On May 24, the Egyptian government ordered 21 news websites blocked, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. OTF-supported OONI and Tor were mentioned in CPJ’s report; OONI for its previous work cataloging internet censorship in Egypt, and Tor because of Egypt’s attempts to block the privacy-enhancing internet access platform.
From the article:
“In January 2011, faced with mass protests that eventually forced former President Hosni Mubarak from office, the government cut access to the internet, and the government has harassed, threatened, and jailed journalists for websites. In October 2016, the Open Observatory of Network Interference, which documents internet censorship, reported that Egypt had blocked access to the London-based news website Al-Arab al-Jadid, throttled encrypted, HTTPS connections, and had attempted to block access to Tor, software designed to make it harder to monitor internet users or censor websites, but access to news websites has rarely been blocked in the country. ‘Broad censorship of news websites represents a new low in Egypt’s lamentable record on press freedom,’ CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said. ‘Egyptian authorities should cease blocking news websites and should allow the media to do its job unimpeded.’”
Read the full CPJ article here.