CAIRO - The countdown to the blocking of Facebook has allegedly begun. Growing rumours claim that this influential online platform could be the Government's new battlefront against its opponents ahead of the Parliament elections this month. Worries overwhelming anti- Government bloggers and twitters were reinforced, when the Ministry of Information decided to suspend dozens of private channels on NileSat. The victims, mostly religious channels, were accused of causing the Government's ire when they employed rabble-rousers and agitators infamous for their irreconcilable attitude to Copts and other non- Muslim faiths. Tightening control of the media market, the Government raised bigger questions about its ultimate goal when it imposed a ban on SMS services provided by unlicensed companies. The controversy about this move increased when the Government declared that it would appoint a committee to examine SMS contents before they could be sent to the recipient. Members of the Facebook community heard the Government's guns roaring before hitting their platform when a guest in a popular television programme suggested that this online community became a painful headache for the Government. The guest also implied that bloggers were constituting a threat to national security by exchanging unsubstantiated facts about political life in the country and the shape of the nation's future. Minutes after the guest had left the studio, Egypt's Facebook bloggers screamed for help, lamenting the approaching threat to their online freedom. They also vowed that they would not give in and allow the Government to gag them, even temporarily and until the Parliament elections were over. About 1000 bloggers quickly formed a new Facebook group named “No Closure”. They campaigned that the elimination of their platform was a blatant breach of freedom of expression and blogger's human rights to communicate smoothly with online friends. A technology expert, Sayyed Ismail, discounted speculations that the Government would find it too difficult to block Facebook. The expert drew the attention of worried bloggers to new technology, which would enable the Government to block Facebook easily and in no time. The expert indicated that Governments in conservative countries were making use of this technology to block indecent websites. But bloggers were reminded that they could conveniently resume their online debate even when Facebook was out of reach, as Twitter and other websites are considered to be great alternatives if the Government carried out its alleged online crusade. The Government's swoop on private television channels and SMS services brought it to the centre of scathing criticism. It has been said that the ruling party nudged the Government to act this way to frustrate the efforts of its opponents in the forthcoming elections. The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which decided to mobilise its heavyweight candidates in the November's elections, protested that the ruling party, in collaboration with its Government, was playing an unfair game. The Brotherhood said that the allegedly new restrictions on the freedom of expression were undermining the Government's pledge to guarantee the integrity and transparency of the coming elections.
