"we are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence of conformity"

     This statement-a quote from John Berry's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"-is published on the "wadad.net" website. Its sentiment might stand true for most countries of the world, but the current situation faced by Internet users in Arab countries casts doubt upon the words above and the hope they express.

     With the introduction of Internet access and the relatively rapid growth in Internet users (who now number nearly 14 million) in Arab states, several pressing questions have surfaced amongst Arab Internet users:

• Do Arab Internet users enjoy the privacy and freedom they had hoped for in their correspondences and cyber-activities?
• Does the Internet really provide them with the space of freedom denied to them in other media by their governments?
• By what laws would they be judged if they transgressed legal boundaries regarding Internet use, boundaries that are arbitrarily, if at all, defined by their governments?

     The Internet has provided a great number of citizens in Arab nations and the rest of the world with the opportunity to express their beliefs and declare their ideologies. Particularly benefiting from the opportunities afforded by the Internet are groups historically deprived of their freedom of expression. In Arab nations leftists, Islamists, and human rights groups were deprived of their freedom of expression for political reasons; Shiites and Christians deprived for religious ones; and homosexuals deprived of their freedom of expression due to both social and religious reasons.

      Soon after they gained access to the Internet these groups, whether organized or not, took advantage of the opportunities and facilities it provided. Groups with an Islamic vision and message have been especially active and successful in this regard.

      However, these groups, which have widely differing goals and backgrounds, soon realized that the Internet was not entirely free. Arab governments perceived this newly emergent means of communication, with its promise of freedom from government dominion, as constituting a threat and, accordingly, began to do their best to control the Internet and its users.

     In dealing with this new medium, Arab governments have resorted to their traditional methods of curtailing freedom of expression: censorship and confiscation. They developed their techniques of censorship so as to best address the demands of the new technology. Arab governments installed Electronic Filtering Programs to control access to "trouble" sources on the Internet. Some Arab states, like Saudi and Tunisia, granted a monopoly over Internet service to one state run company in order to best exercise control over Internet use.

      These new techniques are used in addition to the more traditional and more commonly used solution which is to forge charges and prosecute any person who may transgress the unidentified line between that which is permitted and that which is prohibited. Typical charges leveled by governments against Internet users are those of defamation, harming the state's reputation, and violating public morality.

      Some Arab governments avoid these regulations, choosing instead to totally deprive their people of Internet access. The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, for example, justified his prohibition of Internet use by claiming that the Internet is an "American propaganda tool."

      All this governmental activity, and yet the Internet is still in its infancy in the Arab region. Tunisia was the first Arab nation to have access to the Internet in 1991; by the beginning of the second half of the 1990s, the Internet had been introduced to the public in all Arab states except for Saudi Arabia, which provided its citizens with Internet access in 1999, and Iraq, which did so in 2000.

      It seems that initially many Arab governments did not fully appreciate the degree of freedom the Internet grants its users. Thus, at first, state policy encouraged governmental bodies to use the Internet and exempted computer equipment from import tariffs so as to help citizens to own computers.

      These policies were soon rescinded when governments understood that the Internet offers its services to all users without differentiating between the governmental and the dissident, the state officer and the human rights activist, the religious and the atheist, black and white, man and woman.

      A new phase began when Arab governments began to crack down on Internet users. A game of cat and mouse developed. The cats were the Arab governments, who stalked those citizens who used the Internet to break the prevailing values of the religious, cultural, and political establishment. The mice were all those who chose to swim against the governmental stream.

The Internet in Religious Dress

     Starting from a few years ago, observers have noticed a growing religious trend in Arabic web pages: The majority of Arabic language web pages are either about Islam, as interpreted by those responsible for the websites, or are calling for the spread of Islam. Most of these websites come from the Arab Gulf area. This is due to the high standard of living in this part of the Arab region, which has enabled citizens to better take advantage of technological progress and the digital revolution.

     The majority of Islamic web pages all call for the adoption of the extremist Sunni interpretation that has spread widely in the Arab Gulf area and extended to reach other Arab states, non-Arab Islamic states like Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Muslims living in Europe and North America.

     Few who read statistics concerning Arabic content on the Internet fail to notice the high proportion of these Islamic web pages amongst the total. One estimate says that Islamic web pages comprise 65% of the total number of Arabic websites on the Internet. (1) Though this estimation is exaggerated, it does indicate the exceedingly large number of web pages with Islamic content.

      In spite of the fact that many of these Islamic web pages preach religious hatred against non-Muslims and even against other Islamic groups, they have managed to slip past the bans and the filters put in place by Arab states. Many Arab governments practice selective censorship; that they permit the continued existence of these Islamic sites is less a result of a respect for the freedom of expression than it is a reflection of their satisfaction with the content of these websites.

     As the number of Internet users and the Arabic web sites have grown, this phenomena has decreased somewhat but not completely Many of the Islamic websites have adopted a calmer tone and less inflammatory language in addressing the Other. After the September 11th attacks and the increased monitoring of Islamic Internet sites by the US and Arab governments, the more extremist sites have moderated their rhetoric. Examples of extremist web pages that have displayed a marked moderation of tone include: "the Arabic Arena" or Al-Saha Al-Arabia, Sawalef, Bawabet Al-Islam, Islamoy, Islamna, Shabaket Sahab, Ana Muslim, and Ansar Al-Islam.

The Weapon of the Opposition

     The Internet provided Arab opposition groups with an alternative to traditional media outlets. Governments keep a close eye on all media, doing their utmost to allow no news, articles, or comments expressing political dissidence or criticism to be published. In case such material does manage to be published, there is always more room in Arab prisons for journalists and democracy activists.

     With increasing governmental censorship of expression came a coinciding growth in the number of oppositional web pages. Many of these opposition groups, finding no space for activities within their own countries, operate from exile, using all those facilities located abroad to mobilize supporters and expose the practices of their governments. The Internet is among the most valuable tools available to these activists.

     The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has observed the websites of these oppositional groups, including the sites of those leftist and Islamic groups that opposed the Iraqi state even before the American occupation. Their web sites are based in several countries including Sweden, England, Germany and Denmark. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has also monitored several web sites representing Saudi and Libyan oppositional groups. In these two countries, which were late in their exposure to the Internet, oppositional groups have created websites expressing their opposition to government practices; through both these websites and their willingness to cross the line in expressing their political opinions, these organizations have gained the support of the public.

     This same pattern has been repeated, albeit with some differences, in other Arab states like Tunisia, Syria, Sudan and Bahrain. Even Egypt, a state known for allowing its citizens a relatively large space of freedom, has inspired the appearance of opposition websites abroad that denounce the persecution and discrimination of Copts living in Egypt. Several websites have recently been created to protest the possibility of an inherited presidency in Egypt. (2)

     Though these web sites are not more than a few dozen in number, they still compare favorably with international websites. They attract large numbers of visitors and use email lists to distribute both new content and advice on how to bypass governmental bans. The popularity of these websites leads Arab governments to double their banning efforts even as they continue repeat their claim that they ban only pornographic websites and websites that transgress public morality.

Arab Homosexuals Declare Existence

     Homosexuals might be the only social group in the Arab World that was completely unable to declare publicly its existence until the appearance of the Internet. To declare yourself leftist, Islamist, Shiite or Nasserist means to expose yourself to some security, cultural or religious problems; to declare yourself homosexual means exposing yourself to every single one of these problems.

     Homosexuals exist in the Arab world. The Internet made it possible for them to declare their existence. Arab homosexuals use several different web pages to express themselves, their ideas and their burdens, and to increase society's knowledge about them.

     The web site of the Association of Arab Gays and Lesbians "glas.org" could be considered the oldest and the most famous website of Arab homosexuals. Its appearance inspired the creation of several other websites addressing Arab homosexuals and led some foreign websites to allocate sections in their pages for issues concerning Arab homosexuals.

     The number of homosexual web sites increased after a string of government crack-down campaigns. More regionally specific homosexual websites started to appear, such as the Egypt Gays web site, Arab Gays website, Lebanon Gays website, and Al-Fataha Gays website. Even in Saudi Arabia, known as an extremely conservative state, homosexuals created a web site, named The Saudi Gay. Those responsible for the creation of this website provided their visitors with advice on how to protect themselves, such as:
1. Do not use your real name.
2. Use a secret and confidential e-mail address.
3. If some one offers to meet you, be careful.
4. Do not give you home address to anyone
5. Do not give your phone number to anyone (3)

Despite the bans that the majority of Arab states have placed on these websites, they remain popular and are visited regularly. An attractive factor about these websites is that they publish news about the oppression of minority groups, like the police crackdown on the homosexuals in Egypt.

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Footnotes
1- Islamna website, accessed on 04/07/01, http://www.ourislam.net
2- The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information knows of more than 34 websites of opposing parties and groups based outside their home countries but prefers not to mention their names or their websites so as to protect them from government bans.
3- Elaph Electronic newspaper, accessed on 13/01/03