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Threat to Tecom freedom

Workers in Dubai's Tecom free zone are used to their uncensored and generally speedy internet. So the announcement from the UAE telco watchdog, the TRA, that free zones will soon face the same censorship as the rest of the country, has sparked bewilderment and alarm.

United Arab Emirates: Saturday, February 18 - 2006 at 19:00

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The UAE's censorship is among the strictest in the world. As well as obviously offensive content such as pornography, and unislamic activities such as gambling, a vast range of content from social networking and photo sites to online translation services and the entire Israeli internet domain (.il) is blocked. It is obvious how this would hamper the work of a journalist trying to monitor Israeli press coverage, or needing to translate a foreign newspaper.

It's not the first time the TRA has mentioned censoring Tecom. Director General Mohammed Al Ghanem revealed last September that a review of internet freedom was taking place, in a video interview with AME Info
Now Al Ghanem claims that proxy exemptions will end by the end of the year. 'That includes all free zones, including Dubai Media City,' he says in an interview with UAE newspaper 7Days.

But whose interests would a block serve? Certainly not those of the IT and media industries, most companies would strongly oppose it. Media companies need uncensored information for practical and ideological reasons; tech companies (most of whom could easily evade censorship efforts anyway) are perfectly capable of installing their own blocks, should they want them. It's worth noting that one of the major TV companies based in Media City has a private web-nanny type system several degrees more draconian than the actual government proxy.

And how would imposing a block serve the government's interests? From the very beginning Tecom's founder, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has expressed strong support for free media and free internet in the zone. The aim was to attract international companies to set up in the zone, and to give Dubai an open and progressive image, and it worked. Five years ago there was admittedly little competition, but today Qatar and Bahrain are aggressively trying to emulate Dubai's success. With Tecom's increased rents already a deterrent to many, a heavily blocked, sluggish internet would be the cherry on the let's-do-Doha cake.

Which brings us back to the main question: what is the point of a free zone proxy? 7Days' headline covering the issue is interesting: 'no favourites'. Perhaps the TRA feels it is genuinely unfair that some companies in the UAE get uncensored access to the outside world, while others face a flashing proxy page if they try to visit a .il domain.

Because the TRA surely cannot believe that Tecom's uncensored internet access is somehow adversely affecting 'religious, cultural, political and moral values' of the UAE. In five years, there has not been a single complaint by the public or the police over internet content downloaded from Tecom being distributed outside the zone.

But there is likely to be outrage if Tecom's currently progressive, free environment is meddled with without extremely just and rational cause.

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Lisa Creffield, Correspondent
Saturday, February 18 - 2006 at 19:00 UAE local time (GMT+4)

Replication or redistribution in whole or in part is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AME Info FZ LLC / Emap Limited.

This Article was updated on Sunday, April 22 - 2007

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