News / Persian Gulf

Canadian firm sells Bahrain software to censor Internet

Saturday, 24 September 2016 7:33 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 24 September 2016 8:15 AM ]

This image shows the messages shown to the users who attempt to access blocked websites inside Bahrain.

A Canadian company has sold Bahrain technology used to block opposition websites and human rights content on the Internet, Canadian activists say.

Specialists from internet watchdog Citizen Lab said in a report that Canadian Netsweeper website-blocking applications had been identified on nine internet service providers (ISPs) in Bahrain.

The report further disclosed that testing on the ISP of the state-run Bahrain Telecommunication Company (Batelco) showed that at least one of the Netsweeper installations was in use in the small Persian Gulf kingdom.

Citizen Lab researchers highlighted that the installations appear to have become active between May and July of this year.

That is “a few months after the release of a public tender by Bahrain’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in January 2016 indicating Netsweeper won a bid to provide a ‘national website filtering solution.’”

The contract is worth either 1.1 million or 3.1 million dollars, the researchers said.

Citizen Lab said, “The sale of technology used to censor political speech and other forms of legitimate expression, to a state with a highly problematic human rights record, raises serious questions.”

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the Al Khalifah family to relinquish power.

Manama has been relentlessly cracking down on dissent. Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been deployed to the country to assist in the crackdown on peaceful protests.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in the Bahraini crackdown on the anti-regime activists.

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