A Tunis appeal court began hearing an appeal against an order to block porn sites

A Tunis appeal court began hearing an appeal against an order, issued by a lower court on 26 May, requiring the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to block porn sites on the grounds that they posed a threat to minors and Muslim values. The order was the result of a legal initiative by a group of lawyers. An initial attempt by the agency to block the order was rejected by another court on 13 June. The decision that the appeal court takes will be crucial for the future of the Tunisian Internet. Pending the outcome of the appeal, ATI undertook to comply with the order while reiterating “its determination, as an Internet exchange point, to act in a transparent and neutral manner as regards all the websites to be filtered by means of its equipment.” The agency provided information about the measures it took to comply with the order and warned the public that the reactivation of filtering could lead to deterioration in the quality of service, above all because of network maintenance problems. ATI began to comply with the order by stages on 15 June, introducing filtering in a number of government agencies and ministries, residences for young people and Internet cafés, but so far not for domestic users. The Internet company McAfee’s Smartfilter was being used for the filtering. The agency gave out an email address ([email protected]) to which suspected filtering errors could be reported, but said it could not take responsibility for any errors.