The city is already imposing censorship on the internet. This is to be praised because we are not supposed to leave the internet open for all because there are immoral websites which violate the rights of Muslims to apply the rules of their religion.
Manager of King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology Saleh Ben Abdullah Al-Azl, in a press statement on the fact that the city is focused more on censorship than research
General Overview
Abdul Aziz Al Saud founded the current Kingdom of Saudi Arabia he was deeply influenced by Wahabism who followers helped him create the state. Wahabism is a religious movement that appeared late in the eighteenth century and focuses on a very narrow and strict interpretation of Islam which is widely considered to be extremist. This historical link between the politics of the Kingdom and Wahabi Islam has continued throughout the history of the state.
Saudi Arabia is one of the richest Arab countries, and it is heavily dependant on oil for its national income. The kingdom has 25% of all the petrol in the world.
The leadership of the Kingdom appears to act in a schizophrenic way since they depend on the west for their economy and armed forces (which help keep them in power) but at the same time the state completely refuses any western values or democracy and freedom. This skeptical view towards all things western meant that the internet took along time to gain acceptance and was not available in the Kingdom until 1998. This made it one of the last Arab countries to gain access to the internet despite its enormous financial resources.
The latest statistics reveal that the Saudi population is 23.4 million citizens and the average income per capita is 13,137 dollars;
Internet and Telecommunications Sector
Saudi Arabia has some 14 million mobile phone lines in operation and there were some 3 million internet users in 2005 (1).
The internet began operating in Saudi Arabia soon after the ministerial resolution no. 163 was issued on 4 March 1997 . This resolution granted the license to King Abdul Aziz City to provide internet services. The city founded the Internet Service Unit (ISU), which was then entitled to construct the internet infrastructure. It also worked on establishing the regulating bylaws in coordination with the Saudi authorities. Interestingly the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology is excluded from this, although it is the competent ministry in most of the other countries (2).
From a practically perspective internet service started operating on 15 December 1998 , when the Saudi universities were connected to the technical city. The licenses are granted to licensed service provider companies in the technical city according to rules which mean that all telecommunications devices must go through the servers of King Abdul Aziz City (3).
For more than five years the King Abdul Aziz city was, with the help of Saudi Telecommunications Company the authority responsible for the internet which provided external telecommunications lines connecting the city with worldwide internet lines. This situation continued until the Prime Minister Decree no. 229/2004 issued. This states that the regulation of internet service in Saudi Arabia is to be distributed as follows:
1) The Telecommunication and Information Technology Authority is to be responsible for licensing the internet service provider companies and for supervising filtering service, implementing security controls, registering Saudi domains.
2) The King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology will be limited to providing universities and some governmental competent authorities with internet services (4).
The implementation of the ministerial decree started with completing the requirements of supervising the "blocking" process. The transformation process was completed in 2006, when the Telecommunications Company finished the construction of a new gateway in Riyadh and took over the international gateway in Jeddah. After this, the service providers were transformed from the Saudi market to the new gateway and the authority (5).
The Saudi market, which contains dozens of internet service provider companies is controlled by the sole terrestrial phone lines operator in Saudi Arabia the Telecommunications Company.
Despite the sustained increase in users, the complaints of the citizens are endless because of increase in subscription prices and bad service and weak technical support. A new website was constructed to call for boycotting the Saudi Telecommunication Company (STC) (6). Such actions are rare in Saudi Arabia . The ‘boycott' website posted a petition to King Abdullah Ben Abdel Aziz to urge him to correct the situation with the internet. The website had collected 21,742 signatures by 5 November 2006 .
Bloggers
Technical problems and social blockade suffered by internet users in Saudi Arabia has not prevent users from blogging and forming groups to write about daily life in Saudi Arabia. Some of these blogs engage in debate about the future of Saudi society.
Saudi Arabia has a high number of active bloggers indeed it has been estimated that there may be as many as 500 to 600 bloggers. The internet is the best place for them to express themselves freely since they are able to use pseudonyms to hide their identity so that the authorities will not be able to punish them for expressing their views (7).
The fight between seculars and conservatives has also moved to the Saudi blogs. Some boggers constructed a website ( http://www.saudiblogs.org ) to gather all Saudi blogs who speak without self-censoring. Another group assigned certain provisions and called their group "Official Community of Saudi Arabian Bloggers" (OCSAB) (8). The founders of OCSAB stipulated some rules these including prohibitions on defaming any of the three ‘divine' religions, discussing race issues; furthermore the bloggers must be Saudis or resident in Saudi Arabia .
Censorship and Website Blocking
Internet service entered Saudi Arabia accompanied by strict blocking and censorship. The Ministerial Decree stipulates that sites should be blocked which "contradicts religion rules and national systems". The law also ordered the formation of permanent security committee to supervise the internet. The committee head is the Minister of Interior and the members are from among different authorities. King Abdel Aziz City implements blocking requests according to the instruction of the committee and other "competent security bureaus" (9). This task has been entrusted to the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority since the beginning of 2006, in the context of re-organizing internet services.
Unlike the majority of Arab countries, the Saudi authorities do not attempt to hide their intentions or their censorship of the internet. The authorities expanded the prohibition to include any websites which officials may disapprove of. They declared their sense of pride at blocking websites. This led the King Abdel Aziz City to announce its success in blocking 200,000 websites in August 2001. One year and a half after the internet began operating in Saudi Arabia almost 250 websites were being blocked daily. The number of blocked websites is now in the region of 400,000 websites. Consequently, Reporters without Borders granted Saudi Arabia the first censorship prize (10) in protest on the Saudi practices in this regard.
The Saudi Cabinet of Ministers granted the "Permanent Security Committee" the powers to block any website. However, the committee passed this right to the Internet Service Unite in King Abdel Aziz City for Science and Technology. The committee claimed that this entitlement is necessary because of the large number of pornographic websites. The City constructed a web form to receive blocking applications form citizens, to be reviewed by the Internet Service Unit. Hundreds of these applications are submitted each day according to King Abdel Aziz City (11). Thus the internet is policed by both the authorities and the Saudi citizens.
Given the limitless range of reasons that can be employed as good enough to block a site it is unsurprising that no one can tell why a certain website is blocked. The derogation of the power, from the Security Committee to the City, to block websites clearly shows that official oversight is not deemed as very important. The authorities are content to block if there is any doubt about a website. Religious fundamentalist have also begun organizing in order to have websites which contradicts their views blocked. They regularly send dozens of emails to the city. This leads the city to block the websites even before reviewing their content. Thus Saudi internet users are besieged by a triangle of social, religious, and political censorship. All this prevents free access to the internet (12).
The Internet Service Unit posted a page on their website entitled "the importance of recommendations" in order to ensure the importance of blocking as many websites as possible. The page starts with the religious texts which claim that blocking is a divine order; "He [Prophet Joseph] says: … Unless You [Allah] turn away their [women's] plot from me, I will feel inclined towards them and be one [of those who commit sin and deserve blame] of the ignorant". Under this verse from the Quran research conducted by the Law School of Duke University in USA is mentioned. The research – it is said – concludes that the cities which impose strict laws and regulations to prevent online pornography have lower rape and murder rates. At the end of these instructions, there is advice for those who seek an even higher degree of control over their own computers to install an extra filtering program (13).
The official Saudi reports state that 95% of the almost 400,000 websites that are blocked are pornographic while the other 5% are political, social, or opponent websites (14). A Saudi writer considered this blocking "a print of shame on [his] country" (15). However, the Head of King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology; Dr. Saleh Abdullah Al-Azel considered blocking "a praiseworthy action" because they "are not supposed to leave the internet open for all" (16).
It is quite clear from the emails received by the Arabic Network for Human Rights that many users in Saudi Arabia complain about the number of blocked websites. In an email the writer said that he suffers from the blocking of Shiite, human rights, and political websites (17). Another email said that most of the blocked websites are Shiite and political websites in addition to opinion forums (e.g. Al-Tomar, Dar El-Nadwa, and Tawy) (18). Another email claimed that most of the blocked websites are religious websites which has nothing to do with the official religious doctrines, most of these are Shiite (19). Another citizen believe that blocking policy is targeting political websites which contradicts state policy and pornographic websites which contradicts religion and morals, from the governments point of view. Another citizen mentioned the many blocked websites including political and opponent websites (e.g. Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper published in London ). In addition, most of the political web forums are blocked excluding the ones which promised to adhere to Saudi government instructions (20). Another citizen mentioned that in addition to blocking pornographic and political websites.
This intensive blocking method made it impossible to count the blocked websites in Saudi Arabia .. Among the most important blocked websites is the political Rasid news ( www.rasid.com ) website. The website was blocked on 6 October 2004 . However, the users were able to access it via the alternative website which is not blocked. The website moderators considered this blocking evidence of the government silencing anyone it considers an opponent and "sever violation of the right to freedom of expression" (21). In the same year, the authorities blocked the secular Al-Hewar Al-Motameden ( http://www.rezgar.com (22). The authorities also blocked Middle East Transparent ( http://www.metransparent.net ) website. Both websites post articles for Arab writers of different views and backgrounds. The moderators of these websites considered the blocking a violation of the right to freedom of expression in the whole Arab region. They claimed that the blocking might be related to their continuous coverage to the case of the trials of the three reformers Ali Al-Domini, Matrouk Al-Faleh, and Abdullah Al-Hamed (23).
Among the blocked news and opponent websites are "Reform" and "Renovation" websites which are broadcasted from London, "Saudi Arabia News Agency" and "Saudi Arabian Institute" which are broadcasted from Washington, and Al-Wafaq newspaper website which is blocked having posting an article criticizing King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology and saying that it is perfect only in blocking websites. The prominent news website "Ilaf" ahs also been blocked (24).
Blocking is not only limited to news and opponent websites, but also web forums which are blocked because the visitors practice their basic right to free speech about topics which the authorities disapprove of. The most popular – now blocked – web forum is Tawy Forum (25). In addition, Al-Wasattia web forum which is run by the Saudi activist Mohsen Al-Awagy, who posted an unprecedented article criticizing the practices of Saudi Labor Minister. After blocking, Al-Awagy was arrested. Also "Al-Sahat" forum was blocked although it is believed that it reflects the governmental views. Other blocked web forums include "Al-Qemma" and "Al-Khiema" (26).
Al-Tomar web forum was also blocked. It was constructed after all other popular forums were already blocked.. During the six months it was able to operate the forum achieved success which subjected it to governmental attacks through hacking, and electronic dumping. Eventually, the website was blocked inside Saudi Arabia (27). The moderator of the forum mentioned that the frequent endeavors to destroy the website were fruitless because the forum entered an agreement with a specialized company to protect the website and its files. However, those who oppose the website used a new method, which is to fill in blocking applications and send them to King Abdul Aziz City . Only two days after receiving the application, the website was blocked (28).
"The Arab Center for Information and Sources of Violence Against Women – AMAN" website was also blocked inside Saudi Arabia . The website's moderator mentioned that he reached no persuasive reason for the blocking. However, the website posted some news and articles on the role of Saudi women in society and concentrated mainly on the violence suffered by women in this community (29).
Saudi blogs were also blocked although they are relatively new to Saudi society. The newest blocking case is that of Saudi Jeans blog http://saudijeans.blogspot.com . The blogger community was provoked by such blocking, particularly because the blog contains no blasphemy or pornography. Some considered that the seriousness of this step lies in the fact that the city considers it is useful to block anything that it does not approve of.
Online writers will now perhaps be more cautious and write only what the City may approve in order not to face blocking, thus the city wins since citizens will simply become self-censoring. Eve KSA ( http://eveksa.blogspot.com ) blog also suffered blocking because the writer was handling sexual and religious topics (30). An observer said that the internet has turned to a battle field between liberals and extremists (31).
Blocking news and opponent political websites is usually resulted from the objection of senior officials. However, the reason why service websites are blocked is still unknown. For example, Blogger website which provides free blogging service is blocked more than once in a "childish way" (32), according to a Saudi Blogger. Moreover, the free translation google service was blocked because it may allow access to blocked websites. Also, Flicker website which provides photo uploading service was also blocked. Certain pages of Wikipedia were also blocked. Some uploading websites like www.w6w.com and www.sfthy.co were blocked as well. The reason of blocking is usually that a file may be opened that may disturb Saudi officials (33). The City also blocked the British popular online bookstore www.amazon.com .
A Saudi Blogger has named the unit "Internet Blocking Unit of Saudi Arabia" (34).
Most of the citizens agree that the state is the first to harass internet users, as shown in the responses on research questions. One citizen placed responsibility for the blocking on the Ministry of Interior and "The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue" (35).
The web is besieged, it is claimed, in order to "Protect Morals" and "Fight Pornography". Under this bright slogan, blocking is implemented on a wide scale. Until now, this aim is not achieved. Dr. Mesha'al Al-Kadahy mentioned in his thesis entitled "Pornography on internet, media, and telecommunications and its impact on society and public security" that 92.69% of internet users in Saudi Arabia browse pornographic websites, and 7.3% browse blocked websites that incite hatred, encourage terrorism and defame the state (36). These figures and percentages were shocking for the Saudi community and Al-Kadhy retracted his report.
Princess "Al-Jawhara Bent Fahd Al Saud" conducted another study based on sending half million message via mobile phones and emails in an attempt to recognize the negative impacts of misusing the internet. The study revealed that 57.4% of male sample and 63% of female sample are visiting pornographic and chatting forums and websites. The above two pieces of research reveal that besieging the internet in Saudi Arabia has not entirely prevented users from reviewing the pornographic websites which the authorities claim that they are blocking.
Under these conditions, it is not strange to hear that an Islamic Fatwa from Sheikh Othman Khamis and Saad Al-Ghamdy was issued to prohibit women from using the internet because of their "maliciousness insincerity" (37). The Fatwa also mentioned that woman must not use the internet "except when with a Mehrem [one of her male relatives] who “understands the cunning and prostitution of women". This Fatwa reveals clearly the extremism views held against women and technology. This Fatwa became deeply controversial, particularly when extremists worked on promoting it all over their websites and forums as the final judgment of the way women should deal with the internet (38).
Saudi Arabia is ranked number six among world countries which launch internet attacks, according to a study prepared by Symantec Company specialized in information security (39). With the increase of internet crimes in Saudi Arabia , the authorities started to prepare a new law to fight the internet crimes. The law drafted includes Article 16 which stipulates that any person who commits spying on online information via the World Wide Web may be sentenced to one year in prison and/or a fine of 500 riyals. This law also includes the criminaliziation of illegal access to websites with the purpose of changing their designs or corrupting them. In addition, if a terrorist group constructs a website, the penalty will be up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to 5 million riyals. Online activities which causes disturbance or violate the public morals or privacy is punishable with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 3 million riyals (40).
As if Saudi Arabia has not had enough with prohibitions. The Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information created a project to form a supreme committee for online media in cooperation with Egypt . Riyadh city will host the first seminar to be held by the Committee in December 2006, in order to set the regulations of membership and working mechanisms. Abdullah Al-Gaser vice-minister of Culture and Information mentioned that electronic media in the Arab countries is a "dangerous media" because it is not controlled by any obvious regulations (41).
Saudi authorities have not stopped suppressing online activists. Some times the online publishers are arrested, such as Mohsen Al-Awagy. In other cases the authorities call activists in to question them, such as the case of the renowned writer Nawal Al-Yusuf who was called by the State Security Service on 12 August 2004 to be questioned about her online articles which discussed the rights of Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia . She was obliged to sign a pledge not to write about these issues anymore (42).
Such hardships related to the internet in Saudi Arabia inspired Reporters without Borders and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information to jointly issue a petition to King Abdullah on 19 March 2006 to protest the practices of the Saudi government in respect to the internet. Both organizations called upon the Saudi King to eliminate arbitrary blocking and filtering of news and political websites. The petition also condemned the detention of Mohsen Al-Awagy who was arrested on 10 March 2006 on account of posting online articles criticizing the Saudi government (43). The Saudi authorities released Al-Awagy after he was detained for 11 days (44).
The censorship authorities in Saudi Arabia claim that blocking is meant to "protect Islamic morals". However, in fact the government is using this to protect only certain views which fit its political tendencies. The government blocks Islamic websites which contradicts the dominant Wahabism stream such as Shiite websites. On the other hand the Saudi government allows the broadcast of many extremist websites which incite hatred. Examples are the web forums named Arab Area, Islam Network, Al-Huda, and Faisal Anour, The government also did not block the websites which declare themselves to be hackers and urge users to inform them about any " blasphemous secular " website so they can hack them (45).
Internet Cafes
Internet cafes appeared in Saudi Arabia in 1998. Young people have to book a place in advance in order to access the internet at any internet café.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs is the authority responsible for licensing internet cafés in Saudi Arabia , upon Cabinet decree no. 163 dated 4 March 1997 .
The conditions of granting the license include: that the cafe should occupy only one floor and be situated on the ground floor (excluding cafes embedded in shopping malls), the internal elements of the shop should be designed so that there are no separate rooms or cabins, the computer sets should be organized so that an officials can view the screens while moving up and down the café, the female section should be completely separated from the male section, the light should be appropriate for noticing what is going on inside from the outside, and finally the front of the café should be transparent glass (46).
There are other general conditions including: that police are entitled to censor internet cafes to prevent the violation of instructions such as breaking "Islamic rules", the cafés opening hours must be the same as other commercial shops. If it is required to increase its opening hours, the café should coordinate this with the Public Security forces to do so. Public places for families are not allowed in internet cafes (47)., The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is entitled to take any decision concerning the female only section (48). Those under 18 must not be allowed to use the internet if they are not accompanied by their parents or guardians.
The technical requirements stipulate limited access to the internet through service providers accredited by King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology. They include: the prohibition of using satellite dishes and other wireless devices to access the internet without authorization from the competent authorities, the removal of CD & Floppy Disk Drivers from computer sets, preparing the manual or electronic registration of users and identity numbers (which must record the date and times of use), such information must be retained for six months and to be submitted to the relevant authorities when required. Finally, the supervisor in the café is responsible for any misdemeanors if they fail to identify the person responsible (49).
In addition to these strict conditions, the Investigation department is said to add censorship cameras inside cyber cafes. The recorded tapes of these cameras are hand to Investigation Department for security reasons after three days. Municipality Officials refused to talk to the press when asked if such claims are true or not.
Despite imposition placed on internet cafés, they are not always strictly adhered to. Some citizens reported that the attempts to apply the laws of the Ministry of Interior, such as registering users' names, are completely rejected by everyone and subsequently have become ineffective (50).
Statistic from the "unity of the Internet" at the King Abdul Aziz City state that the proportion of females using the Internet in the Kingdom does not exceed 5%. The proportion of internet users across the cafes is only 4% of the total users (51). Nonetheless, the idea of the Internet for women arouses controversy in the Saudi community and there is a pressure to stop ‘tolerating' it. It is this pressure that lead to the only raid and closure of a café in Saudi Arabia (the café was for women only in Mecca ). The authorities closed the cafe "for moral reasons". The closure was lifted after court case
Despite enormous efforts aimed at filtering and blocking websites and to censor internet cafes, the majority of Saudis believe that these cafes cause "great harm" to young people. Research done by the Department of Education in Riyadh is entitled "The Impact of the Internet on our students”. The study said that "the field visits to a number of Internet cafes revealed the existence of sites with bad and corrupt ". The study found that internet cafes are "a drain of funds into an area which is not useful" and that it would "harm the national economy" (52).
The study also mentioned that female internet cafes must be "closed as soon as possible" because they resemble an even great danger. The girls are censored by parents while browsing the internet from home, while in the cafes they can surf the internet without censorship. Worse still, according to the study is that male workers may help females to access certain websites (53).
The study concluded with some recommendations including: the need for codification services for internet cafes to put them under the control of King Abdul Aziz City , to prevent the entry of young people below the age of 18, and assigning work hours for these cafes (All these recommendations are already binding on the cafes already). In addition, the cafes should be obliged to use filtering programs "to protect religion and morals".
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