[Paladin]

I discovered this earlier today and I couldn't bear NOT to tell it over here.

Chefelf's list of reasons to hate Star Wars episode 1 and 2 has been CENSORED in the United Arab Emirates! I know because I live in that crappy country.

They said they'd only censor 'porn' sites, and not anything else. Then they changed their minds and went on to censor everything from politics, religion, news websites, humor and now this! They've gone so far in their so called 'anti-hate' campaign that they've censored Chefelf's website pages for no reason other than containing the word 'hate' in the title!

The additional reasons to hate episode two, however, seem to have survived.

This is crap! I haven't felt this confused ever since they censored an Islamic website just because it had pages on the Islamic view on Sex! WTF? Isn't Islam the offical religion over here?

I'm going to give the people over at the Censors an email to tell them to unblock the website. They've gone WAY too far this time.

What do you people think of that?

This post has been edited by Paladin: 15 June 2004 - 04:31 AM

[Just your average movie goer]

That is pretty insane. And I thought that the United Arab Emirates was supposed to be a lot more progressive than other countries in the region.

What do you do over there? Are you a teacher?

[Paladin]

What do you do over there? Are you a teacher?

No, I'm a college student. I was born in Sharjah and I've spent most of my life in Dubai, but I'm ethnically (and nationally) Lebanese, and I tend to have a dislike of the nationals of the UAE ever since I was a child.

Right now I'm doing my summer job as an Assistant Support Engineer, I have one more year of college left. and when I'm done I'll be finding me a job, study for a second degree online and once I'm done with that I'm kissing this country goodbye.

I discovered that it was censored while surfing the net at work (I'm allowed to do that in my spare time), and since my work connection is filtered through the proxy of Etesilate (severly misspelt), I got the message 'this site is blocked' and that's when I came back to Chefelf's forums after several months of absence. I'm gonna give them a call when I get back to work.

Thankfully, at home, I have a lease line which can bypass the proxy. But I think they'll be censoring that too, in a couple of years/months time.

This post has been edited by Paladin: 16 June 2004 - 11:45 PM

[Just your average movie goer]

Okay. I didn't realise we had people from so many different locations on the forum. I was kind of curious about how the governments in those countries, or any others, can censor internet sites, actually - although I guess they do that by instructing the servers not to allow access to certain sites. Is that how it works?

Anyway, good luck with your degree and future studies. If you are thinking of emigrating to a western nation, may I take this opportunity to recommend the lovely Australia from which I hail from? It is a great place to live and you would probably find it a little bit more down to earth than America.

[Paladin]

although I guess they do that by instructing the servers not to allow access to certain sites. Is that how it works?

No, they do it because of the monopoly the government has on internet and phone providers. All people who have a 'standard' internet connect or a broadband go through a 'proxy' as it's called. When you try to visit a website, it sends a request to the proxy, if the website/webpage checks out, it'll return it to you and you can go about your business, if it's blocked, it'll give you the 'site is blocked' message in Arabic and English.

And it's not just the internet. I've heard of people having their phone calls disrupted when the boys at estesalte (again, mispelt) discovered they were talking about politics and had their conversation closed forcably.

It isn't just on the phone either, at college, some of my friends were essentially freaked out when I started to talk about the political situation in Iraq at the moment and told me to put a lid on it. Free speech doesn't exist over here, it seems.

The most bizaare thing about it all is the way my Dad talks about it. He doesn't know anything about how it works or how it censors webpages. He once told me that they 'recieve a list of websites that are rated about a certain level from Europe and they block those'. I say, that's crap! If that was true, then why are they censoring lyrics websites? Those websites contain thousands upon thousands of songs and only a few contain anything questionable, but they censored themaways just because of that!!

Anyway, good luck with your degree and future studies. If you are thinking of emigrating to a western nation, may I take this opportunity to recommend the lovely Australia from which I hail from? It is a great place to live and you would probably find it a little bit more down to earth than America.

Australia is a fine place, and I have many online friends of mine who live there. But I believe that North America is the place for me. Sorry.

[Just your average movie goer]

Fair enough, then. And thanks for the information. I was just curious, that's all.

[Paladin]

You're welcome.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

Chefelf's list of reasons to hate Star Wars episode 1 and 2 has been CENSORED in the United Arab Emirates! I know because I live in that crappy country.

With the money George lucas has, maybe he knows people or has some stake in the UAE government.

[Helena]

That's too bad, Paladin I guess that living in the West, we tend to take things like freedom of speech for granted.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

That's too bad, Paladin  I guess that living in the West, we tend to take things like freedom of speech for granted.

Although the way things are now in this "war on terror", that right may be slowly disappearing

[Despondent]

"Hear, hear."


In truth, Freedom of the press belongs to the owner of the printing press (or media outlet.)
I daresay many more are exercising this freedom (for now) today than ever before.


(Incidentally, when one administration came into the white house, they didn't have the freedom to use the letter "W.")

[Chefelf]

Wow, that's crazy. So would it ban all of lanceandeskimo.com or just the offending pages?

This is very interesting. Is there any way I could change the pages to make them accessible? Or make some sort of UAE approved mirror of the pages called "78 Reasons to Strongy Dislike and Disapprove of Star Wars: Episode I"?

Moving to the Star Wars Forum.

[Jordan]

Believe me, once the oil and expats go, the whole country will down in ruins. That's why I plan to immigrate to Canada or the USA in several years time.

When that happens, don't bother come here. We will be up shit's creek without a paddle too. I plan on moving to NewZealand. For some reason that place is always my fall out. If you want to come to Canada, now is the best time. Every year you wait... it only gets worse.

What engineering field do you study/work in?

"78 Reasons to Strongy Dislike and Disapprove of Star Wars: Episode I"

This title is actually more funny than the current one.

[Chefelf]

"78 Reasons to Strongy Dislike and Disapprove of Star Wars: Episode I"

This title is actually more funny than the current one.

I know! Damn it! If only it wasn't so much work to go through and change everything.

Also, changing everything would be a Lucas move now, wouldn't it?

[barend]

how about:

78 reasons why Star Wars: episode 1 falls short of the expectations lamented by our childhood experiences, enjoying the original trilogy.

you could rake up the search engine potential with it...