Internetcensur i Bahrain - kritisk blog spærret

 

Den udmærkede Bahraini Mahmood, som vi flere gange tidligere har citeret, er blevet blokeret af myndighederne i sit eget land - hans dækning af en aktuel politisk skandale blev dem tilsyneladende for kontroversiel.

Fra opslag på itoot.net:

A petition has been launched against the blockage of Mahmood’s Den. Please support free speech in Bahrain by signing it and sending the link to as many people as possible.

Reporters Without Borders skriver også om sagen:

Access to one of Bahrain’s most influential blogs, http://mahmood.tv, which openly criticises government and parliament members and has of late being covering the "Bandargate" scandal currently shaking the country, was blocked yesterday.

The blog’s author, Mahmood Al-Yousif, has nonetheless managed to move it to a new address, http://alyousif.tv, which has not yet been blocked. The authorities already blocked several news websites on 26 October in a wave of censorship taking place less than a month before parliamentary elections.

Måske regeringen i stedet for at belære os om, hvor lidt demokrati de kan nøjes med nede i Irak, skulle tage at lægge lidt pres på vore venner, samhandelspartnere og allierede blandt Golfstaterne for at de begynder at tillade deres borgere at (oh ve!) sige deres mening eller sågar (oh skræk!) organisere fagforeninger og strejker, sådan som man kan og gerne skulle blive ved med at kunne f.eks. her?

Den aktuelle sag opsummeres her:

Mahmood Al-Yousif is a Bahraini businessman who runs one of the Arab world's most popular blogs: Mahmood's Den. Known as the godfather of the blogging scene in Bahrain, Al-Yousif has inspired dozens of young people in the Persian Gulf to begin blogging and his blog receives over 1.5 million hits a month from around the world. For the last two years, he has served as a judge for HAMSA's Dream Deferred Essay Contest on Civil Rights in the Middle East.

But now Al-Yousif's outspoken and free-spirited writing has prompted Bahrain's Ministry of Information to block his site. If you try to visit Mahmood's Den from inside Bahrain, all that appears is an error page with the word "Forbidden" in big letters.

Please take a moment to protest censorship and protect free expression in Bahrain. Below is a petition/email. You can edit the sample text if you like. When you hit send, an email will be delivered to Bahrain's Minister of Information. Please sign - and encourage your friends to do the same ...

Link til selve underskriftsindsamlingen.

[ agger, Tue 31 Oct, :10:41: /politik] - kommentar(er) - link

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