Spotlight on Internet Shutdowns

In early June, Algeria’s Baccalaureate exams were leaked, prompting authorities to temporarily shut down mobile internet access. As a result, the Ministry of Education ordered a retake of some of the exams. During the retake, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies blocked social media platforms. Blocking social media sites or shutting down network access to prevent exam cheating is not uncommon in the region; in May, the Iraqi government ordered daily internet shutdowns lasting from 5am to 8am as a measure to stop cheating in high school exams. 

For more information on Internet shutdowns and what you can do to fight them, read more about Access Now’s Keep It On project.

Access & Interference

• Following reports that the messaging app Telegram was blocked inside Bahrain, Bahrain Watch confirmed that three out of five ISPs were blocking the app.
• Authorities in the UAE have blocked the Middle East Eye news site, which has extensively reported on the country including its military and political roles across the region, and its rights violations.

Privacy, Surveillance & Data Protection

• Authorities in Qatar are considering the adoption of a new data protection law that would fine organizations who fail to prevent leaks up to QR5 million.
• Bahrain Watch reports that the American company Pelco and Australian company iOmniscient are “likely” supplying the Bahraini ministry of interior with facial recognition software that could be used to identify protesters.

Cyberwar & State-Sponsored Attacks

• Twitter suspended up to 1800 bot accounts using the #Bahrain hashtag to post sectarian tweets.
• Bahrain is accused of launching a “cyberwar” on the village of Diraz, where numerous protests have recently taken place.

Trials, Sentencing, and Judicial Harassment

• On 14 June, Jordan’s state security court ordered the arrest of Islamic preacher Amjad Qawarsha for criticising his country’s participation in the international war against ISIS.
• Bahraini authorities have once again arrested human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, over charges related to his exercise of his right to free speech online. After spending two weeks in solitary confinement, Rajab was transferred to hospital for heart problems.
• An Algerian court sentenced labor rights activist Belkacem Khencha for posting a video on Facebook in which he criticized a prison term against one of his colleagues who was protesting housing policies.
• On 20 June, an Abu Dhabi court adjourned the trial of Emirati human rights activist Nasser Bin Ghaith to 26 September. Bin Ghaith  who has been in prison since April 2015 is facing charges over tweets critical of Egyptian authorities, and other tweets deemed “harmful” to the Emirati state and its institutions.
• An appeal court in Oman confirmed a three-year prison term against activist Hassan Al-Basham over Facebook posts deemed “prejudicial to religious values”. His conviction of insulting the Sultan for which he was ordered to pay a fine had been overturned.  

Extra-legal Intimidation and Violence

• Founder of the independent Syrian media collective Eye on the Homeland Ahmed Abdel-Qader survived a second assassination attempt on his life, reportedly carried out by ISIS.
• In Kuwait, human rights defender Abdulhakim Al-Fadhli was beaten by police as he was transferred from court to prison. Al-Fadhli is serving a three-month jail term for “misusing” his phone.

Travel Bans & Forced Exile

• Human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja was forced into exile after Bahraini authorities threatened her with indefinite imprisonment if she does not leave the country.

Advocacy, Policy & Law

• Human Rights Watch has called on Egyptian authorities to drop their investigation into a satirical youtube group that posted videos mocking President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and release four of the group’s members detained since May.
• Eleven international non-governmental organizations urge Egyptian authorities to stop attacks on civil society.

Recognition & Solidarity

• On the fourth anniversary of his arrest, supporters from across the world stood in solidarity with imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

Tech Positive

• The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) won the golden prize in the Middle East Digital Media Awards competition for a digital rights campaign it launched last year.

Long Reads

• MADA published a report on feminist journalism and freedom of expression in Palestine.
• The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on the “the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet”.

From Our Partners

• Digital dystopia: Egypt’s civil society faces an “existential threat” – EFF
• The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued a favorable statement in the case of Egyptian Alaa Abd El Fattah, reports the EFF.
• The latest Netizen Report from Advox contains stories from the region.
• “Algeria reconsiders blocking social media to prevent cheating on exams,” reports SMEX.

Digital Citizen is brought to you by Advox, Access, APC, EFF, Social Media Exchange, and 7iber.com. This month’s report was researched, written, edited, and translated by Afef Abrougui, Jessica Dheere, Coraline Rasset, Elsa Saade, Kayssar Yaacoub, and Jillian C. York, and Adam Zibak.

Access & Interference

• In mid-May, the Iraqi government once again ordered a complete country-wide shutdown of all Internet services between 5 am and 8 am during high school examinations, ostensibly to prevent cheating.
• The United Arab Emirates reportedly spent more than half a million dollars in an attempt to install spyware bought from European companies on the computers of 1,100 dissidents and journalists. They are being targeted with custom-made spyware, according to Citizen Lab, which details the tactics being used to ensnare and target journalists and activists.

Free Expression & Censorship

• On May 30, Lebanese authorities arrested lawyer and human rights activist Nabil El Halabi over Facebook posts in which he accused officials at the ministry of interior of corruption.
• Sudan’s intelligence agency detained eight civil society activists, all of whom work for the Khartoum-based organization Training and Human Development (TRACKs). The TRACKs office was raided by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services, which confiscated the passports of staff members.
• Several human rights organizations called on the UAE to reform its limits on freedom of expression, particularly its anti-terrorism and cybercrime laws.
• The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has condemned an amendment to the Political Societies Law, which places a ban on participation in political decision-making based on discriminatory religious grounds.
• The European Commission’s “code of conduct” for online hate speech created in conjunction with several internet companies prompts fears of censorship and concern over the lack of transparency or redress.

Content Takedowns

• Apple backed down after rejecting a game created by a Palestinian developer for inclusion in its iOS store. The game, Liyla and the Shadows of War, is staged in war-stricken Gaza, and players are required to avoid missiles and bombs to guide a family to safety.

Privacy, Surveillance & Data Protection

• Authorities at Cairo International Airport banned French journalist Remy Pigaglio from entering the country and detained him for 30 hours. While in detention, they confiscated his phone and examined photos on it.

Cyberwar & State-Sponsored Attacks

• New evidence suggests Israeli responsibility in cyber-attacks on the BDS campaign’s website.
• A member of the Syrian Electronic Army — a group of hackers who support the Syrian regime— has been extradited to the U.S. from Germany to face charges for his alleged part in a cyber campaign against the U.S. military and American businesses. He is one of three Syrian nationals charged in March by U.S. federal prosecutors in Virginia with being part of a criminal conspiracy.

Trials, Sentencing, and Judicial Harassment

• A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a Saudi man to five years in jail and another five-year travel for ban for tweets deemed defamatory towards the King, the State, its highest religious body, and its judicial and security institutions.
• Emirati human rights defender Nasser Bin Ghaith, who was held incommunicado since August 2015, is standing trial for his social media posts and online activism.
• Jailed Omani activist Saeed Jadad has been denied medical treatment. Jadad was charged in 2015 for “use of an information network (Internet) in the dissemination of material that would prejudice public order.”
• Omani activist and blogger Sulaiman Al-Moamari has been detained in solitary confinement since April 28, with no access to his lawyer or family. It is believed that Al-Moamari was detained in relation to his social media activities.
• Ali Abdeen, a photographer for the Egyptian news website El-Fagr, was sentenced to two years in jail on May 14 after being convicted of “inciting illegal protests, obstructing traffic, and publishing false news.”
• Moza ‘Abdouli is due to be sentenced on May 30 by the Federal Supreme Court of the UAE. ‘Abdouli is charged with insulting the country, its leaders, and its institutions.
• Bahrain’s Court of Appeals has increased the prison sentence of Al-Wefaq’s Sheikh Ali Salman from four to nine years for charges related to exercising his right to free expression. He was arrested after delivering a speech calling for reforms to Bahrain’s political system.
• Bahraini human rights defenders continue to face harassment. Although activist Zainab al-Khawaja was released from prison, Nabeel Rajab is still under a travel ban.

Advocacy, Policy & Law

• A controversial cybercrime draft law is expected to be adopted soon in Egypt. The draft prescribes severe punishments including life imprisonment and the death penalty in cases where ISPs do not abide by the law, which requires them to surveil their users and filter content.

Extra-legal Intimidation and Violence

• Abdallah Azizan a correspondent for the Yemeni news site Ma’reb Press was killed while covering clashes between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces.

Tech-Positive

• The Economist writes that digital technology is keeping the spirit of the Arab Spring alive.

From Our Partners

• APC released a paper looking into how civil society groups in the Arab region advocate for internet-related rights. They also published a report on challenges to civil society participation in internet governance in the MENA region.
• The European Commission’s hate speech agreement with Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft will chill speech, writes Jillian York from EFF, which also announced the launch of Certbot, “a powerful tool to help websites encrypt their traffic.

Digital Citizen is brought to you by Advox, Access, APC, EFF, Social Media Exchange, and 7iber.com. This month’s report was researched, written, edited, and translated by Afef Abrougui, Khadija Ahmed, Yusur Al-Salman, Jessica Dheere, Islam Khoufi, Courtney Radsch, Coraline Rasset, Elsa Saade, Kayssar Yaacoub, and Jillian C. York, and Adam Zibak.

Volume 4.3 05/25/16

Spotlight on Egypt

Egypt continues to crack down on NGOs and human rights defenders, putting digital rights at greater risk. For several months, Facebook users have faced threat of arrest for comments; now lawmakers are suggesting new legislation to “control the excesses” of speech on the platform. In related news, it was recently revealed that the Egyptian government blocked Facebook’s Free Basics service because the company refused to give the government the ability to spy on users. Nevertheless, the government appears to be exploiting other means of gaining access to user accounts, by manipulating the two-step verification process. Since the fall of 2014, at least 95 Egyptian nationals have been arrested based on statements they posted on social media sites.

Despite Egypt’s urge to surveil, the government is refusing to hand over phone records relevant to Italy’s investigation of the killing of Italian student Giulio Regeni in January. Assistant Public Prosecutor Mostafa Suleiman stated in a press conference that doing so would be “unconstitutional.” Italy has stated that it will take measures against Egypt if the government does not release the phone records.

Finally, Egypt’s preeminent human rights defenders and their organizations are at grave risk. As Gamal Eid, founder and director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, wrote in a New York Times opinion piece this week, his organization—along with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)—is being targeted “because our groups provide critical resources to those facing human rights abuses in Egypt.” Both Eid and EIPR director Hossam Baghat have been banned from travel outside Egypt.

BRIEFS

Access & Interference

• In late February, Morocco’s telecommunications regulator blocked VoIP services over wifi, after blocking them over 3G and 4G in January.
• Tunisia is expected to officially launch 4G this summer.
• The Lebanese government is investigating the country’s illegal internet providers, after the country’s telecommunications minister charged that their connections “were being used by Israel to spy on citizens and institutions.”

Free Expression & Censorship

• Abdul Sattar Makandar, a migrant worker from India who recorded a video decrying his life as a truck driver in Saudi Arabia, was arrested after the video was uploaded by an activist in his native country and went viral.
• An Algerian court ordered Zoulika Belarbi to pay a fine of about US $1,000 for “undermining the president of the republic” by posting a satirical image of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to Facebook. Belarbi, who asserts that the government has violated her constitutional right to privacy in reading her Facebook page, will appeal.

Privacy, Surveillance & Data Protection

• As part of its State of Surveillance project, Privacy International published reports looking into surveillance-related legislation and practices in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. On 24 February, Privacy International also published an investigation into the sale of European surveillance technologies to the Technical Research Department, which the organization describes as “a secret unit of Egypt’s intelligence infrastructure.”
• Bahrain has recently announced measures targeting users’ private communications over the messaging app WhatsApp. On 6 March, the ministry of education sent a letter to head teachers of high schools requiring them to make sure that messages “harmful to the country, the ministry and schools,” are not circulated in WhatsApp groups used by teachers and their students to communicate. A few weeks earlier, the head of an anti-cyber-crime department at the ministry of interior warned that WhatsApp administrators are responsible and legally liable for any defamatory messages or rumors circulated in their groups.

Trials, Sentencing, and Judicial Harassment

• An Egyptian court sentenced four boys, aged 15 and 16, to five years in jail for contempt of religion over a video in which they were mocking ISIS members’ beheading of an individual after finishing their Muslim prayer.
• On 17 February, an Omani court sentenced cartoonist and writer Sayyid Abdullah al-Daruri to three months in jail over a Facebook post that emphasized his Dhofari affiliation, and called for a “United Sultanate” that include both Dhofar and Oman. Dhofar is the largest governorate in the Sultanate of Oman.
• On 14 March, a UAE court acquitted Omani blogger Muawiya Al-Rawahi from charges of insulting the Emirates and its leaders on Twitter, and ordered his release on grounds that he is “mentally ill.” Al-Rawahi was later released.
• On 23 February a Tunisian court sentenced in absentia Slim Riahi, founder and leader of the Free Patriotic Union, a party in the current coalition government, to six months in jail over a defamatory Facebook post. In the 2014 post, Riahi accused Taher Ben Hassine, the owner of an opposition TV station at the time of Ben Ali, of being an informer to the regime.
• An Egyptian court sentenced journalist Mohamed Ali Hassan in absentia to five years in prison for “broadcasting false news and inciting protests” for a Facebook page on which he regularly criticized the government.
• The UAE sentenced a national of the Gulf to three years in prison and a Drh50,000 fine for ridiculing “the reputation of state symbols” and for allegedly describing Emirati soldiers killed during the Saudi-led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen as ‘cowards’, in WhatsApp messages. After he serves his sentence, he will be deported.
• A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced a 28-year-old man to 10 years in jail, 2,000 lashes, and a 20,000 riyals ($5,300 US) fine for expressing his atheism in more than 600 tweets.
• The trial of seven Moroccan journalists and human rights defenders, including Hisham Almiraat, was postponed again on March 23. The new trial date is June 29. Charges include “threatening the internal security of the State” and “receiving foreign funding without notifying the General Secretariat of the government.”

Advocacy, Policy, & Law

• Moroccans are fighting to reverse their government’s decision to block VoIP services earlier this year.

Recognition & Solidarity

• On March 14, Bahraini security forces raided the house of human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja and arrested her with her 15-month-old son on charges related to her activism and exercise of free expression. On April 12, more than 40 NGOs signed a letter petitioning King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa for her immediate release.
• On the fourth anniversary of the arrest of Syrian software developer Bassel Khartabil, who has been missing since September 2015, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, as well as nearly 50,000 others, implore the world to ask #WhereIsBassel?

Long Reads

• SecondMuse released a report about Internet freedom in Tunisia and the challenges  journalists and bloggers face.
• The Columbia Journalism Review published an edited version of a speech by Emily Bell on the “end of news as we know it,” and how social media is “swallowing” journalism.
• The Samir Kassir Center for Media and Cultural Freedom has recently published two reports about digital rights in Lebanon: Digital Rights and Online Expression in Lebanon, about how the country’s legal framework impacts online journalists and media professionals, and Digital Rights, Online Media and Electoral Campaigns.
• The Berkman Center published “Mobilisation for Change,” a series of reports “examining the role of the networked public sphere in advancing civic participation and collective action in the Arab region.”
• An MIT political scientist and her colleagues used cell phone metadata to learn about daily life in Yemen and the impact of drone strikes.
• Hivos and Article 19 launched the “Internet Legislation Atlas,” a project analyzing Internet-related legislation in six MENA countries and Iran and its conformity with international human rights law.

From Our Partners

• Onlinecensorship.org, a project of EFF and Visualizing Impact, released its first report on insights from four months of crowdsourced data on social media censorship.
• SMEX hosted a three-day participatory symposium on countering violent extremism online and the intersections of this burgeoning global policy agenda with free expression and other digital rights. Proceedings were tweeted at #HackingExtremism.

Digital Citizen is brought to you by Advox, Access, APC, EFF, Social Media Exchange, and 7iber.com. This month’s report was researched, edited, written, and translated by Afef Abrougui, Khadija Ahmed, Fahmi Albaheth, Jessica Dheere, Nolla Cherfan, Mohamed ElGohary, Mohamad Najem, Courtney Radsch, Thalia Rahme, and Jillian C. York.

Spotlight on Bahrain

February 14 marked the fifth anniversary of the 2011 peaceful pro-democracy uprisings in Bahrain. Rather than heed protesters’ demands, the government of Bahrain has intensified its repression of free speech in the press and on the Internet in the intervening years.

Consistently ranked among the least free nations globally, Bahrain regularly flouts its obligations to uphold free expression under international law, employing a variety of illegal tactics to chill critical speech, including home raids; revoking the citizenship of 72 people, including opposition activists such as Ali Abdulemam; perpetrating enforced disappearances; and prosecuting journalists and activists on terrorism charges. Underscoring this trend, in February 2015, Bahrain enacted the region’s 10th anti-cybercrime law, which, like those of its GCC neighbors, further represses dissent by considering critical expression transmitted over electronic devices and networks as a crime.

In the last four months of 2015, the Bahraini authorities made more than 400 arrests, of which only about 25 percent were conducted in accordance with international law, according to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. At the end the year, more than 20 journalists, photographers, bloggers, and internet activists were under arrest or serving sentences for documenting protests, defamation, “using social networks to incite hatred of the regime,” spreading false news, inciting sectarianism, and insulting the king, among other charges.

Among the most recent arrests are that of award-winning photographer Sayed Ahmed al-Mousawi, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and had his nationality revoked in November, after covering a series of demonstrations in early 2014 and allegedly distributing SIM cards to protesters. Security forces detained Al-Mousawi for over a year without trial or official charges, accused him of being a part of a terrorist cell, and subjected him to torture.

On December 28, 2015, security forces raided the house of journalist Mahmood al-Jazeeri and arrested him without presenting a legal warrant or informing him or his family of the cause of his arrest. His latest report, which covered one of the Shura Council’s member’s demands to take away housing from those who have had their citizenship revoked by the authorities, was considered politically sensitive. Al-Jazeeri was later accused with writing statements for the country’s unlicensed opposition under terrorism law. He denied all charges, but remains in jail awaiting trial.

The end of the year didn’t mark the end of the arrests. Last month, a court upheld photographer Ahmed Al-Fardan’s three-month prison sentence on charges of “attempting” to protest. During his arrest, police raided Al-Fardan’s house, confiscating his camera and other electronic devices. His imprisonment was preceded by other incidents in which he was kidnapped and allegedly tortured and beaten by security forces.

On 14 February, the authorities arrested four American journalists, who were covering protests in Sitra, an island near Manama. Bahrain’s MOI stated that it had arrested one of the journalists with a “a riot group” in Sitra and the others were arrested at a checkpoint. Bahrain has made it extremely difficult for journalists to legally cover protests and opposition activities. The four journalists were released on 16 February, pending investigation, and were allowed to leave Bahrain. Their cameras, hard drives and other belongings, however, were confiscated by the authorities.

BRIEFS

Access & Interference

• In January, Morocco blocked services providing mobile internet calls including WhatsApp, Skype, and Viber.
• In a study of the Internet speeds of 31 countries, Egypt came in last place, with maximum fixed connection speeds at 1.7 megabits per second (Mbps).

Free Expression & Censorship

• The Arabic-language news site al-Araby al-Jadeed and its English language version The New Arab have both been blocked in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. None of the countries provided explanations for the blocking.
• A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Facebook administrator in Egypt after he commented on the site that Egyptian women are “ready for immorality.”
• In Jordan, a man was arrested [ar] over a comment he posted on the Al Jazeera website, in which he attacked the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad and subsequently shared the article on Facebook. He was accused by the State Security Court of using the internet to promote ISIS and incite against the Jordanian regime. The kingdom has also blocked [ar] 30 websites for violating licensing terms.
• Managing editors of the government-owned Bayan Newspaper in the UAE have been fired for printing a tweet [ar] deemed insulting to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Rashed.
• Last year, Israeli authorities reportedly arrested over 130 Palestinians for their activities on Facebook. Recently, a Palestinian photographer was detained by the Palestinian Authority overnight for an Instagram post, and another Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli forces for threatening comments against former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Content Takedowns

• “Following complaints by users,” Facebook removed a photograph by a Tunisian photographer showing bruises on the naked body of a woman victim of domestic violence.

Trials, Sentencing, and Judicial Harassment

• On 15 February, a UAE court has postponed the trial of Omani blogger Muawiya Al-Rawahi for the fifth time.
• Activist Hassan al-Basham was sentenced to three years in prison in Oman for “insulting the Sultan” and “the use of the Internet in what might be prejudicial to religious values.”
• Ali Anouzla, editor of the news site Lakome2, stood trial on 9 February, for “endangering Morocco’s territorial integrity,” a charge punishable by up to five years in jail. Anouzla is being prosecuted over a translation error by the German newspaper BILD, which misquoted Anouzla as having referred to “ Western Sahara” as “occupied.” Under Moroccan legislation, questioning the kingdom’s claims to the Western Sahara is an offense. The trial was postponed to 22 March. Seven free expression advocates, including Hisham Almiraat (former Advox director and founding member of Digital Citizen) are also facing trial in the country.

Travel Bans

• Egyptian human rights lawyer and head of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) Gamal Eid was banned from travel in early February, prompting a letter from several human rights organizations (see below). Later in the month, journalist and founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) Hossam Bahgat also was banned from travel.

Advocacy, Policy & Law

• Kuwait has adopted a new law that establishes a licensing scheme for electronic media.
• The UAE has adopted a new draft law toughening penalties for IP address spoofing. The draft prescribes up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to 2 million dirhams for IP address spoofing “with a criminal intent.”
• Several rights groups—including the Gulf Centre for Human Rights and Article 19—have issued a statement condemning Kuwait’s Cybercrime Law No. 63.
• Reporters Without Borders submitted a list of recommendations to the Tunisian minister of information and communications technologies to reinforce the right to information online.
• The Palestinian Internet Society chapter published a position paper [ar] on a government plan to block pornographic content.
• An increasing number of travel bans on writers, activists, and bloggers in Egypt has prompted several human rights organizations to issue a joint statement protesting the use of travel bans to intimidate human rights defenders and urging the international community to take a stand.

Recognition & Solidarity

• Imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was awarded the European Union’s Sakharov prize for freedom of thought. Badawi is serving ten years in prison for criticizing religious authorities and clerics in the conservative kingdom. He was also sentenced to 1,000 lashes and a fine.

Long Reads: Context on Egypt

• In a piece for Foreign Policy, journalist and author Rula Jebreal compares Sisi’s Cairo to Brezhnev’s Moscow.
• Writing for Mada Masr, Khaled Mansour asks: “Is this the end of rule of law in Egypt?”

From Our Partners

• SMEX published 5 tips on data protection day [ar].
• EFF published a piece looking at the Internet five years after the #Jan25 uprising.
• Global Voices asks: “Is ISIS trying to manipulate the crypto debate?”
• 7iber explains how algorithms decide what is newsworthy and what is not, and also published a piece on the World Day for Data Protection.