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Harvard study cites Saudis as leading Internet censor

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, October 23, 2002

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would monitor the use of satellite dishes for Internet services and warned operators that their licenses would be withdrawn.



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