Monday, January 25, 2010

Internet Freedom : Hilary Clinton's speech


Few days ago, the secretary of state Hilary Clinton gave a speech about internet freedom, it’s a long speech but the subject is deserver more , I won’t talk about what she said and what is the real US politic or agenda, it’s for those politic to sell their stupid speech for the people, I want to talk about two main subject that Hilary mentioned them in her speech and I want strongly to highlight them so we can compare the promise coming from the secretary of state and the facts we have them in our hands.

The first point was about the freedom of getting the information and have the access to the information without any limitation, regardless of a parliament that can do nothing to get how many been nationalized in Bahrain, because its privacy as the government always said, I would strongly highlight the issue of Hasan Salman the one who published “public Record” with the names of national security forces so he deserve 3 years of jail, he is an online activism, he used the internet to publish public record, he is in jail because he publish that kind of information that based on Hilary’s speech everyone have the right to access, and based on the speech that united state will look in to these incidents closely from now on, so I hope this will be highlighted more and more because there is someone in jail and there is support from the united state to this event

This is will link me to the other point the speech was highlighted, it was about the companies

“For Companies, this issue is about more than claiming the moral high ground; it comes down to the trust between firms and their customers”

So here is the question

Dear united state government, if you are supporting the freedom of internet, and you are asking your companies to do so, tell us, what the hell is your companies doing in Bahrain to support this regime and albandar gate to filter the access to information, what tools this regime is using to block and censor, isn’t it united state companies tool? Blue coat which is the main filtering proxy used here in Batelco the main ISP used in Bahrain, its manufactured and product by American Company with the same name, switches used in www.bahrain.bh most of them is Cisco switches and there is a big news about the deal happen between the e-government and Cisco year ago, the same to Microsoft, so if the united state government is frankly speaking that they want the freedom of the internet, let us hear from them, why these American companies supporting our Retroactive regime, and we have to suffer with this censor ship for more time. What I am asking and hoping it will help, some pressure on those American companies so they stop selling this product to our regime, and if it’s possible cancel the license

Hint

Most of the deals happen between American companies and partners in Bahrain, you see albandar gate man there I don’t know why


video for an old protest when Bahrainonline moderators was arrested



Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Bahrain: harshness and hostility against freedom to use the Internet Minister of Culture and Information violates freedom to exp

Cairo May 7th 2009

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) declares its being disturbed by the persistence of hostility shown by the Bahraini Minister of Culture and Information Mai Al-Khalifa against freedom to use the Internet in Bahrain. This hostility began just after her taking the office at the end of 2008 and became really obvious at her first decision issued in January 5th 2009 entitled "the resolution No. (1) for the year 2009 on organizing blocking websites", the decision's articles obligated all telecommunications companies and Internet service providers to block any Bahraini websites whenever there is a decision made by the ministry.

It seems that the work of the new minister is limited to browsing websites and taking decisions to block them, as the number of blocked sites since she began her work reached more than three hundreds, while the number was only 26 sites before she takes her new ministerial post.

The policies of the Bahraini Culture and Information Minister which reflect increasing hostility to freedom to use the Internet, were fully reflected in retreating her earlier promises to support the freedom of information and culture in Bahrain. The first broken promise was accepting to integrate the two Ministries of Culture and Information in one ministry after her strong opposition to this integration. Just after she became a minister, she began practicing her hobby in blocking the websites and blogs. She also gave all her department's employees the right to block any website, while lifting the blockage requires a ministerial decision.

"The insistence of the Bahraini King on appointing ministers hostile against freedom to expression will remain a major obstacle facing those who demand human rights. And when the ministry of Culture and Information that should protect and empower media and expression freedoms, become the first entity to violate these freedoms, then talking about freedom of expression in Bahrain is just empty words." ANHRI said.

The last blocked websites following decisions by the minister were;
Afaq electronic newspaper http://www.aafaq.org and Hwaa Elbahrain blog http://bahrain-eve.blogspot.com, which had been added to a long list of blocked websites such as;
Bahrain Center for Human Rights: http://www.bahrainrights.org
Voice of Bahrain Forums www.bahrainvoice.net
the to blogs: http://alsingace.blogspot.com/ and http://alsingace.katib.org
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information: http://anhri.net
The Bahrain forum http://www.bahrainonline.org
National Democratic Action Society www.aldemokrati.org


http://openarab.net/en/node/929