You put yourself at risk if you try to log onto a banned website in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government can track whoever logs onto banned websites, whatever kind they might be: political, sexual, religious, or even human rights. And you know what the result of this is!

--E-mail from Mohammad Abdel Rahman, 29 year old researcher, Riyadh- Saudi Arabia, May 20, 2002.


     In 1999 Saudi Arabia exposed itself to the Internet. In September 1999, the number of the Saudi Internet subscribers reached 45,000, making the number of users 135,000 if each subscription is used by 3 users. (1)

     The Saudi government encourages Internet use because it believes that increased Internet use will aid national development projects. To increase access and use of the Internet, the government has developed the country's communication infrastructure and increased the geographic coverage of Internet services. These initiatives have been successful: In April 2004, there were 2 million Internet users in Saudi Arabia, a number that is expected to increase to 5.4 million by 2005.

      About 40% of the information and communication equipment and programs imported to the Arab region go directly to the Saudi market. The Saudi information market's annual increase is about 15%, making it the largest Arab market in terms of demand. (4)

      However, it seems that when the Saudi government attempts to increase the number of Internet users, it is in fact attempting to increase a certain type of user-a user who does not visit websites considered offensive to the authorities like political, religious, sexual or human rights websites or websites that censure the situation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The government also does not allow access to those Internet forums that allow their visitors a space of freedom not enjoyed by any other forms of media in Saudi. Censorship in Saudi Arabia, after all, is not limited to the Internet but reaches all other media as well.

      The Saudi government made the Riyadh-based "King Abdel Aziz City for Science and Technology" (KACST) the sole institution responsible for Internet provision. The "City" provides several ISPs, through which it extends its control by using techniques and equipment designed especially for it by a British company. This equipment filters Internet content, effectively cutting off the websites the government wants to ban from its audience.

      The number of banned websites in Saudi Arabia reached 200,000 in August 2001, a year and a half after Internet service started in the Kingdom. This means that, on average, 250 websites were banned per day (5). The number was doubled over the next three years, and in 2004 400,000 web pages were banned. The Kingdom's censorship of 400,000 web pages and its use of one of the Internet's largest filtering systems on the pretext of protecting Islamic values and culture earned Saudi Arabia the Reporters without Borders' satirical "First Prize for Censorship" in March 2004 (6).

Prevailing Values Means Increasing Profits

     Religion and politics do not constitute the only reasons for the banning and blocking of Internet websites in Saudi Arabia. There are commercial reasons as well. Censorship often means profits for the government. One example is the government's decision to ban the websites of phone line companies in its attempt to grant the Saudi Communications Company a monopoly over telephone connections in the country (7). In an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper, the chairman of the First Net Company, Abdallah Al-Debekhy, pointed to that fact that the Saudi Communications Company and King Abdel Aziz City for Sciences and Technology together control more than 75% of the total sum paid for Internet use in Saudi Arabia, a sum estimated to be RS 4.2 million. (8)

     Some Saudi Internet users have resorted to using proxy servers that can bypass governmental filters to log on to banned websites in Saudi Arabia. Other users connect to the Internet through ISPs in other countries-a far more expensive method of connection. In response, the Saudi government resorted to using several tactics that would be impermissible in a state that respected its citizens' freedom of expression and right to circulate information.

     Saudi security forces began to require net cafés to record the names of their customers, the number of their IDs, the time they arrived, and the time they left. This information must remain with the net café for a period of more than six months and must be delivered to state security upon request. (9) Additional regulations forbid a person under the age of 18 from entering a net café unless accompanied by a guardian.

     The Saudi government has censored the flow of on-line information, disrespected citizens' rights to safely and freely surf the net, and banned international websites like Yahoo, American Online, and the well-known Arab Tawy Forum. The government has even banned medical websites on the grounds that they use words like "chest" or "breasts" even though these words were mentioned in explicitly medical contexts. This heavy censorship has led to increased criticism of the Saudi government by political and human rights activists. It has also resulted in the creation and distribution of alternate web addresses (known as mirror sites) for banned sites. These alternative addresses are publicized through email. Mirror sites have grown quickly, thanks to the free hosting services provided by well known companies like Free Services, Geocities, and Tripod.
     There are nine political websites that have been created from outside Saudi Arabia to oppose the Saudi government; some of these have created five mirror sites each. (10)

Jihad through Piracy

     Though Saudi Arabia claims to ban websites under the pretext of protecting Muslim values, in reality such bans are an attempt by the government to protect the image it has cultivated to best suit its political stance.

     The Saudi government has blocked several Shi'a websites and Islamic websites that offer interpretations differing from the official Wahhabi line. However, the government overlooks the many religious extremist websites calling for religious hatred and allows access to forums like Arab Arena (Al-Saha Al-Arabia), Al-Hoda, Faisal Annour and others. The Saudi government also overlooks the activities of self-declared "hacking" websites that disrupt atheist and secular websites in an attempt to stop what they perceive as the atheist or Shi'a invasion. (11)

Banning upon Suspicion

      The premises of the central Internet censorship department are in secure offices located on the first floor of the KACST. There are no experts or specialists in censorship in this department. The majority of the employees are technicians and programmers, some of whom are from Finland, whose job is to set up computer programs that filter and block pornographic web pages and prevent them from entering the Internet in Saudi Arabia (12).

     A study of Saudi censorship of websites conducted by Jonathan Zetran and Benjamin Adelman of Harvard University attempted to assess how comprehensive websites banning policies are. The study demonstrated that at least 246 websites classified by the Yahoo engine as religious websites were banned by the Saudi censors. Amongst religious websites censored were 67 Christian websites, 45 Muslim websites, 22 idolatrous websites, 20 Jewish websites and 12 Hindu websites. The study also showed that the government banned 76 web pages classified by Yahoo as humor pages, 60 web pages about music, 34 about film, and 13 about homosexuality. The study mentioned that, of 795 pornographic websites found when using a popular search engine, only 86% were banned in Saudi Arabia.

     The study's authors claim that a large amount of content is blocked for no other reason than that of the sheer ease of banning. (13) As mentioned above, there are no experts specializing in censorship in the central Saudi Internet censorship department; those who work in the department are far better trained to block web pages than to assess their content.

     An example of this mentality can be seen in the ban placed on the distinguished Jordanian human rights website Amman which contains material defending women's rights. As the manager of Amman reported, the Saudi government did not submit a clear, convincing justification for the ban. (14) Thus, many different explanations could exist. For instance, the website might have been banned because it was publishing materials related to women's rights in general and Saudi women in particular.

     In an article in the newspaper Al-Watan on February 28, 2003, the writer Soliman Al-Aqely wrote "the increase in website banning has become shameful for the state. The government's sensitivity to any and every website posting material about Saudi Arabian issues is harming the nation's reputation and, as well, its future." (15)

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Footnotes
1- Al Bayan newspaper, 5 September 19999
2- Al-Jazeera Channel. Economic Announcement. Sat., 17 April 2004, at 12:40 A.M
3- Al Hayat newspaper, 30 October 2003
4- Dr. Ihsan Ali Bo Holeqa, Al Hayat newspaper, issue No 14947, 29 February 2004.
5- Al Haramen website, from Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper. 29 March 2001. accessed on 21 March 2004.
6- Press release, Reporters Without Borders, 26/03/2004 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9661
7- Al-Quds Al-Araby newspaper, 02/05/2001
8- Al-Hayat, issue No 14794, 25/09/2003
9- Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, 05/07/2003
10- The Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights and Reform Movement
11- "Amgad4islam.8m.net" hackers website, accessed on 12/02/2001. The web site has posted a list of cultural and Shiite websites that have been hacked upon a Fatwa, a pronouncement of a sheikh authorizing the hacking of secular web pages calling for equality between men and women and the hacking of Shiite websites.
12- The BBC news radio station's website on 10 May 2002. Accessed on 22/07/03
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/newsid_742000/742872.stm
13- Good news for me website. Visited on 21/03/04
http://www.gn4me.com/etesalat/article.jsp?art_id=6524
14- E-mail from the web site manager, received on 8/05/03
15- Yahoo website on 21/03/04