DUBAI/ABU DHABI: The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) did not receive any request regarding the blocking of YouTube, said a statement issued by the TRA on Wednesday.
It added that the Internet Access Management (IAM) policy published lately by the TRA is clear in identifying prohibited content categories, which both UAE Internet Service Providers (ISPs) published on their websites.
"Therefore, no content on the Internet is blocked unless it breaches the IAM policy," the statement confirmed.
Commander in Chief of Dubai Police Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim launched a campaign on Sunday when he called upon Etisalat to ban YouTube. He was addressing the general assembly of the Juveniles Education and Care Association.
Tamim told an Arabic daily that the website contained videos that "sparked dissension," especially on religious belief.
"Publishing pornographic material and defamatory ideas is not freedom," said Tamim.
However, TRA yesterday confirmed that they did not receive any request regarding the blocking of YouTube.
Internet pornography and blackmailing has been becoming a headache for families in the United Arab Emirates.
Facebook gang
Two weeks ago, Sharjah Police arrested five members of a gang for assaulting and blackmailing well-to-do schoolchildren. Two of the culprits are Pakistanis and the nationalities of the others are unknown. They were using Facebook as a platform to blackmail rich students.
The gang's modus operandi was simple. The five-member gang developed a plan to make regular income. They lured children from well-to-do Asian families to isolated areas and stripped them of their clothes, tortured them and filmed them being tortured. They used the footage they filmed to blackmail these children into paying money to the gang on a monthly basis.
They created "Death Rooms" in Facebook to post the footage.
The gang also threatened the victims, saying that should they not pay, their family members would be kidnapped.
The gang leader, known as Mario, had attracted 370 friends to his Facebook account, and most of them were students
"It is high time to block such disturbing activities," said a UAE-based businessman. "My family has been facing similar incidents through Facebook for the last two months. A guy or a gang hacked my daughter's e-mail ID and accessed her private photos as well as our family photos. He created an e-mail ID in my daughter's name on Yahoo and posted our private photos on Facebook."
"It has become a shame for our family and I don't know what to do. We have been getting so many calls from our relatives," he explained. "I don't know how practically possible it is for Facebook to remove such photos that affects the public security."
