Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The ministry of Information did something last week that rocked the core of many internet users.
They apparently decided to wake up and do something, so they decided 'oh lets ban some websites'. So there you have it Bahrain, now we have censorship from porn and political sites.
Not only were those two categories banned but also certain Google tools that most use, such as that of Google translate!
I feel that the ministry of information did not fully asses the situation at hand.
Lets look at the pros: less of our youth will be visiting the little internet cafŽ shops and political activists will quieten down (depends on who you ask though). The cons: sick paedophiles and perverts will not have access to the sites they want on the internet therefore there will be a surge of them buying more satellite televisions and visiting our malls where children and women do their shopping and go to have fun.
What the ministry fails to realise is that there are a million ways of getting information.
I could easily set up a forum online or a gathering of some sort and discuss my political views without breaking any of the laws (if such laws that prevent teenagers from having coffee while discussing whether Barrack Obama's oath was right or not did exist) or download information from a peer to peer website.
In reality, I do not really care if such sites are banned. What bothers me most is that we are slowly turning into a hypocrite of a country.
Leaderships cannot demand modernisation and improvements in our society while banning information at the same time.
What we must realise is that the ministry must have some control over what type of information is being blocked and banned. For the ministry is venturing into very harmful waters.
Let us not turn into China and trespass over the lines of unjust censorships because we the newspapers and the writer could be next.
