Hamas Orders Gaza ISPs to Block All Pornographic Websites

GAZA STRIP—The Palestinians are known to be a tech-savvy people, which may explain why Hamas has for years been unsuccessful in its attenpts to cut off pornography available to the Gaza Strip via the internet. Now the Islamist government is at it again. A new law that has already gone into effect orders the ten internet service providers that service Gaza to begin filtering all porn sites. For Gazans it only lessens the number of ways they can escape the grind of daily life. According to themedialine.org, there are no "movie theaters, pool halls or bowling alleys" in the Gaza Strip, and now no online porn—except of course for those who know how to get around the filters. But violating a decree that Hamas' Minister of Communication and Information Technology said "is aimed at preserving our morals” comes with its own risks. Claiming that "our social fabric needs protection and we are actually protecting Internet users in Gaza," Minister Osama Al-Eisawi made clear that service providers that ignore the new law will be closed down, and described the law as an extension of the one passed in 2008 that installed the filters but made their use voluntary. The goal is not to suppress any type of content but the one, claimed another Hamas official, Dr. Kamal Al-Masri, the Director General of Licensing at the Ministry of Communication. “We don’t aim at oppressing any freedom or censoring any political websites," he said. "We will just block the websites that have a pornographic nature." He added that ISPs that break the law could be both "prosecuted or face a complete shut down." Neither minister mentioned of what sort penalties if any await those caught making an end-run around the filters. Already, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology is receiving complaints that non-pornographic sites are being blocked. It reportedly blamed the ISPs for the problems, saying in a statement, "We are all working on fixing these little issues. The filter is very new and it's normal to face mishaps at first.” Despite acknowledging the problems, the statement added somewhat ominously, “We will soon issue the names of internet providers who implemented this law and the names of those who broke it. Those who broke it will face legal charges.” Time will tell if Gaza's citizens and business community accept the imposition of such blatant censorship by the government. According to the article, they succeeded in the past when Hamas, rather than willingly passing a watered-down law in 2008, was forced to back down "when internet providers and the public protested."