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Internet cafes hit by clamp
By DANIEL MUNDEN
Published: 9th February 2009
SOME of Bahrain’s Internet cafes claim business has been hit by government censorship.However, other cafژ owners and some members of the public said they were actually in favour of the government’s web clamp – which covers sites featuring pornographic material, gambling, religious and political views and even the UK’s National Lottery site.
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Internet cafes hit by clamp
By DANIEL MUNDEN
Published: 9th February 2009
SOME of Bahrain’s Internet cafes claim business has been hit by government censorship.However, other cafژ owners and some members of the public said they were actually in favour of the government’s web clamp – which covers sites featuring pornographic material, gambling, religious and political views and even the UK’s National Lottery site.
Bahraini mother-of-three Mariam Al Nasaq refuted suggestions that the ban was an infringement on civil liberties, saying looking at prohibited sites was ultimately against the law.
Law
“If it is the law, then why should anyone be allowed to break it?” she asked.
Meanwhile, 29-year-old Adliya Internet cafژ user Mark Buhu said he hadn’t noticed any websites he surfs being censored and felt it was the right thing to do.
“I think it’s fair because little children, especially my nine-year-old son, can operate a computer and he might get onto one of those sites,” he said.
The cafژ’s Ethiopian employee Sammy Bayo, who asked for the name of the business not to be named, admitted the ban had affected the number of users at the cafژ – and on a personal level, contacting with his family back home made more difficult.
“For me, I don’t like it,” he said.
“For example, sometimes if I try to access websites in my country (like www.ehionet.et), they are blocked – this is a problem.”
An Umm Al Hassam Internet cafژ owner, Reg Kumar, said censorship had hit his business hard, leaving his shop deserted.
“From the business side, it is not good for us – before the ban, we had at least two or three customers at this time, but now there are none,” he said.
“But I think it’s good for the society as there are children who are growing up and don’t want to see this sort of stuff.”
Abdul Salaam, 41, who works at an Internet cafژ also said the ban had affected business.
“Before the ban, it was very busy, but now it is completely empty,” he said.
Although Internet 2020 Cafژ, in Adliya, owner Rashid Al Zayed said that his business had not seen a decrease in customers, he did believe that the website ban was wrong.
However, Mr Al Zayed said that there were ways to get around the ban, despite the government’s best efforts.
“You can get around it with proxies, even though they’ve tried to block them,” he said.
Bu Kawarah’s Spike Computers employee Sanil Kumar, 28, said that their cafژ was in favour of any ban on illicit websites.
“Business is still good, it hasn’t been affected and we appreciate the blocking because we don’t want to encourage that sort of activity,” he said.
“It’s good for the younger generation to have this sort of stuff banned.”
But a British IT consultant, who only wanted to be named as Mike, condemned the ban, adding that people would always find a way to get around it if they wanted to.
“This country is supposed to be liberal,” said the 35-year-old.
“It’s also pointless because if you want to get around it, there are many ways.”
He said that many non-pornographic sites he used to access, including the British newspaper The Sun, had been censored for no apparent reason, adding the action was hardly a step forward.
“And they’ve banned translation sites, which is really annoying when you don’t speak Arabic,” he said.
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