Saudi Arabian Court Sentences Blogger To 7 Years, 600 Lashes Under Cybercrime Law

from the whipping-up-some-censoring dept

It is no secret that Saudi Arabia, still a chief American ally in the Middle East, has a horrible reputation on human rights, speech, and its policies regarding internet use. Most recently, they have attempted to put a stranglehold on internet communications via VoIP services. Don't forget as well that any citizen of Saudi Arabia that deigns to use Twitter has given up their claim on their immortal soul, which is sort of an odd stance to take given that members of the Saudi royal family have invested in the microblogging service. And, of course, as any conservative theocracy, they aren't particularly interested in having critical discussions about the state religion, despite having recently made statements suggesting otherwise.

Actions speak louder than words, as the saying goes, and as one Saudi court has dealt an activist blogger 7 years and 600 lashes, I think we can say Saudi Arabia still sucks at free speech. Raif Badawi had been imprisoned for the past few months for the apparent crime of starting a liberal blog seeking to start religious dialogue within Saudi Arabia.

He is accused of, among other things, breaking Sharia law and starting a website that infringed on religious values.

According to Haidar, her husband just wanted to encourage discussion about religion in his homeland. But starting a liberal Internet forum in conservative Saudi Arabia can be a dangerous pursuit.

It's a lesson in a great many things for us here in America. First, some of our allies have an awful lot of blood on their hands. Second, allowing any special interest groups, not just religion, to get their meat hooks into the censorship of speech is a dangerous precipice on which to teeter. Finally, free speech, secularism, and the enlightenment should be a global goal, not a local one. For instance, take the difficulty of getting Badawi any representation from the legal community into account.

"No one wanted to take his case," said Waleed Abualkhair, Badawi's attorney. "Because they believed that anyone who'd take this kind of case, that means he destroys his (own) reputation. But I don't believe in that. I believe that everyone has his right to have a lawyer. And I believe that Raif is innocent."

Abualkhair is more than just Badawi's attorney. He's also his brother-in-law and a fellow human-rights activist also on trial in Saudi Arabia.

When the only person willing to represent you in a case about speech is himself on trial for his speech as well, you have a massive problem. Perhaps, like me, your first thought in reading this was to wonder what you could do to help. A noble thought, to be sure, but my first thought is what are the people we elect to represent us doing to help. They should be on this already, not relying on human rights groups.

In the end, if Saudi Arabia wants us to believe their noise about becoming more open to change, it would be best if they started by freeing this peaceful blogger.

Filed Under: blogger, free speech, saudi arabia

Saudi Arabia Starts Clamping Down On Encrypted VoIP Services; US And UK Strangely Silent On The Moves

from the awkward dept

Earlier this month, the messaging service Viber was blocked in Saudi Arabia. This was not entirely unexpected, since the authorities had been trying to come to grips with the service and its ability to encrypt messages for a while according to Viber's founder, as a BBC News report explains:

Mr Marco told the BBC that Saudi internet service providers and mobile operators started asking for information about the internal workings of the service a couple of months ago.

"We assumed that the reason they wanted it was to try to figure out ways to tap into our conversations, listen to what our users are saying, read messages," he said.

Back in March of this year, another BBC story noted that two other encrypted messaging services -- Skype and WhatsApp -- were also being told to make it possible for the authorities to eavesdrop on communications. In the wake of the Viber ban, there are now concerns that WhatsApp, Skype and the Tango messaging service may fall afoul of the Saudi authorities' desire to bring these new technologies under control.

A few weeks ago, this clear attempt to ensure that citizens in Saudi Arabia could be routinely spied upon when using popular new communication services would doubtless have prompted denunciations from Western countries of these clear threats to privacy and personal freedom. But in the light of the revelations about the large-scale snooping being carried out by the NSA in the US and GCHQ in the UK, that is hardly an option. This shows once more how increasing surveillance in the West gives those in other parts of the world a free pass to do the same.

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Filed Under: encryption, saudi arabia, surveillance, voip

How Long Before A Patent Kills A Hundred Million People?

from the is-this-really-wise? dept

Recent news that Angelina Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy because of her elevated risk of developing breast cancer has drawn attention to the Myriad Genetics case currently before the US Supreme Court, and to the whole area of gene patents. Myriad's monopoly has allowed it to set a high price for its tests -- $3000 -- and this is bound to have acted as a disincentive for those who were unable to afford such a sum. It is therefore quite likely that people have died as a result of Myriad's patents.

Here's another case where placing patenting above patients could lead to unnecessary deaths. It involves the SARS-like novel coronavirus that was first noted in Saudi Arabia, as this Reuters story explains:

The virus was identified in September last year, three months after a scientist took a sample from Saudi Arabia to the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.

"There was a lag of three months where we were not aware of the discovery of the virus," Saudi Arabia's Deputy Health Minister Ziad Memish told the Geneva meeting.

He said it was taken out of the country without permission and Saudi Arabia only learned of its discovery from ProMED, a U.S.-based internet-based reporting system.

The Rotterdam-based Erasmus lab then patented the process for synthesizing the virus, meaning that anyone else who wanted to use their method to study it would have to pay the lab.

The patenting had delayed the development of diagnostic kits and serologic tests for the disease, Memish said.

Fortunately, the virus does not seem to have spread widely during that three-month delay, but next time we might not be so lucky. It seems bordering suicidal that concerns about patenting should over-ride health concerns, especially when a viral pandemic could potentially kill a hundred million people, as it did in 1918. Let's hope that the Supreme Court recognizes this as yet another reason not to allow patents on genes, and that this becomes part of a broader move to share freely vital knowledge that can save lives and alleviate suffering around the world.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: gene patents, healthcare, netherlands, patents, saudi arabia

Saudi Religious Police: Anyone Using Twitter 'Has Lost This World And His Afterlife'

from the that-serious,-huh? dept

A couple of days ago Techdirt wrote about how Murong Xuecun, a well-known user of the Chinese microblog Sina Weibo with over a million followers, had his account closed down suddenly. Murong has now written a fine article about the background to what happened: he points out that the deletion of his account looks to be part of a larger clampdown on the use of microblogging services by well-known figures who are critical of the Chinese government. The problem for the latter is that these services are becoming a real channel for free expression and less-than-perfectly-censored information:

Individuals are silenced on daily basis, and the pool of sensitive words grows by the hour: Liu Xiaobo, Gao Xingjian, Ai Weiwei, Wei Jingsheng, Liao Yiwu, Ma Jian, Mo Zhixu, Xiao Shu … The list goes on. It now includes me, as well as two more scholars who have since been silenced: Wu Wei and Wu Zuolai, whose accounts were deleted on the morning of 13 May. Lurking in the shadows, the "relevant organs" carry out such work as part of their daily routine, and expect people to remain silent. They have perhaps failed to foresee that in the age of Weibo, their actions could trigger such a severe backlash. To this, they responded with more censorship.

Given the problems that even China is having with controlling such services, it's no surprise that other nations are getting nervous. Here's a story from the BBC about what Saudi Arabia is doing in an attempt to counter the threat from Twitter:

The head of Saudi Arabia's religious police has warned citizens against using Twitter, which is rising in popularity among Saudis.

Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said anyone using social media sites -- and especially Twitter -- "has lost this world and his afterlife".

The Saudi authorities are evidently grappling with exactly the same issues as the Chinese government:

Many Saudis have seized on Twitter as the most immediate and effective way to open little windows into a traditionally opaque society.

Recent protests in the Eastern Province have been tweeted and images of human rights activists on trial have been uploaded directly from courtrooms, challenging many taboos.

The situation in Saudi Arabia is complicated by the fact that the well-known Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bought a $300 million stake in Twitter back in 2011. That doubtlessly explains in part the following comments he made recently using his own Twitter account, quoted in an article from CNN:

Dear Saudi Telecommunication Authority, social media is a tool for the people to make the government hear their voices. Just thinking of blocking them is a losing war, and a way to put more pressure on the citizens

As Twitter continues to gain market share -- already standing at a massive 51% of all Internet users in Saudi Arabia according to the CNN piece -- it will be interesting to see whose view prevails there: that of the religious police or a secular prince.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: free speech, saudi arabia, social networking
Companies: twitter

Saudi Arabian Telco Asks Pro-Privacy Researcher To Help Them Spy On Citizens, Hilarity & Then Seriousness Ensues

from the perhaps-google-the-person-you're-contacting-first dept

Via Chris Soghoian, we learn that a Saudi Arabian telecom company (one of just two) contacted well-known pro-privacy researcher Moxie Marlinspike recently to see if he might help them intercept communications from a variety of popular communications apps, including Twitter, Viber, Line and WhatsApp. Curious about what they wanted, Marlinspike emailed with them a bit, and then published what he was told -- including the fact that they later told him they very quickly and easily figured out how to intercept WhatsApp communications. Eventually, he told them that he wouldn't work with them, and the guy he was communicating with told him by not helping the Saudi government intercept communications, he was helping the terrorists:

I know that already and I have same thoughts like you freedom and respecting privacy, actually Saudi has a big terrorist problem and they are misusing these services for spreading terrorism and contacting and spreading their cause that’s why I took this and I seek your help. If you are not interested than maybe you are on indirectly helping those who curb the freedom with their brutal activities.

From there, however, Marlinspike goes on into a very interesting discussion, well worth reading, about changes in the hacker/security community lately and the lucrative business of selling 0day exploits (often to governments) rather than publishing them and getting things fixed.

Forgetting the question of legality, I hope that we can collectively look at this changing dynamic and perhaps re-evaluate what we culturally reward. I’d much rather think about the question of exploit sales in terms of who we welcome to our conferences, who we choose to associate with, and who we choose to exclude, than in terms of legal regulations. I think the contextual shift we’ve seen over the past few years requires that we think critically about what’s still cool and what’s not.

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion and the bulk of the community is totally fine with how things have gone (after all, it is profitable). There are even explicitly patriotic hackers who suggest that their exploit sales are necessary for the good of the nation, seeing themselves as protagonists in a global struggle for the defense of freedom, but having nothing to do with these ugly situations in Saudi Arabia. Once exploits are sold to US defense contractors, however, it’s very possible they could end up delivered directly to the Saudis (eg, eg, eg), where it would take some even more substantial handwaving to think that they’ll serve in some liberatory way.

Exploits will be exploited. Helping anyone to make use of them means that eventually they're going to get exploited by others in ways you might not agree with.

Filed Under: hacking, interception, moxie marlinspike, privacy, saudi arabia, selling vulerabilities, spying, surveillance
Companies: mobily

How Would Twitter Handle A Crackdown On Free Speech In Saudi Arabia?

from the questions-questions-questions... dept

Twitter has put itself out there as being a strong defender of free speech, arguing that it's not just a principled stand, but one that provides the company with a competitive advantage. Standing up for free speech is good -- not just for people, but for Twitter too. There was a series of stories highlighting this aspect of Twitter in the past few months, where Twitter's top lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, said things like the following:

“We value the reputation we have for defending and respecting the user’s voice,” Mr. Macgillivray said in an interview here at Twitter headquarters. “We think it’s important to our company and the way users think about whether to use Twitter, as compared to other services.”

With that in mind, it's interesting to see just how much "free speech" via Twitter has taken off in places like Saudi Arabia. The NY Times has an interesting discussion on how Twitter has become a surprisingly open channel for critics of the Saudi regime.

Open criticism of this country’s royal family, once unheard-of, has become commonplace in recent months. Prominent judges and lawyers issue fierce public broadsides about large-scale government corruption and social neglect. Women deride the clerics who limit their freedoms. Even the king has come under attack.

All via Twitter. So far, the government has let this continue -- even as members of the royal family are often directly called out and, at times, accused of corruption. Some think that the government is hoping that letting people vent on Twitter will keep them from venting in the streets. But there is still fear that things might change and a real crackdown could be on the way.

And that could represent a real challenge for Twitter. Remember, just last week, it agreed to block a neo-nazi group's Twitter feed in Germany. And, there are also reports that it recently removed a bunch of anti-semitic tweets, potentially for terms of service violations. And that is worrying some people.

Several Twitter users posting under the hashtag criticized the decision to delete the anti-Semitic posts, calling it censorship. A user calling himself Andre said: “Better to educate than censure. Shame on you Twitter.” Another, Craig McLeod, asked, “Who decides what is anti-Semitic and abusive?”

Considering all that, as Mathew Ingram has asked: what happens if Saudi Arabia suddenly declares the criticism its government is facing is illegal? Then what does Twitter do? Does it decide that the openness is something it wants to support as free speech... or does it abide by the law and block those accounts? Suddenly, the problem is a lot more challenging.

I don't know that there's an easy answer, but it does seem that once you compromise on one front, it becomes somewhat more difficult to justify a principled stand elsewhere...

Filed Under: free speech, saudi arabia
Companies: twitter

Wikileaks Leak Suggests Hollywood Is Better At Preventing Terrorism Than The TSA

from the winning-the-hearts-and-minds dept

While it seems like US politicians keep insisting that Wikileaks' release of State Department cables has put people in harm's way -- despite a lack of evidence to support that -- some are pointing out that at least some of the cables actually show that some of what the US is doing in the Middle East has been quite effective. Prashanth points us to the news that one of the leaks showed that American TV and movies in Saudi Arabia are actually "are doing more to dissuade young Muslims from becoming jihadists than virtually anything else." As the cable noted: "Saudis are now very interested in the outside world and everybody wants to study in the US if they can. They are fascinated by US culture in a way they never were before."

Of course, the same politicians blasting Wikileaks as a "terrorist" organization can't admit that some of the leaks are actually showing that some of what the US is doing is working quite well. As Prasanth notes in his own blog post, if US politicians were smart, they'd use cables like this to play up evidence that they're doing some things well:

I feel like this is along the lines of winning the people's "hearts and minds". The reason why this works is because as opposed to state-sponsored propaganda (which is pretty obvious when shown), this more subtly shows what's so great about the US.

Finally, I think this report is a great send-up of all the politicians who are equating Wikileaks with terrorism. Quite the contrary: while a lot of what it shows is what we've done wrong (and of course these politicians will hypocritically call for press freedom in other countries yet repress it here), it also shows a lot of what we've done right. Why not publicize that more?

Filed Under: entertainment, hearts and minds, hollywood, saudi arabia, terrorism, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Saudis Crowdsourcing Internet Censorship

from the let-them-do-the-work dept

A couple months ago we covered the Chinese government's effort to create a crowdsourced version of their Internet censorship operation. Now, BusinessWeek is reporting on a variation of this trend in Saudi Arabia. As you probably know, Saudi Arabia maintains an extensive Internet censorship effort, but, in contrast to the Chinese model which involves tens of thousands of workers, the Saudis only employs 25 people. Instead, roughly 1,200 requests are sent in by Saudi citizens, about half of which are subsequently blocked by the authorities. Further, the article says that "only" forty percent of citizens say they are concerned about the censorship. However, one wonders why the censorship requests are even necessary -- in cyberspace, it is exceedingly easy to avoid content one doesn't want to see. If these users find certain websites offensive, personal blocking mechanisms could easily blacklist them, without disturbing the nearly half of Saudis who are nervous about the censorship efforts.

Filed Under: censorship, crowdsourcing, saudi arabia