Morocco clamps down on YouTube
p2pnet.net news:- People in Morocco fear the fact YouTube has been inaccessible since last week means the government has ramped up its campaign to restrict independent media.
“Moroccan bloggers were surprised to discover they could no longer open YouTube on Friday and promptly launched online forums to speculate about whether the site had been censured,” says Associated Press, going on, “Najib Omrani, a spokesman for state-controlled Maroc Telecom, which supplies most Internet access in Morocco, blamed the problem on a technical glitch but could not explain its nature or why it affected only the YouTube site.”
But the explanation isn’t satisfying sceptics.
Some users noted YouTube went down, “after users posted videos critical of Morocco’s treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco took control of in 1975 after Spain, the colonial power, withdrew,” says Canadian Press, quoting university student Abdelhakim Albarkani, “parked in a Rabat cyber cafe doing his economics homework,” as saying:
“They’ve clearly blocked YouTube. I’m worried, because YouTube allowed us to see things the state newspapers and television won’t show.”
But Morocco is far from being the only country to stop its citizens from watching YouTube videos.
US Forces Korea commander general B.B. Bell’s decision to ban the site was headlined around the world. And YouTube owner Google quickly complied with a Brazilian court ordered to either shut down or drop a sex video featuring Brazillian model and MTV face Daniela Cicarelli.
“Thailand blocked the site last month because of a video clip deemed offensive to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej,” says AP, adding, “In March, Turkey blocked YouTube for two days after a complaint that some videos insulted Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.”
On the ban in Morocco, “At his accession to the throne in 1999, Moroccans hoped King Mohamed VI would usher in political and social freedoms absent under his father, the late King Hassan II,” states CP, adding:.
“But key issues remain off-limits for public discussion, with Moroccan law still forbidding criticism of the monarchy, Islam and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara.
“Many bloggers say a recent upsurge of YouTube videos criticizing Morocco’s rule in Western Sahara may have spooked government censors.”
Also See:
Associated Press – Moroccans Fear Youtube Has Been Blocked, May 30, 2007
Canadian Press – Moroccans cut off from website YouTube fear media freedom eroding, May 30, 2007
ban the site – Pentagon backs YouTube ban, May 18, 2007
quickly complied – YouTube deletes Cicarelli flic, January 5, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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May 31st, 2007 at 6:05 am
Per the article: “US Forces Korea commander general B.B. Bell’s decision to ban the site was headlined around the world.”
Unfortunately, that statement is a bit misleading, as the decision was made at the DoD. The memo simply outlined the policy. Because Korea is across the international dateline, they are 13 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. As a result, the policy announcement simply came out of Korea first, and similar announcements were made the next “day” in the U.S. The policy was not defined in Korea.
Whether or not this is meaningful to the overall story is up for debate, but an accurate description of the origin of the policy is probably in order.