CAIRO: YouTube, the number one video-sharing website, suspended the account of international award winning blogger and activist Wael Abbas due to complaints over the brutal content of his videos.According to Abbas, the account was comprised of more than 100 video clips depicting sensitive issues such as torture, police brutality, anti-government demonstrations, and workers' strikes in Egypt."They closed my account. I think it was on Nov. 21. I received an email from the administrators saying that my account had been suspended due to inappropriate content and complaints from users, Abbas said in an interview with Daily News Egypt.Abbas added that the torture videos were apparently deemed particularly offensive to users."I never wanted to be offensive to anyone. I was simply exposing wrongdoings. Daily News Egypt attempted to access Abbas's YouTube account, which features nothing more than a message from YouTube saying that "this account is suspended. Leading search engine Google that owns YouTube has not provided a comment at press time.Abbas who runs the Internet blog Misr Digital is viewed as one of the key players in the movement against torture and police brutality in Egypt. He was one of the first to expose and distribute the video depicting the torturing and sodomizing of microbus driver Emad El Kabir by two policemen last year; an incident the officers taped with one of their mobile phones and which later leaked to activists. The leaked tape spurred officials to conduct a formal investigation into the matter and the officers were recently sentenced to three-year prison terms for torture in a landmark case.This year, Abbas was awarded the prestigious Knight International Journalism Award for his work uncovering corruption and police brutality in Egypt. "YouTube has just disabled probably the most important channel for the Egyptian blogosphere. Wael's videos have been central in the fight against police brutality, Hossam El-Hamalawy, moderator of the popular blog Arabawy stated in a recent posting.Abbas says he is unsure of the reason behind the suspension of his account, but argues that the involvement of the Egyptian authorities "is not impossible considering Google's "history with dictatorships - referring to Google's decision to censor its search services on its Chinese site on orders from Beijing. "I have had this account for three years now. Why are they shutting it down now? There might be something fishy, Abbas continued.YouTube's section on rules and regulations state that materials depicting "graphic or gratuitous violence are not permitted. The video sharing giant also reiterates that those who have their accounts terminated due to violation of YouTube regulations "are prohibited from ever signing up for another account.
