Syria Tests Internet Freedom Theory

By Kee

Flickr Creative Commons | PGrandicelli

By John D. Sutter | CNN | March 30, 2011

In the wake of Egypt’s “Facebook revolution,” which was fueled in part by online social networks, much has been made about the role of technology in encouraging or even creating democracy.

“If you want to liberate a society, just give them the internet,” said Wael Ghonim, one of Egypt’s tech-savvy revolutionaries.

Syria, the latest country in the region to announce reforms in the wake of protests, is a curious test of that theory.

The country — squished between Iraq and Turkey — is known as one of the world’s toughest police states. But unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, the government supported the development of local technology, at least before the protests that pushed President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday to announce the resignation of most of the country’s government officials.

The president has not given up power. He addressed the country on Wednesday, blaming the protests on an international conspiracy and calling the situation “a test of our unity.”

There are at least three ways to read this fluid situation.

First: Syria is an exception to Ghonim’s theory about internet freedom, since the tools of online revolution have failed, at least to date, to bring about a fundamental change in power in the country. Some scholars say Syria has successfully used the internet to monitor would-be dissidents, keeping them from using the internet to organize.

Second: We’re watching another tech-led revolution unfold. The Syrian government reportedly unblocked access to Facebook amid the turmoil in Egypt and Tunisia. Perhaps that was enough to spark recent changes.

Third: The internet has had little impact on Syrian reform. Conflicting reports suggest the internet and some mobile apps may have been blocked recently.

Coming events in Syria will challenge or support these theories.

No matter the outcome, a look at Syria’s nascent tech renaissance – bubbling long before violence in the country started making headlines — offers a framework for understanding these current events.

Local techies hosted iPhone app development contests; they created websites, including a Syrian version of Foursquare; they went to internet cafes, which are so common “you can’t walk without stumbling upon one,” one blogger said; they blogged, sometimes under real names; and they used proxy servers to access Western sites and information.

About one in five Syrians is online and nearly half use mobile phones. Those tech penetration rates are only slightly lower than in Egypt.

If internet equals freedom, then these activities should lead to the end of the regime — meaning internet technology would be something the Syrian government should fear. In reality, however, Syria’s ruling party at times supported the digital tools that have spelled disaster for authoritarian regimes elsewhere.

“We’re going to see dramatic changes still in the ways Syrians use the internet,” one Syrian tech entrepreneur said by phone before protests broke out. “Now (people) feel more comfortable doing this; they’re not doing something that is going to be frowned upon. They’re not doing it under the table. They’re doing it openly.”

‘There is change’

Many of Syria’s tech entrepreneurs seem to have no political aspirations.

In interviews before the recent protests, they were quick to say they’re interested in technology for technology’s sake.

One Syrian app developer, referred to here as Ahmed to protect his real identity, moved back to the country after going to school in Texas. When he arrived, there weren’t many “social” websites or apps to speak of, so he created one.

The reason: He wanted to know the hippest place to grab dinner or a beer with friends. He said he’s not the type to dabble in politics.

Syria is becoming a good place for tech entrepreneurs, he said.

“I’m the kind of person who thinks things are getting better here,” he said. “There is a change. Maybe it’s not as fast as everybody hopes — but it is happening.”

Syria’s ‘Day of Rage’

Syrians organized a “Day of Rage” on Facebook, similar to the Facebook event that helped kick off Egypt’s revolution.

Unlike in Egypt, where protests raged for 18 days and eventually toppled the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak, only a dozen people showed up to that first planned event, which was scheduled for February 4, according to news reports.

Those who did were arrested or dispersed.

Subsequent protests in the south of Syria have attracted more attention and clashes with security police have resulted in the deaths of 73 people, according to Human Rights Watch.

Conversely, tens of thousands of people crowded the streets of Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday in support of the government.

It was soon after that initial February 4 demonstration that the government legalized Facebook, which had been banned since 2007, according to local internet users. Members of Syria’s tech elite saw this as a vote of support from the government — a sign the government trusted people to use social media for personal reasons while keeping their digital hands out of coup-plotting.

“Facebook is like part of the culture right now, it’s unbelievable. Everybody knows Facebook,” one tech entrepreneur said.

People outside the country, however, who are freer to speak their minds without fear of government intimidation, were skeptical of Syria’s motives.

“The message is clear: They don’t want people talking,” said a young Syrian blogger now living in the United States, referred to here as Salam. “Unblocking Facebook and YouTube was just a charade. They wanted to show that they had some confidence and they weren’t afraid of such protests going on in Syria.”

Evgeny Morozov, an internet scholar at Stanford University and author of “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom,” put it this way:

“The end result is that the Syrian police will be able to monitor its opponents much better, and if they want to, they would be able to trace their locations, they would be able to arrest them and intimidate them.”

It seems, despite Ghonim’s claim that the internet will liberate people, technology can be used as tool for both freedom and repression.

Crack-down on dissent

Fears of arrest and intimidation have been very real inside Syria.

Shortly after Syria made Facebook legal, the government arrested and four days later released a blogger, Ahmad Hadifa, 28, who allegedly had been critical of the regime, according to the human rights group Reporters Without Borders.

Authorities in February also handed down a five-year prison sentence to Tal Al-Mallouhi, then age 19, who the group says is the world’s youngest imprisoned blogger.

Reporters Without Borders puts Syria on its “Enemies of the internet” list for spying on citizens and using digital tools to crack down on dissent. According to The Atlantic, a 50-year-old “emergency law” in Syria “outlaws unofficial gatherings and abets the regular practice of beating, imprisoning, torturing, or killing political dissidents, human rights workers, and minorities.”

Watching such events creates a chilling climate of self-censorship, said Salam, the Syrian-born blogger. It’s difficult to press the “send” button on anything that could be considered even remotely controversial.

“You’re always cautious of what you write. You’re always wondering if what you write will get you in trouble,” he said. “The Syrian bloggers who were writing about the recent arrests … had to contemplate things for a few days or a week before posting.”

Encouraging the internet

While it may not encourage the open expression of ideas, Syria certainly has encouraged the development of an internet infrastructure.

This is a shift from past practices.

Salam remembers the first time he got online, in 2000, when the Syrian government first decided to let the technology in.

“It’s like somebody who got a new toy basically and they were so excited to figure out what they could do with it,” he said.

Soon, he had started a blog — “typos, teen angst, stuff like that” — from his parents’ home in a town in the southern part of the country.

It wasn’t long before it was shut down, he said.

“Basically it feels like you were violated when you did nothing wrong,” he said. “It was absurd. There was no good reason given.”

At least before the recent protests, Syria’s president, who has a Facebook page and is the former head of the country’s computer society, appeared to see the internet boom as a continuation of Syria’s history — not a tool that would change its course.

“We are the fastest growing internet user in the Middle East,” al-Assad told The Wall Street Journal in a rare interview published January 31. “And this is because of the nature of the Syrians: They are very open generally … They want to learn.”

Building a tech scene

Some Syrians have been geeks-in-training for years.

At age 3, Ahmed, the app developer, used his father’s screwdriver to dismantle a radio. Then the family got a VCR — and he took that apart, too, wanting to see how it worked. “My dad used to lock the drawer where he had all the screw drivers because he was afraid I would do something,” he said.

Now he plans to keep building.

He’s unsure if his social website will take off in Syria.

But, at least before the recent wave of protests, he was encouraged by how quickly Syria is taking to technology.

Where that tech adoption will lead remains an open question.

Syria Renews Direct Access to Facebook, YouTube

By Kee

Flickr Creative Commons | keso

Agence France Presse | February 9, 2011

DAMASCUS (AFP) – For the first time since 2007, Syrians can directly log onto Facebook and YouTube without going through proxy servers abroad, Internet users said on Wednesday.

The authorities issued no statements regarding the development, but Syria’s leading media and technology entrepeneur, Abdulsalam Haykal, told AFP that the request to lift the block “had reached internet service providers.”

The US State Department was quick to welcome Syria’s decision to lift the ban on Facebook and YouTube, but voiced fears that users would run risks without freedom of expression.

“Welcome positive move on Facebook & YouTube in #Syria but concerned that freedom puts users at risk absent freedom of expression&association,” Alec Ross, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said on Twitter.

Al-Watan, a newspaper close to the government, quoted analysts as saying that the removal of firewalls blocking Facebook and YouTube demonstrated “the government’s confidence in its performance and that the state did not fear any threat coming from these two sites nor others.”

But Haykal said some websites remained blocked, including selected blogs, the Arabic version of Wikipedia, and a number of foreign and Arab media.

Last week a call on Facebook for a “day of rage” in Damascus — mirroring mass demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia — amassed more than 12,000 supporters online, but in the end no protesters were seen on the streets.

Syria Internet law threatens online freedom

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Jan Smith

By Roueida Mabardi | AFP |  November 4, 2010

DAMASCUS — Syria is preparing to vote on an Internet law that has raised concerns about online media in a country which already keeps a tight control of the Web and where access to at least 240 sites is blocked.

Journalists say the law, which was approved by the government last week and is awaiting parliament’s rubber stamp, could seriously curtail the online media that has enjoyed greater freedom than print.

During the past few years, dozens of news websites have emerged in Syria, and the Internet has become an important source of information given the state’s close scrutiny of more traditional media.

Reports on sensitive subjects like a ban in Syrian universities of the niqab, or full-face veil, which received wide coverage on the Internet, are often absent from newspapers.

And even though the Internet is often slow in Syria and websites get shut down for specified periods of time, there is no existing law that regulates online activity.

The new law was “very severe,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, director of the website all4syria.org, which is edited from Dubai but has numerous contributors in Syria.

It would allow police to enter editorial offices to arrest journalists and seize their computers, Abdel Nour told AFP, adding the arrested journalists would then be hauled before criminal courts.

His website publishes information on out-of-bounds subjects including the president and his family, the army and religion. Despite being blocked since 2005, his website gets about 33,000 daily hits thanks to software that allows Syrians to get around censorship.

Nidal Maalouf, who runs the pro-government news website Syria-News.com, said that under the new law, online media would be overseen by the information ministry, which would make it harder to criticise the government.

But Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights (SLDHR) chief Abdel Karim Rihawi said online censorship is already getting worse.

“More than 240 websites are blocked in Syria and attempts to control the Internet continue,” he said.

In its efforts to stifle online dissent, the government has targeted the websites of Syrian opposition parties like the Muslim Brotherhood, Kurdish minority groups, and human rights organisations.

But other websites considered politically hostile to the government, and even social networking sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are also proscribed, Rihawi said.

Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders painted a bleak picture of online media freedom in Syria in a July report, describing it as “one of the more repressive countries” in terms of Internet censorship.

“Many bloggers have been harassed by the authorities since the end of 2008 for contributing to online publications,” RSF said.

The group mentioned the case of Karim Arbaji, a blogger who was arrested by military intelligence officers in July 2007 and held in pre-trial detention before finally being sentenced to three years in jail in September 2009 for “publishing mendacious information liable to weaken the nation?s morale.”

Arbaji was freed in January after representatives of the Christian church in Syria addressed a request to the president, RSF said.

Another blogger, Firas Saad, was imprisoned in April 2008 for writing articles critical of the regime and only released in September, said SLDHR’s Rihawi.

Web Tastes Freedom Inside Syria, and It’s Bitter

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | turkletom

By Robert F. Worth | New York Times | September 29, 2010 

DAMASCUS, Syria — Earlier this month, a graphic video of teachers beating their young students appeared on Facebook. Although Facebook is officially banned here, the video quickly went viral, with Syrian bloggers stoking public anger until the story was picked up by the pan-Arab media. 

Finally, the Education Ministry issued a statement saying the teachers had been reassigned to desk jobs. The episode was a rare example of the way Syrians using Facebook and blogs can win a tenuous measure of freedom within the country’s tightly controlled media scene, where any criticism of the government, however oblique, can lead to years in prison. 

“We have a little bit of freedom,” said Khaled al-Ekhetyar, a 29-year-old journalist for a Web site whose business card shows a face with hands covering up the eyes and mouth. “We can say things that can’t be said in print.” 

But that slim margin is threatened by an ever present fog of fear and intimidation, and some journalists fear that it could soon be snuffed out. A draft law regulating online media would clamp down on Syrian bloggers and other journalists, forcing them to register as syndicate members and submit their writing for review. Other Arab countries regularly jail journalists who express dissident views, but Syria may be the most restrictive of all. 

Most of the Syrian media is still owned by the state. Privately owned media outlets became legal in 2001, as the socialist economy slowly began to liberalize following the accession of President Bashar al-Assad. But much of the sector is owned by members of the Syrian “oligarchy” — relatives of Mr. Assad and other top government officials. All of it is subject to intimidation and heavy-handed control. 

“The first level is censorship,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, the founder of All4Syria.info, the independent Web site where Mr. Ekhetyar works. “The second level is when they send you statements and force you to publish them.” Like many other journalists and dissidents, Mr. Abdel Nour has left the country and now lives abroad. 

The basic “red lines” are well known: no criticism of the president and his family or the security services, no touching delicate issues like Syria’s Kurdish minority or the Alawites, a religious minority to which Mr. Assad belongs. Foreign journalists who violate these rules are regularly banned from the country (a fact that constrains coverage of Syria in this and other newspapers). 

But the exact extent of what is forbidden is left deliberately unclear, and that vagueness encourages fear and self-censorship, many journalists here say. A 19-year-old female high school student and blogger, Tal al-Mallohi, was arrested late last year and remains in prison. Her blog had encouraged the Syrian government to do more for the Palestinians, but it scarcely amounted to real criticism, and the authorities have not given any reason for her detention. A number of bloggers have been arrested for expressing views deemed critical of the Syrian government or even other Arab governments, under longstanding laws that criminalize “weakening national sentiment” and other broadly defined offenses. 

Others have been jailed for jokes. One blogger, Osama Kario, wrote a parody in 2007 of the famous “three Arab No’s” refusing any concession to Israel (no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel). His version: “No electricity, no water, no Internet.” He was jailed for 28 days, and when he emerged he stopped blogging and would not speak to fellow journalists about his experience. 

Television and radio journalists have made some tentative efforts to push the limits in the past few years, with mixed success. D.J.’s like Honey Sayed, who hosts a popular show called “Good Morning Syria” on Madina FM, often explore sensitive social issues like homosexuality and child abuse. Last year Orient TV, a new station owned by an independent Syrian businessman, began broadcasting from Dubai and quickly gained a large audience with its imaginative documentaries. But a few months later the station’s Damascus office was abruptly shut down, with no explanation given. 

One Web site, All4Syria.info, has managed to survive since 2004 with a revolving staff of about half a dozen writers based in Syria. Earlier this year it published an interview with three political dissidents on their release from prison, something no other Syrian outlet dared to do. 

“The Internet in Syria is a bit like the samizdat publications were under the Soviet Union,” said Mohammad Ali Abdallah, whose brother Omar Ali Abdallah was sentenced to five years in prison in 2006 for contributing to an Internet forum that was deemed seditious by the authorities. 

Last year, some of Syria’s new, privately owned radio stations joined bloggers in criticizing a proposed revision of Syria’s personal status law that would have made it legal for men to marry girls as young as 13 years old. Under pressure, lawmakers abandoned the proposal. 

But individual successes do not always make for broader progress, because of fear. 

“Even when someone successfully crosses a line, everyone is still afraid, they don’t build on it,” Mr. Ekhetyar said. “They think maybe it was a coincidence.” 

Many online journalists use pseudonyms, he added, a practice that may be safer but erodes their credibility and leaves them in a fearful solitude where they cannot develop professional standards. Facebook has been an important outlet for political and social frustrations, but it, too, is often used with furtive anonymity. 

And it is impossible to tell how many Syrians are paying attention. Asked who his audience was, Mr. Ekhetyar paused and said with a weary smile, “My friends and the secret police.” 

That may be why the Syrian authorities, despite the official ban on Facebook, YouTube, and many other Internet venues, do not seem too frightened of them. Most Syrian government officials, including the president, have their own Facebook pages. Walk into almost any of the many Internet cafes in Damascus, and the manager will show you how to log on to Facebook or other banned sites. Foreign proxy server numbers are traded among young people like baseball cards. 

On a recent evening in the tumultuous Bab Touma section of Damascus’s Old City, 26-year-old Berj Agop was among a crowd of young people at the SpotNet Internet Cafe, many of them casually surfing sites that are officially banned. 

“I saw the video of the teacher beating the student,” he said. “It’s a victory for sure; without Facebook no one would have known about that incident.” 

But nearby, another young man who gave his name only as Taym offered a different view. 

“The Internet is like a baby’s lollipop for the young,” he said. “It entertains him and makes him forget his problems, it’s like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ — I dream of such a world, a better world.” 

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Damascus.

Tech companies seeking business in Syria

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Jan Smith

By John Poirier | Reuters | June 24, 2010

WASHINGTON(Reuters) – The United States is urging Syria to open up its markets to U.S. companies’ computers and software, but fears over piracy and Internet access restrictions are holding back American technology companies from investing there.

Senior executives of five big U.S. technology companies including Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Dell Inc (DELL.O) expressed their concerns to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a five-day trip last week, two members of the delegation told Reuters.

The trade mission was led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top technology adviser, Alec Ross, and Jared Cohen, a member of her Policy Planning Staff.

U.S. tech companies expect Syria’s population to double in the next seven years and they want to tap into the youth to promote U.S. businesses and Washington’s human rights agenda.

The talks last week represent a new stage in U.S. diplomatic efforts in which the issue of Internet censorship is increasingly placed on the agenda during direct talks with other governments.

U.S. tech companies are carefully watching moves by the State Department, especially after Google Inc (GOOG.O) in March announced that it was going to move its China servers to Hong Kong following the high profile diplomatic spat with Beijing over censorship.

Senior executives from Cisco Systems Inc (CSCO.O), VeriSign Inc (VRSN.O) and Symantec Corp (SYMC.O) also traveled with the delegation in a trip that included meetings with academics, students and small- and medium-size businesses.

One delegation member said that during the trip they tried to clear up a misperception in Syria that U.S. companies can’t invest there because of U.S. sanctions against trade and investment.

They told officials in Damascus that exemptions for some technology granted in 2004 under former President George W. Bush allow for companies to sell their products to Syria as long as those tools are not used against the Syrian people, the delegation member said.

“You can sell Dell computers, you can sell Microsoft Office, you can sell Cisco routers, but despite that waiver that is not happening,” the delegation member told Reuters on Wednesday on the condition of anonymity.

The companies told Syrian officials that they are worried about the lack of enforcement to combat piracy and intellectual property theft, and widespread corruption, another member said.

They also sought assurances by the government that the technology will not be used against Syria’s general population, they said, adding that Syrian officials pledged to adopt some laws aimed at improving the environment for tech investments this year.

Sheldon Himelfarb, an expert on technology and diplomacy at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said U.S. officials need to become smarter about relationships between sanctions and the impact on citizen activists in closed societies.

“We need more trips like this,” Himelfarb said.

The mission to Syria was unique because it was a high-level engagement during a strained relationship between the two countries. Their ties, however, have improved since U.S. President Barack Obama took office.

Syria has emerged from a five-year diplomatic isolation, with the United States and European Union seeking closer ties with Damascus and pushing for a resumption of peace talks between Syria and Israel.

The trip also follows an issue of waivers by Washington in March to allow U.S. technology companies to export chat and social media software to Iran, Sudan and Cuba, with the hope the move will help their citizens communicate with the outside world.

The Internet was an important communication channel for Iranian protesters disputing election results last year.

“If the next generation of Syrians are able to get access to these tools of technology, then they’re going to have connections to the outside world,” another delegation member said.

(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

US gives Iran more net freedom – but what about Syria?

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Turkletom

By Jillian C York | The Guardian | June 16, 2010

Iranian web users recently received some good news: following the media frenzy over last year’s elections, the US has chosen to relax export controls related to technology, giving users access to previously unavailable communications tools. The changes will affect not only Iran, but Sudan and Cuba as well, countries where free internet use has long been stifled by US restrictions.

In March the treasury department’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) announced the amendments to current controls to “ensure that individuals in these countries can exercise their universal right to free speech and information to the greatest extent possible”. The amendments will allow those netizens to download software related to communications, such as instant messaging and chat clients, and tools related to social networking, and also permit the export of the same types of software to Iran and Sudan.

This news comes at a time when dialogue surrounding freedom of expression online is at a fever pitch in the United States. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in her celebrated January speech on internet freedom, stated that American companies need to take a principled stand against censorship, and that it should be part of the country’s “national brand”. In that vein, the amendments to the current export controls are a welcome gesture, both to American companies and to the netizens who benefit from their products.

Iran, of course, is an obvious target for these amendments, with nearly 30 million internet users and significant media attention in recent months. But what about Syria? Although there are no OFAC restrictions placed on Syria, the US department of commerce’s 2004 Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act prohibits the export of most goods containing more than 10% US-manufactured component parts to the country. The act also includes a provision on items deemed imports, including technology or source code controlled on the Commerce Control List, though licences are available for software providers through the bureau of industry and security.

Syrian netizens have long been aware of the effects of export controls on their lives. They are prevented from downloading popular software such as Java and Adobe Acrobat, and browsers such as Google’s Chrome. Microsoft products are available, but in pirated form, or smuggled in illegally. What is surprising to many, however, is when a new ban suddenly emerges; each year, a number of software providers seemingly crack down on Syrian users, often blocking access to entire websites for fear of non-compliance with the act.

For example, in early 2009, Syrian visitors to the professional networking site LinkedIn were surprised to be met with a blockpage. Though the full-on block was quickly removed, to this day users are barred from accessing the site’s proprietary software. Similarly, in January 2010, open-source code repository SourceForge began blocking the IP addresses of users in Iran, Sudan, Cuba, North Korea and Syria, much to the dismay of open-source enthusiasts. Though in the end, SourceForge removed the blanket block – placing responsibility on project managers to choose their level of restriction – the fact remains that a large swath of open-source projects are still off limits to users from restricted countries.

But in Syria, just as in Iran, the internet serves as an important communications and organising tool for dissidents and average users alike. And when you consider the fact that the Syrian government filters the internet internally as well (blocking sites such as Facebook and Blogspot, among many others), you realise that users are left with very little wiggle room.

If Hillary Clinton is serious about promoting internet freedom to all, she would be wise to consider the effects of the Syrian accountability act on the average Syrian netizen and what that means for the United States’ “brand” of internet freedom.