There’s been a lot of banning and blocking lately.
Lebanon has followed Iran in banning an award-winning cartoon that apparently portrays Khomeini’s revolution in Iran in a less than sympathetic light. Turkey has banned the photo sharing internet site Slide for the usual “crime” of hosting photos that are “offensive” to Kemal Ataturk. In the past, Turkey has banned Facebook, Youtube and Myspace for similar calumnies against the long dead founder of the Turkish Republic. Secret Dubai is now banned in Dubai. And Yemen has just blocked over 1,000 blogs.
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Muslim Countries: Internet Banning and Blocking…
Policing the internet at it’s finest….
Twitter, Flickr and Live Leak are banned in the UAE. Saudi and Iran also ban Flickr. (Firefox users can get around these bans.)
Iran completely cut off internet access during their ‘elections’ this year.
The reason given for the ban in Lebanon does not quite make sense. If I recall correctly, Ahmad Fatfat is interior minister in Lebanon, loyal member of March 14.
It seems more likely that the government simply does not wish to have more civil unrest on its hands. If they allow it, March 8 will use it as an attack on shiism supported by March 14. It is sad that something so insignificant can be seen as risky in Lebanon.
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