Saturday, 21 November 2009

UN Irony? Egyptian Infamy

Proving once again that Muslims and the UN don't do irony, Egypt, the land of the imprisoned blogger and non bastion of free speech, has now got its own Internet domain name ......

Web Freedom
Web Freedom

 

...... which was announced at a UN sponsored the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) during a session at the Internet Governance Forum held in Egypt.

Tarek Kamel said the new domain name would be ".masr" written in the Arabic alphabet. It translates as ".Egypt". "It is a great moment for us... The Internet now speaks Arabic," Mr Kamel said.

Just so long as they don't criticise a mullah or the President, or well anyone in power, like Abdel Kareem Soliman the Egyptian blogger who languishes in jail.

At the forum, the UN Security teams demanded that a free speech poster be torn down (as I said, they don't do irony) .... because the Chinese objected too it mentioning the "Great Firewall Of China"

"If we are not allowed to discuss topics such as Internet censorship, surveillance and privacy at a forum on Internet governance, then what is the point of the IGF?" Ron Deibert, co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative told reporters.

The freedoms of the net are not entrenched in most of the world.

Free Kareem! Free the Web
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1 comment:

  1. No PC22 November 2009 at 08:57

    Your right Jillian I should have remarked on communist suppresion and attacks on "Free speech" (which I have done on other occassions}.

    To be honest I was more interested in the fact that no one thought there was anything odd in holding a free the internet convention is a country where bloggers are imprisoned.

    Or the fact that the UN, now very often represents a very non liberal point of view on a number of matters, from free speech to
    racism.

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