Google Earth spurs Bahraini equality drive
By William Wallis in Manama
Published: November 24 2006 21:29 | Last updated: November 24 2006 21:29
Since Bahrain’s government blocked the Google Earth website earlier this year for its intrusion into private homes and royal palaces, Googling their island kingdom has become a national pastime for many Bahrainis.
The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom.
Google Earth spurs Bahraini equality drive
By William Wallis in Manama
Published: November 24 2006 21:29 | Last updated: November 24 2006 21:29
Since Bahrain’s government blocked the Google Earth website earlier this year for its intrusion into private homes and royal palaces, Googling their island kingdom has become a national pastime for many Bahrainis.
The site allows internet users to view satellite images of the world in varying degrees of detail. When Google updated its images of Bahrain to higher definition, cyber-activists seized on the view it gave of estates and private islands belonging to the ruling al-Khalifa family to highlight the inequity of land distribution in the tiny Gulf kingdom.
A senior government official told the Financial Times that Google Earth had allowed the public to pry into private homes and ogle people’s motor yachts and swimming pools. But he acknowledged that the government’s three-day attempt to block the site had proved counterproductive.
It gave instant publicity to Google Earth and contributed to growing sophistication among Bahrainis in circumventing web censorship.
It also provided more ammunition to democracy activists ahead of parliamentary elections this Saturday, the second since King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa began introducing limited political reforms in 2001.
About 60 per cent of Bahrain’s population is Shia but it is ruled by the Sunni Khalifa family. The elections are taking place against a backdrop of rising sectarian tension and demands from the Shia for a greater share of wealth and power.
Opposition activists claim that 80 per cent of the island has been carved up between royals and other private landlords, while much of the rest of the population faces an acute housing shortage.
Mahmood al-Yousif, a businessman whose political chat and blog site Mahmood’s Den is among Bahrain’s most popular, says that in the tense run-up to the polls, few Bahrainis have not surfed over the contours of their kingdom, comparing vast royal palaces, marinas and golf courses with crowded Shia villages nearby, where unemployment is rife and services meagre.
For those with insufficient bandwidth to access Google Earth, a PDF file with dozens of downloaded images of royal estates has been circulated anonymously by e-mail. Mr Yousif, among others, initially encouraged web users to post images on photo-sharing websites.
“Some of the palaces take up more space than three or four villages nearby and block access to the sea for fishermen. People knew this already. But they never saw it. All they saw were the surrounding walls,” said Mr Yousif, who is seen in Bahrain as the grandfather of its blogging community.
He and other activists believe creative use of the internet – connectivity in Bahrain is among the highest in the Arab world – is forcing the country to confront awkward realities and will speed the march towards a more egalitarian society.
But loyalists find irreverent discussion of the royal family on the web offensive and dangerous. While some younger members of the royal family apparently saw the futility of blocking Google Earth and reversed it quickly, others in government have waged a virtual battle with the nation’s proliferating cyber-activists using technology as well as an arsenal of press censorship laws. In the run-up to Saturday’s polls at least 25 Bahraini sites deemed to be carrying subversive material have been blocked.
However, Mr Yousif believes most subscribers in Bahrain have downloaded free software – partly thanks to technical advice on his own site – enabling them to mask their location and access censored sites. Echoing that, Nabeel Rajab, the director of the banned Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, says since his organisation’s site was blocked two weeks ago the number of visitors has trebled.
“There are some in the government who are still living in the age of the telex, when you could very easily put controls on communications. But these Orwellian policing methods do not have a place in this modern age,” says Mr Yousif.
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