Big Brother is Watching!
I always looked at my blog as nothing but a personal space to vent some anger and to blab along whatever I have in mind, without much restrictions or responsibility to what I care. It was always, grab the keyboard, write write and write, click post and never look back unless I wanted to argue a comment or raise a new point.
When I started 2 years ago, the Bahraini blogsphere was very limited in both the number of blogs and those who visit.. Well things have changed..
I stopped blogging, not because I’m too busy or because of my studies or tight work schedule, but instead by a single comment thrown at me by one of the senior managers in the bank (and by senior I mean very senior). For a second there I was awaken to the fact that this is more than just an empty meaningless page in which I can rant around without any responsibility and without really being accounted for what I say, or do, or who I criticize and what laws and events I disapprove.
It was one black day after the other in Bahrain for freedom of speech, starting from the blockage of tens of website both international and local forums and blogs, the imprisonment of two Bahraini Activists for crimes relating to freedom of expression and just recently, the lawsuit against Mahmood AlYousif by one of the local ministers.
I kept distancing myself from any of this, and forcibly believing (or maybe hoping) that this like many other issues, is just a result of exaggeration and amplification by the people and the truth is different, slightly.. different.
What I saw today when checking the visitors of the blog (via StatCounter) which is a free service that embeds a cookie within the visitors computer allowing me to basically track all the activities carried out by that particular visitor) really brought me back to reality, the screenshot above shows a visit as long as 8 minutes 20 seconds from the network of one of the most “prominent” Bahraini Ministries, originally coming from Mahmood’s post about his blog being blocked, whoever it was (a human or an automatic crawler) looked for the word “bander” twice in the blog (using the search facility), and when the search was futile they directed themselves into the Arabic blog where they repeated the same search in Arabic.
The point? You are being watched, closely. Mahmood’s actions was really an eye opener to many about the essences of blogging and its spread and affectivity within the Bahraini internet community.
This is just a call out to all you Bahraini Bloggers out there, Big Brother is watching!
Big Brother is indeed watching, and judging by the various reversals we have experienced in Bahrain, and the prison term handed to a bona fide journalist and the current libel case against me, we are at the cusp of change.
It is easy to get scared, no one wants to lose his or her livelihood, and as mistrust between the people and the government is at an all time high, and as the parliament seems to be immune to the things that worry normal Bahrainis, it is indeed a rather dark tunnel we are in.
It is easy to get scared, especially when the edifice in which Bandargate was executed crawls through our sites looking for trigger words like Bandargate – apart from showing their culpability in this whole fiasco – it possibly serves as a warning to bloggers to “not approach” this particular thorny subject.
I don’t know what to advise you my friend, other than do what your own conscience dictates.
God save Bahrain.
Dude, its easy to mistake CIO for this. But surely you know that ALL ministries have their gateway at CIO. It could be anyone from Ministry of Justice to MOF to Municipality even Labour that could be accessing your website.
Don’t be too paranoid, there ARE people (like me in CIO) who read to get BOTH sides of the story.
@incognito
Do you really expect me not to be “paranoid” and take this as a walk in the park after reading the unnamable report?! Seriously now?!
What you said is still beside the point, the fact that someone is going through the blogs in search for the word “bander” in both Arabic and English, at both my blogs consecutively (with 4 minutes apart) from a governmental network still stands, it being the CIO or any other ministry is really irrelevant.
Am I wrong? I hope, even though I do remember seeing visitors from the “Ministry of Health” as their gateway.
I sincerely hope I am wrong and this is just an uncalled for paranoia,
As Mahmood said up above, God save Bahrain!
Shame you’re not blogging anymore moodz. although I disagree with you on pretty much everything, you gave me much needed perspective.
who’s bandar?
@SBG:
البندر:
المدينة الساحلية ، سوق المدينة التجاري ، المرسى ، مربط السفن ،
المدينة الكبيرة التي يحيط بها مجموعة من القرى وتكون تابعة لها ،
والبندري : الرجل الكثير المال .
Yes I must admit I exaggerated lil bit :p but am done like that : when I see something which is against my views I go Zidane style, am not democratic person .
Am just afraid blogs world might go far from their purpose which in my opinion is to cover aspects of life local media cannot do due to censorship and pressures by rasing people awareness.
But really I envy Bahraini blogosphere [which surely reflects your reality] cause here in Oman we’ve nothing like that, all afraid to speak or lost in their heavenly personal spaces.
Take care .
Hey kid I like you. Your a true Son of Islam. If you were in charge of arab world it would be a better world for us all. Its not how you advocate peace,but rather in such a respectfull mode of yourself and others. I bow to you sir. I feel honored to finally have met a true Muslim.
Man,,,
Fear not…
It’s just a time-mannered thing… No one would care in the few next weeks (if not by now already…) just to scare those at the blog sphere here in Bahrain…
Take care!
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About Me
- Mohammed AlMaskati
East Riffa, Bahrain
I support a ONE Bahrain!
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