CAIRO - More than one million young people have launched an electronic campaign calling on the Government to block foreign pornographic websites, a Cairo-based member, who started the action, said Sunday. "The Communications and Information Technology Ministry must block these websites which are offensive to our religion, honour and manners," Tareq el-Essawi added. Egypt has over 23 million Internet users, according to a 2010 Government report. The young people, who launched the Facebook campaign on their own initiative, have highlighted the dangers posed by such offensive websites to the Egyptians and their conservative society, el-Essawi said. He said he hoped the Ministry to approve such a campaign, which has nothing to do with restricting the personal freedom of Internet users. "If freedom harms others, it is no longer a freedom," el-Essawi said. Mohamed Sobhi, another campaign member, agrees on el-Essawi's view. "Freedoms and public rights are not absolute, they are limited by the respect of the values and morales, which are the base of the Egyptian society," he said. The one-million member campaign, Sobhi said, demands the Government to block access to all pornographic sites as well as cutting the signal of private satellite channels that broadcast blue-lamp movies. He called on the authorities concerned to draw up an emergency plan for blocking all porno websites as well as satellite channels that relay x-rated films. "The Government should cut the satellite signal of these channels," Mohamed Islam, a third campaign member, urged. The Ministry of Communications are urged to take these channels off the air after receiving a complaint from the campaign members that they violated Egyptian moral and ethical rules, Islam said. He said that the easy availability of pornography on the Internet had harmed the Egyptian society and its young people. Islam said that the Government should block access to several websites and blogs of pornographic content. "These illegal websites and weblogs should be blocked," he said, saying that pornography is unacceptable and anti-Islamic.
