Internet in Bahrain - Surveillance and Filtering

Surveillance and Filtering

The Ministry of Information has established a special unit which monitors Web sites for possible blocking. The government has indicated an interest in setting up a commission to monitor the press and Internet content to "report any incitement to confessionnalism." Government efforts to monitor Web sites have also been confirmed by media reports that cite an official source saying that in addition to Web sites being monitored on a daily basis, the use of circumvention techniques to update banned Web sites is also being watched. Telecommunication Regulatory Authority - Kingdom of Bahrain, “Legislative Decree no. 48 of 2002 Promulgating the Telecommunications Law,”

Results from first 2008-2009 test runs found limited blocking of pornographic and LBGT content and proxy and anonymizing services. However, after the January 2009 Ministerial decree, which ordered ISPs to implement an official filtering system, ONI found that the filtering of content in officially prohibited categories has become pervasive, which is an indication that the ISPs have started to use a commercial filtering system. Also, the ISPs have started to serve an explicit blockpage with a reference to the Ministerial decree.

Mid-February 2011, start of the Bahraini uprising, Internet traffic dropped by 20% due to aggressive government filtering.