“Dubai police asks Google to confront spread of pornography...”“They also demanded the banning of clips violating the privacy of people, calling for terrorism and violence, [those which] are not suitable for children, enhancing sectarianism and racism, calling for chaos, the violation of the law and homosexuality and urging people to commit suicide or carry out other acts of self-destruction”... This meeting was held one day after Dubai Police Chief Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan agreed with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority on the blocking of over 500 search words leading to immoral websites. The police statement, a copy of which was delivered to Al-Arabiya.net on Thursday 2-4-2009, announced that the deputy police chief of Dubai, General Khamiss al-Muzeina, met with a delegation from Google which included Gisel Hiscock and Google’s engineering manager in the Middle East and North Africa, Ahmad al-Hamzawi.
“General Muzeina indicated: “People are using the Internet to create websites which go against customs and traditions”,… thus urging the directors of the website to seek mechanisms that would limit the spread of pornographic images and movies that create problems and generate decadence in society, especially among the young and the teenagers. He assured: “The Dubai police are not against freedoms but it is its duty to protect society’s customs and traditions”, indicating: “The security bodies and the police will intensify their coordination with the main Internet providers in the Emirates, and will follow up alongside these providers the latest technologies to protect the youths”.
“For his part, the director of the Decision-Making Support Center [DMSC] of the Dubai police and the director of the Juvenile's Education and Care Association, Dr. Mohamed Murad Abdullah, put forward a presentation featuring the negative facets of You Tube. He indicated that the statistics showed that the website hosted around 100 million clips every day and that its visitors last July amounted to 30.5 million per day. He added that the statistics also showed that the average age of these visitors ranged between 12 and 17 and that they were downloading videos containing material which was not suitable for children...
“Murad said to Al-Arabiya.net: “The campaign we are currently launching will ask the Internet providers in the Emirates to block pornographic clips, clips which are offensive to religions and are not part of our society’s culture and traditions”. He did not exclude the possibility that this campaign might call on different websites to do the same, websites such as Facebook.” - Al-Arabiya.net, Middle East
