Arab governments wake up to threat of blogging

Last Updated: Monday, February 19, 2007 | 3:43 PM ET

CBC Arts

The trial of an Egyptian blogger accused of insulting Islam has the Arab world focusing on the growing influence of the internet as a vehicle for protest and the efforts of repressive regimes to control it.

Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, 22, has been in detention since November on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife for writing that is critical of Islamic authorities.

His trial, which began in January in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, is the first trial of a blogger in Egypt.

The spiderweb tendrils of the internet are spreading across the Arab world at a startling pace, but repressive regimes are only just starting to apply the same controls on internet sites that are imposed on traditional media.

There are now 26 million internet users in the Arab world and 40,000 Arabic blogs, according to a report by the Initiative for an Open Arab Internet.

Sawsen Zaidah, a Jordanian journalist who produces the program Eye on the Media, says blogging is appealing because it is not as heavily controlled as traditional media.

"Legally there are no laws regulating on the internet," she said in an interview with CBC Radio.

"So they can't sue you or control you directly. They have their own ways indirectly. They can for example call you and threaten you. Still, it is less than the traditional media."

Arab governments have watched with alarm as Egypt's pioneering bloggers have used the net as a vehicle for public protest, with some bloggers even posting video evidence of police torture. 

Now Egypt is changing its approach, cracking down on blogs like Nabil's and earning a rebuke from the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders as an "internet enemy."

In Syria, government watchers regularly shut down bloggers deemed a threat to the governing elites.

'You can't say anything'

Yassar Fattoom, a Syrian student, says the opposition is weaker in Syria and internet expression is even more restricted than in Egypt.

"Here we have one party ruling the whole country. Anybody else is not allowed," he said. "You can't say anything. In Egypt you can find demos against regime, for raising salaries...you feel that everything is real. Here everything is behind mask."

Countries from Tunisia, to Bahrain and Iran are now shutting down bloggers, filtering sites and sometimes arresting the people behind them. 

Zaidah says blogging about social issues can be just as provocative as political comment.

In Saudia Arabia, a blogger calling herself Saudi Eve was recently shut down after writing about subjects that included what would happen if she were driving her own car, a practice that is illegal for women in the desert kingdom.