The Internet in our country is bland and tasteless. All other Arab countries ban some websites, but in our country they ban all websites and leave some.

--A comment made by Maher, a Syrian citizen, on the policy of banning the websites, in a Syrian forum. (1)

     Up until two years ago, the Syrian government had been successful in limiting Internet use in its country and in depriving Syrians of their right to Internet access. The government's tools were bans imposed on many websites and e-mail service providers, the arrest and conviction of those who attempted to bypass these bans and who dared criticize the government, and the high price of Internet access, which till 2003 was $1 per hour in a country where the per capita income is only $110 a month.

     As reported by Al-Hayat, some experts believe that the main problem in Syrian society is that large sections within it are unaccustomed to computer use. Statistics reveal that only 23% of the Syrian population (which is estimated to be 19 million people) are computer literate. There are at most 300,000 PCs in Syria, the majority of which are owned by governmental institutions. (2)

     Syria has only two ISPs: the General Telecommunications Establishment and the Syrian Information Society. Each controls internet subscription through a local proxy.

The Black List

     Ever since Syrians gained access to the Internet they have been complaining about the bans the government places on web pages. These citizens believe that the bans are in clear contradiction with the spirit of the current age and disrupt the free flow of information. The Syrian government maintains a constantly growing Internet "black list" of banned web pages. Many of the sites on this black list are pages that contain news related to Syrian affairs.

     An official with the General Telecommunications Establishment told Islam Online that, upon Syria's first contact with the Internet, the government drafted several basic rules managing Internet usage. It was decided that two general categories of websites should be banned. The first is all websites with pornographic content. The second category is that of the "hostile websites." The government provides no specifics about this second category, it includes pro-Israeli websites, Islamic websites, and web pages with articles about Syrian news and issues. (3)
Soon after it published this article, the Islam Online website itself was banned in Syria!

A Long List of Bans

     On March 2004, the Syrian authorities blocked access to two Kurdish-language news websites based in Germany, www.amude.com and www.qamislo.com, both of which provided news, pictures, and video clips of demonstrations by the Syrian Kurdish minority.(4) The list of the banned web sites also includes the daily electronic newspaper Elaph, the Kurdish website www.yakiti.de, Akhbar Al-Sharq (News of the East), the web site of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, and hundreds of others. It is estimated that, in addition to the banned pornographic web pages, there are 137 blocked web sites.

All For Syria

      Ayman Abdul Nour refuses to be described either as a dissident or as an ally of the authorities. He prefers to be considered as belonging to the one Syria shared by all. He does not want to establish an oppositional movement but rather a social movement that calls on the regime to develop its tools in light of the international information and media revolution.

     In 2003 Ayman created the Kuluna Shorkaa fii Siria "All4Syria.org" web site. In the beginning, the website was modest; it merely posted news and topics related to general Syrian affairs. Ayman would collect submitted material, review and revise it, and post only those articles that dealt with serious topics in a mature style. This material was published in the form of a electronic newsletter distributed to media professionals and intellectuals inside and outside Syria. More than 12,000 copies were distributed through e-mail.

     The recipients of the newsletter received the Syrian government's ban on the website with surprise. They knew that the Syrian Information Society played a role in the enforcement of this ban. Debates about the bans and their logic, or lack thereof, were reawakened. This time, the debate was louder and the opposition to the ban more vehement. Part of the reason for the vehemence of the debates was that Ayman, according to the media, was either in the Ba'ath Ruling Party or, at the very least, close to it. Syrians continue to discuss the ban, its underlying reason, and the possibility to bypass it or to pressure authorities into lifting it. (5)

      According to official statistics, the number of Internet subscribers in Syria is estimated to be 155,000. With at least five users per subscription, the number of users is estimated to be 775,000 in homes and in the net cafes.

      The number of the cafes in Syria is estimated to be more than 500, a relatively high number considering that Internet access in Syria was available to the public only starting in 2002. Many Syrian governmental departments, however, had access to the Internet as early as 1997.

      Some officials in the Syrian government initially refused to provide the Syrian people with Internet access, much in the same way they had previously refused to allow the people to use fax machines. The authorities could arrest or cut the phone connection of any Syrian found using a fax machine without first obtaining permission. These same officials refused the use of cellular phones as well.

     Other Syrian officials, however, encouraged the provision of Internet access to the public. The leader of this latter group was the Syrian president Bashar Al-Asad. It seems, however, that both these groups agree on one thing: the policy of banning websites without empowering a specific governmental body to do so or specifying clear procedures and guidelines by which bans will be chosen and enforced.

The ban has no logic and no rules.

There is no logic to Syria's internet censorship. Bans are not limited to political, sexual or religious web pages. On May 10th, 2004, the two websites of the Ilaf company, www.illafsoft.com, and www.illaftrain.com, were banned, raising questions and concern amongst the Syrian Internet community and the managers of the two websites.

     Upon the banning of their websites, the managers wrote: "We apologize to all the visitors from the Arab Republic of Syria for the inability to log on the website through the connection provided by the Syrian Information Society. The Company's commercial website www.illafsoft.com and the website of the training section www.illaftrain.com were both banned on May 10, 2004 for reasons unknown to the Ilaf Company. Ilaf express both its sorrow its opposition to this ban and is waiting for its removal. Ilaf calls upon Syrian citizens to use those tools that will allow them to log on to the two banned websites." (7)

      Syrian users can buy software programs that bypass the bans for one dollar. Those who have accounts through international e-mail service providers, such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Ajeeb, use these software programs to do so. Moreover, any user who has even a little experience using the Internet can employ several different tools to easily bypass the bans; one such method is to use the AltaVista search engine to log on the banned websites.

Arbitrary Detention and Military Courts

Dozens of citizens are detained every month by the Syrian government upon the charge of "defamation" even though most of them do not belong to any political group or party. They are detained merely on the basis of reports written about them by state security because they criticized the situation in Syria or some Syrian officials. They are either referred to a military court or are detained without trial for anywhere between three months and three years. They are arrested and detained in police stations, where they are more vulnerable to torture and ill-treatment.

     State security's monitoring of the Internet makes accessing the Internet a gamble for Syrian citizens.

     The detention campaign began with the monitoring of Internet users who e-mailed articles and press reports about Syria's internal situation to one another. This is a topic considered by the security apparatus and the political authorities to be taboo.

     One victim of the detention campaign was Abdel Rahman Shaguri, a young man who was detained on February 23, 2003 after emailing Levant News the newsletter of the banned website www.thisissyria.net. Shaguri was tortured and ill-treated in the Palestine police station before he was transferred to Sidnaya prison.

     Another such victim was Massud Hamid, a 29 year old Kurd who was charged with the crime of disseminating false news over the Internet.

     The Syrian court has postponed the case of the two brothers Mohanad and Haitham Qatesh and the journalist Yehia Al-Ous since the end of 2002. It is still pending trial. Mohanad and Yehia Al-ous were charged with obtaining secret information integral to the safety of the nation. Heitham Qatesh was charged with writing illegal material that put Syria and its citizens in danger and jeopardized the country's relations with foreign powers. In addition, Mohanad and Yehia were charged with the misdemeanor of disseminating false news abroad. Amnesty International reported in its press release that Mohand and Heithem Qatesh and the journalist Yehia had sent articles to an electronic newspaper based in The Emirates.

      The policy of banning websites and detaining citizens for either political reasons or because they are merely practicing their right to freedom of expression over the Internet cannot last. It is a solution resorted to by undemocratic governments and a solution doomed to failure. This solution will only inspire more opposition. By pursuing such policies, the Syrian government has its opposition one more reason to criticize a government that has been ruling under Emergency Law for over 40 years.


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Footnotes
1- a pseudonym of a Syrian citizen answering the question "what do you think on the Internet in Syria?", we did not mention the name of the website in order not cause its ban, 16/02/03
2- Al-Hayat newspaper, 12/04/04
3- Islam online website, 17/07/03, visited on 21/03/04
http://www.islam-online.net/arabic/news/2003-06/17/article10.shtml
4- Index online.org website, 26/04/04, visited on 03/05/04
http://www.indexonline.org/indexindex/20040406_syria.shtml
5- The German Television website, 20/04/04, visited on 26/04/04
http://www.dwelle.de/arabic/politik/1.71435.1.html
6- Al-Hayat newspaper, 12/08/03
7- Ilaf Soft website, 11/04/04
http://www.illafsoft.com/arabic/index.thtml
8- Prisoner of conscience in Syria, a report on Sudnaya prison, issued by the Human Rights Association in Syria.
9- Amnesty International, 21/03/04, visited on 21/03/04
http://www.amnesty-arabic.org/text/news-services/ns-mde/2004/syria_mde_24_017_2004.htm