Call for an End to State Enforced Censorship on Internet
Bahraini Authorities Block Access to Popular Internet Services
Call for an End to State Enforced Censorship on Internet Sites for Political Content
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Ref: 08080600
Call for an End to State Enforced Censorship on Internet
Bahraini Authorities Block Access to Popular Internet Services
Call for an End to State Enforced Censorship on Internet Sites for Political Content
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Ref: 08080600
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is concerned upon receiving reports that the Bahraini government has issued orders to all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country to block the “Google Earth” service. A report published in the Al Wasat newspaper yesterday stated that the Bahrain Internet Exchange (BIX) will block the service, and that the Bahrain Telecommunication Company (Batelco), the country’s predominant ISP, is considering taking the same step.
Google Earth is a free service provided by the US Internet company “Google” which allows users to view high-resolution satellite images of the Earth on the Internet. Since Monday 8th August, users of Batelco and BIX ISPs have reported that Google Earth has been inaccessible, or only intermittently available. In addition, it has been reported that websites for Google Maps (a web-based site similar to Google Earth) and Google Video, a popular video hosting and sharing service, have also been inaccessible.
Internet sources have suggested that the reason for the Bahraini government’s order to block Google Earth is because it allows users to see the lavish palaces and illegal coastal reclamations on land privately owned by members of the Al-Khalifa royal family, images which would otherwise be inaccessible to regular citizens. Moreover, it has been suggested that Google Video has been censored due to a number of videos hosted on the service that are critical of the Bahraini government.
It should be noted that prior to this latest act, several Bahraini websites were already censored by the government due to their political content, including the popular forum Bahrainonline.org whose moderators were arrested for two weeks in late February 2005.
Article 23 of Bahrain’s constitution states that electronic communications “shall not be censored or their confidentiality breached except in exigencies specified by law and in accordance with procedures and under guarantees prescribed by law”. Similarly, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights therefore calls upon the relevant authorities in the government, the Telecommunication Regulation Authority and the ISPs to immediately restore access not only to Google Earth and Google Video, but also to the numerous Bahraini websites that are currently being censored.