Interview on Syrian Internet Censorship

Below is the full text interview conducted with me by Najad Abdullahi, I believe it reflects on Syrian censorship better than his report:


Najad: It's very hard finding official counts on just how many sites are blocked in Syria, but from what I have found out, the most popular means of expressing one's opinion is Blogger and Facebook (to some degree)
What I mean from opinion, can either be on political or social issues.
1. Can you direct me to perhaps a site or statistic that show how many websites are blocked in Syria.

Me: Actually Blogger compared to Maktub isn’t popular at all; there are 30 or 40 Syrian bloggers on Blogger whom are mostly inactive because of the blockage, hence most of the active bloggers on the site are Syrian expats. The popular blog hosting website among the Syrian bloggers and I think among Arab bloggers in general would be Maktub. There are almost 2484 Syrian blogs on Maktub only. Part of Maktub's popularity is that it's in Arabic and second it is unblocked.

It is worth noting that the reason for blocking Blogger is not because it promotes political or social views, it depends really "who" is promoting these thoughts. For example, a human rights activist Rukana Hammour who blogs on Maktub has written detailed posts on how the security forces in Syria detained her and harassed her yet Maktub is not blocked, whereas Blogger is blocked and for a very serious reason; a former member of National Salvation party which is considered a traitor party in Syria used to blog on Blogger.

You can find an updated list on how many websites are blocked in Syria on this online petition against Syrian censorship:

http://abssyria.freewebpage.org/

Najad: Also, from what I've read, there is a new establishment, named the Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology.
I hear the opening of this ministry came as a surprise to many people in the media industry there, is that true??
The Ministry of Information is has been around as a government institution for quite some time,

Me: I am not sure if the new "establishment" of the ministry itself is what caused a huge problem in the media industry but rather the new "policy" it has been practicing even since it's been created. Websites' owners are asked to be spies on their own readers when asking them to write their full names and submitting their emails when commenting. Some websites publish articles written by anonymous readers of their websites and according to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology's circular on the 7th of July 2007, this is no longer acceptable; websites owners should demand the articles' authors to write their full names clearly or the sites will be temporally closed for violiting the circular and permanently closed if they continue to violate it. So you can imagine the shock of this policy.

Najad: Also, I have read that the reason many websites are being blocked is that the ministry demands that those who publish their comments, put down their real names.
Now, what do you think of this?
Is this a reasonable request, or do you, as a blogger yourself, see that as dangerous?

Me: I believe that behind every act of censorship and human rights abuse lies a bigger fear and minor trigger to justify that fear. If you checked the blocked sites you would notice that most of these sites are opposition sites, human rights sites and Kurdish sites. The reason of their blockage is their very discontenting content. Minor issues like disfavored comments by readers are only the excuse for censoring these sites altogether.

The ministry's circular is not only unreasonable and reflects a paranoid military mentality but also it is unconstitutional: according to the Syrian constitution the item 32 clearly defends the "the confidentiality of postal correspondence and telecommunications," So that means I have the right to appear anonymously.

This circular cannot affect me, I blog under a pseudonym and I publish comments on blogs using a hidden e-mail and the same pseudonym, I don’t think the circular itself is dangerous as the mentality behind it. The Syrian authorities should stop treating the Syrian people as inferior citizens who don't have the advantage of "choosing" to view a site or to seek information since we are already given the list of "friendly" sites and a "favored" information. What bothers me is that we are not treated as peers with the government, as if we cannot rightly judge what's good and what's bad for us, who is an "enemy" and who is a "friend". It is not only about censoring thoughts and freedom of speech but we people, Syrian people, are considered by our government as inferior minds who cannot build a reasonable judgment if given freedom. We demand to be partners to build this nation together; we cannot defend Syria from enemies if we are considered incompetents to defend the nation.

Najad: This request is virtually impossible to enforce, though, because from what I've noticed, there are hundreds of thousands of people in Syria who use pseudonyms.

Me:The Ministry of Telecommunications and Technology's demand to publish real name on websites is ridiculous. One can still write any name and submit an invalid e-mail and post the comment. I mean technically, this demand reflects how ignorant the censors are; they have no idea how publishing a comment works! So yes you're right, people continue to write anonymously. But, what has changed is that the circular has authorized detaining and arresting online commenters if their comments are disfavored by the government. And indeed, people are now getting arrested and detained when writing their full names online expressing critical views of Syrian governments' internal policy. The late human rights watch report (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/08/syria17024.htm) about human rights condition in Syria reveals that two persons, Karim ‘Arbaji (29) and Tarek Biasi (22) whom were recently arrested in June 2007 by Syrian Military Intelligence, are both being held in incommunicado detention for expressing critical views of the Syrian government. Rukana Hammour too, a Syrian blogger, was threatened by the Syrian Military Intelligence to withdraw her nomination to the Syrian Parliament election last year for her posts constantly reveals the corruption of the Syrian judicial system.


Najad: What I don't understand, is that the government claims that this demands of the identiy of online users, will protect 'against spreading lies about the country and government'.
What has a person's name got to do about lies?
Isn't what the person wrote that would count the most?
And also, what the person wrote, on an online medium should not be the responsibility of the government to monitor, because after all, it is an opinion coming from a PERSON - not a media establishment, or an institution, that has to be careful about comments, and allegations.
Can I get your thoughts on this?

Me: Precisely, that's why I think the intention: protecting the nation "against spreading lies about the country and government" is not sincere, their intention is clear; we want the names of those who speak against us, period, and we want the websites' owners to be our intelligence collectors.

Najad: I want to ask you what you think the difference is between Censorship in Egypt, and censorship in Syria?
Media in Egypt has been a focus for quite some time, do you think more attention should be bought to Syria?

Me: Unfortunately I don’t know much about censorship in Egypt, I know bloggers are constantly arrested for expressing views against religion and against the government, some have been recently released but Kareem Suleiman is still in jail. The Egyptian government, which is supported by the so-called democratic US, claims its support to democracy and freedom of speech yet is using the same censorship policy of the so called "axis of evil" Syria, I don’t see much difference here; the three administrations are tyrannical regimes.

I am not sure too how the media in Egypt is at focus, but we in Syria certainly need a lot of that, actually we need to change our definition of "media" structurally. Syrian formal media agencies do not reflect exactly what's going on in Syria, that's why many Syrians don’t check Syrian formal news agencies but Lebanese channels/newspapers and independent Syrian news websites. I think once our media trust the mind of the Syrian citizens and the right to for her/him to know what's going on in Syria, we would be solving a structural flaw in our understanding of the media itself.


Najad: I've spoken to people in Damascus explaining to me why the blockage were needed. They tell me that they censoring opinions/comments are related to security issues, namely aimed at those that choose to insult the Syrian government, and its foreing/domestic polciies.
Do you think this is a reasonable justification?

Me: Let us first agree on something, there is a difference between "deleting" a comment, and "censoring" it. There are two kinds of comments, spam comments; swearing words, hating words and insulting terms which I think are irrelevant to the article, post or news published hence deleting it is most likely justified, and the second kind of comments is opinion comments that actually reflect the reader response of the text and provide arguments and perspectives. It is irrelevant here if the comment agrees or not with the author of the text, I think as long as it provides a say it is an opinion and censoring it is never justified.

When we use the word "censorship" in our campaign against censorship we mean that our thoughts, opinions and freedom of speech are censored! How can censoring an opinion be justified? This argument is simply insulting our intelligence when accusing us of insulting rather than developing arguments critiquing domestic policies. Criticism is not a crime, criticism is necessary for the national process of progress, criticism is not an attack and certainly not an insult, it rather challenges the other point of view hoping that through a dialogue we get somewhere better. We are nobody's enemy; we share the same goal which is the welfare of Syrian people and Syria. We know that one of us can do without the other.

Many thanks to Yaman Salahi for editing this post.