“Al-Araby Al-Jadeed” banned in Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia

The banned website, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Egypt became the third Arab country to ban Qatari website”Al-Araby Al-Jadeed” website operated from London, after Saudi Arabia and UAE. Saudi Arabia and UAE had previously announced they’d be banning and blocking the website accusing it of “spreading lies and distorting facts in news dealing with affairs in the two countries.”

“Al-Araby Al-Jadeed” announced on their website and social media accounts that users in the three countries could no longer browse through the website. The website also published a protesting report, claiming they don’t know the reason for the ban saying, “The governments of the three Arabic countries banned the website in both of its English and Arabic versions without stating any reasons, whether in the decree issued by the Saudi ministry of information, and later in UAE, and Egypt.”

While a number of the writers on the website claimed the reason to be “their features and reports on human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.”

“Al-Araby Al-Jadeed” report continues, “The blocking of these websites goes against the company’s principles of supporting democracy, human rights and liberty, as well as the notion of press freedom. The New Arab and its sister site provide a platform for the voice of the Middle East and aim to provoke an exchange of ideas and open discussion in a responsible manner.” The sites were particularly popular in those countries that had put the blocks in place, it added.

The site, like fellow Qatari news outlet Al-Jazeera, has come under fire from Egyptian authorities, which have accused it of being a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood. While in Saudi Arabia there has been clear rejection of any website trying to meddle in the kingdom’s laws and they way they implement them.