Palestinian News Agency: PA is Blocking Internet Sites Critical of Abbas

Intensifying its efforts to control media criticism of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has instructed Internet providers to block out news sites viewed as critical of Abbas according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency. Internet users located in the West Bank are viewing error pages when they attempt to access as many as eight sites, Ma’an says, none of which is considered to be a major site, but each of which reports news. The move is traced back to Attorney General Ahmad Al-Mughni, who recently arrested a journalist and two bloggers for writing news stories critical of the PA. The censorship was uncovered as the result of an investigation by the Ma’an agency with technical support from the Open Observatory of Network Interference, a world-wide project to track Internet censorship. The experts have identified the software used to block the targeted sites and note it is the same software in use by the Iranian and Syrian governments to suppress Internet in those countries.