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Wednesday 2 February 2011

Freedom Of Expression And Communication In Egypt

The Egyptians finally had enough after about 35 years.

They told their President to get lost.

He didn't want to resign, however. He enjoyed being in power - kinda like BN, I guess.

I suppose he also liked the corruption, nepotism and cronyism that go along with political and economic power.

So like all despots, he played dirty. He pulled the plug - got rid of the power. Internet and mobile cellular power of the average citizen, that is.

The scale of Egypt's crackdown on the internet and mobile phones amid deadly protests against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak is unprecedented in the history of the web, experts have said.

US President Barack Obama, social networking sites and rights groups around the world all condemned the moves by Egyptian authorities to stop activists using mobile phones and cyber technology to organise rallies.

"It's a first in the history of the internet," Rik Ferguson, an expert for Trend Micro, the world's third biggest computer security firm, said.

Julien Coulon, co-founder of Cedexis, a French internet performance monitoring and traffic management system, added: "In 24 hours we have lost 97 per cent of Egyptian internet traffic".

Despite this, many Egyptians are finding ways to get access, some using international telephone numbers to gain access to dial-up internet.

According to Renesys, a US Internet monitoring company, Egypt's four main internet service providers cut off international access to their customers in a near simultaneous move at 2234 GMT on Thursday.

Around 23 million Egyptians have either regular or occasional access to the internet, according to official figures, more than a quarter of the population.

"In an action unprecedented in internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the internet," James Cowie of Renesys said in a blog post.

It's good to know what despots can stoop to though. One day we will be prepared for the worst, when BN refuses to admit defeat and all hell breaks loose.

But when that happens, I hope we will have supporters on the other side of the world. For now, it's our turn to spread the word and pressure the service providers by signing this: STAND WITH THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT

Related:Egypt, Tunisia, Malaysia: A quick comparison

4 comments:

shar101 said...

Crank,

Never underestimate human ingenuity.

Even under very adverse conditions, like pulling the plug on the Net .. heavens forbid!, the minds of free people with free will shall persevere.

It's the Nature of Humanity. To communicate with another. Or was it the other 'cate' thingy. Hehe!

Anywayz, found something interesting on a new way to be heard as a result of Egypt.

Type the search terms - Google + Twitter - and find out for yourself.

Cheerio!

P.S. Am getting some carrier pigeons, just in case.

Crankster said...

The other 'cate'? Fornicate?

I found what I think you were referring to:

Google launches Twitter workaround for Egypt

Good to know there are caring people out there..

pauline26 said...

I think its time for me to brush up on my Morse code.

Crankster said...

Morse code?? How would you transmit it??