In Riyad, the Saudi Council of Ministers has ordered a crackdown on
satellite-based Internet services. The Cabinet said Saudi authorities would
monitor the use of satellite dishes for Internet services and warned
operators that their licenses would be withdrawn.
