Internet Police on the Nile

Although the Egyptian government initially promoted the spread of Internet use, the new media has today become a thorn in the side of many state authorities. Censorship and the banning of websites are no longer a rarity, as Nelly Youssef reports from Cairo

Internet café in Cairo (photo: AP)
Deceptive freedom – in particular in poorer areas where people can't afford their own computers, Internet cafés are subject to close state surveillance

​​As use of the Internet in Egypt rose in the mid-1990s, the Egyptian government was at first eager to foster its spread by means of various measures, for example the "Free Internet" initiative launched in January 2002, or the project "Computers for Everyone," which gave many families the chance to purchase a PC on an installment plan.

Such campaigns surely reflect the serious desire on the part of some decision-makers in the Egyptian government to increase the number of Internet users in the country and thus harness the achievements of the digital age to boost economic development.

Egypt's Internet police

However, it's difficult to praise these efforts when one considers how they are being undermined by restrictions imposed by other government quarters. Since 2001, namely, the Egyptian police have taken action against scores of Internet users.

A new administrative unit was even set up a few years ago expressly to monitor the Internet. Under the charge of the Department of Information, it is called the "Department for Combating Computer and Internet Crime." Egyptians representing the right to freedom of expression refer to the institution instead as the "Internet Police."

Gamal Id is director of the nongovernmental organization "Arab Information Network for Human Rights," which advocates the spread of information via the Internet and supports journalists in the fields of print media and the Internet.

He describes the censorship of Internet content in Egypt, although less drastic than in Tunisia or Saudi Arabia, as a blot on a government whose Minister President, Ahmad Nazif, originally came from the field of telecommunications and information processing.

Ban on opposition websites

The most frequent means enlisted by Egypt's Internet censors include shutting down complete websites that do not meet with government approval. The Muslim Brotherhood's site www.ikhwanonline.com, for example, was banned for months. The prohibition was recently lifted, however, after the enforcers noticed that the Muslim Brotherhood had quickly launched no less than eleven new sites.

Abd al-Galil al-Sharnubi, editor-in-chief of the Muslim Brotherhood's website, brought a suit before the State Council ("Majlis al-Dawla") against Minister President Ahmad Nazif for banning his organization's Internet site during the entire year of 2004.

Joining Al-Sharnubi in taking legal action were Amer Abdulmonem, editor-in-chief of the site run by the daily paper "al-Shaab", an organ of the no-longer-active Workers' Party (www.alshaab.com), and Ahmad Haridi, editor of the website of al-Methaq al-Arabi (www.almethaqalaraby.net), both of whose websites had also been proscribed.

The plaintiffs demand that the ban against their online news magazines be lifted. They see this proscription as a clear breach of their right to freedom of expression.

"Al-Methaq al-Arabi" is now online again, but the website of the "al-Shaab" newspaper is still blocked. It is still possible to access the site within Egypt, however, via a so-called proxy server.

E-mail monitoring

The monitoring of e-mail traffic also constitutes a restriction on personal and human rights. Frequently, users of this communication medium are monitored without the permission of the public prosecutor's office, which clearly represents an invasion of the private sphere and a human rights violation.

This surveillance has by now led to allegations against and the arrest of several persons. In 2003, for example, Ashraf Ibrahim was arrested on the grounds that his e-mails gave the authorities reason to believe that he belonged to a left-wing organization.

He was accused of sending information on human rights violations in Egypt to people abroad and thus besmirching the reputation of his country. Since the Internet Police did not succeed in supplying evidence for these claims, however, they were forced to drop the charges.

Another case in point is the arrest of the engineer Salah Hashim, who was charged with being one of the founders of the organization "al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya" after exchanging a few e-mails with Islamist leaders abroad.

The case of Internet expert Shahdi Naguib Surur was also in the news. The son of the late poet Naguib Surur was apprehended on January 30, 2002 and sentenced to one year in prison. During the appeals procedure, Shahdi Naguib Surur, who has Russian citizenship, traveled to Russia in order to wait out the course of judgment.

Surur was accused of putting a document of his father's on the Internet that allegedly offended the general sense of morality. In actuality, the case was probably based more on the criticism of Egyptian politics found in the piece.

Such cases represent new terrain for Egyptian society. The judges have great difficulties in dealing with them since no clear precedents have yet been set and applicable legislation is lacking. What makes the situation even more complicated – at least according to Gamal Id – is that most people sitting in judgment on these cases are hardly familiar with the use of computers and the Internet.

"Internet traps" for homosexuals

The Egyptian police sometimes set snares for homosexuals in the Internet, ending with successful arrests. Human Rights Watch reports that, between 2001 and 2003, at least 46 Egyptians were arrested and sentenced for lewd behavior after the police had lured them into an "Internet trap."

Decoys make friends with the victims in chatrooms and, after gaining their confidence, arrange dates to meet. During the date, the police then show up and arrest the homosexual for obscene conduct.

The Ard Center for Human Rights points out that moral dubiousness cannot be misused as an argument for censorship and for curtailing the right of Egyptians to exchange information and make contacts through the Internet. Anything that threatens the free exchange of information, no matter how one tries to justify it, must be stopped, the organization emphasizes.

The Center wants to devote itself to ensuring that the Internet is open to all citizens as well as to national and regional institutions, so that information and ideas can flow unimpeded.

Deceptive freedom in Internet cafés

Characteristically, state surveillance also extends to a number of Internet cafés that have opened in Egypt – especially in poorer districts where the residents cannot afford their own computers.

Here, the Egyptian police employ methods that are patently illegal and that have been denounced by various human rights organizations. The police demand that the Internet café operators register the personal data and ID numbers of all users. Sometimes the operators are even forced to tell their customers that the purpose of the registration is for a prize sweepstakes.

Café operators are also compelled to closely observe their customers and to report immediately if a user visits a website with content that is in any way political, religious or sexual.

Often, the operators resort to recording false names and numbers on the registration forms in order to satisfy the police's demands while not scaring away their clientele.

It's obvious that this only encourages the risk of police corruption. Many police officers take bribes from Internet café owners, who are thus able under a specious pretense to prevent their operation from being closed down.

Demand for authoritative Internet law

The latest news is that even weblogs are being monitored. Two months ago, a student was arrested for the first time for his contributions to a weblog. The statements criticized the conduct of some Muslims in a conflict between Muslims and Christians: in a church in Alexandria, a theater piece had been performed that the Muslims viewed as a defamation of their religion.

In response to this case, the initiative "Legal Aid for Human Rights" appealed to the public prosecutor for a statement on the arrest of the student. He was then released 14 days after his arrest. Tariq Khatir, the director of the initiative, emphasized that the arrest of the student was not consistent with the law and constitution of the Egyptian state and also infringed against international treaties.

A number of Egyptian organizations that are fighting for an improvement in the rights situation are now demanding the drafting of laws and guidelines for the new Internet medium in Egypt. Most of the regulations that have been cited to date revolve around intellectual property copyrights, pirated copies of software programs or the protection of the rights of employees in the IT industry.

Up until now, however, no well-grounded proposal has been made for legislation in this area that would emphasize the aspect of freedom of information and set out provisions for dealing with freedom of expression in the Internet. As long as such legislation is lacking, the door is wide open for further violations by censors and the police.

Nelly Youssef

Translated from German by Jennifer Taylor-Gaida

© 2005 Qantara.de

Qantara.de

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