United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is one of the best connected countries in the region, alongside Bahrain and Qatar. The government generally blocks content that “harms Islam”. Pornography, gambling and homosexuality are taboo subjects on the Internet, but it is not unusual to find websites made inaccessible for political reasons. Criticism of the government is also a very sensitive issue. The appeal court in Ras al Khaimah on 20 January 2008 quashed all charges against the owner of the website www.majan.net, Muhammad Rashed Shehhi, who was sued for “defamation” over an “offensive” comment posted on his site by an Internet user. Muhammad Rashed Shehhi had been sentenced on 8 August 2007 to one year in prison and a fine equivalent to 15,000 euros. During his appeal hearing in October, the prosecutor had called for a five-month prison sentence against him. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has called on the national telecommunications company, Etisalat, to block access to all websites with an Israeli domain name (.il). But not all pro-Israel sites are censored. The Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com) is, for example, accessible. Social networking sites are also targeted for censorship, such as Hi5, Facebook, Friendster, and all those websites that host dating services such as Yahoo! Personals and Match.com. Some websites are inaccessible because of Saudi Arabian censorship since the two countries share an information channel. Since the start of 2008, the Saudi communications authority has ordered the closure of some websites because of their content dealing with religious affairs or morals. The website on blog hosting and design Onix.com has been inaccessible since December. The blog of Eve, a Saudi woman who cover the rights of women and religious affairs in the country, has suffered the same fate.