1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,007 *34c3 intro* 2 00:00:15,022 --> 00:00:19,660 Herald: All right, so the next talk is 3 00:00:19,660 --> 00:00:25,510 "Catch me if you can: Internet Activism in Saudi Arabia." Now I have one question for 4 00:00:25,510 --> 00:00:31,450 you. Who has ever been in Saudi Arabia? Like, actually in the country. And no, 5 00:00:31,450 --> 00:00:40,751 Dubai is not Saudi Arabia. I see a couple of hands, like three or something. That's 6 00:00:40,751 --> 00:00:45,790 actually more than I thought. I'm surprised, because you cannot just get a 7 00:00:45,790 --> 00:00:52,440 tourist visa for Saudi Arabia, even if you would like to go there. But our next 8 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:58,430 speaker, she has been in Saudi Arabia and actually lived and worked there for two 9 00:00:58,430 --> 00:01:08,470 years. So Miriam, also known to you maybe as Noujoum, has quite some knowledge about 10 00:01:08,470 --> 00:01:15,640 the culture, people, and politics of this country that seems quite foreign to us 11 00:01:15,654 --> 00:01:21,680 all. So we're all excited to hear Miriam now. Give her a nice applause, thanks. 12 00:01:21,680 --> 00:01:28,259 *applause* 13 00:01:28,259 --> 00:01:29,749 Noujoum: Thank you very much for the kind 14 00:01:29,749 --> 00:01:34,280 introduction, and welcome everyone. I'm super excited to talk to you today about 15 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,340 internet activism in Saudi Arabia. It's one of my favorite subjects. I could go on 16 00:01:38,340 --> 00:01:42,570 and on for hours, but we just have half an hour. So let's dive right into it. First I 17 00:01:42,570 --> 00:01:45,760 want to show you what I want to tell you today about. First I 18 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:50,380 want to give you some basic information about Saudi Arabia. Then we are going to 19 00:01:50,380 --> 00:01:56,060 look at Saudi Arabia's cybercrime law and see how it has affected activists in 20 00:01:56,060 --> 00:02:00,880 recent years, and then I want to talk about internet censorship and how we can 21 00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:05,290 actually measure it by running an OONI probe. And then finally, because I don't 22 00:02:05,290 --> 00:02:09,740 want to leave you depressed I also want to spend some minutes on talking about 23 00:02:09,740 --> 00:02:18,020 positive things. The modern state of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by the Al Saud 24 00:02:18,020 --> 00:02:23,130 family, who is still ruling to this very day and it's an absolute monarchy and the 25 00:02:23,130 --> 00:02:27,010 culture is dominated by an ultraconservative branch of Islam that is 26 00:02:27,010 --> 00:02:31,540 called Wahhabism and due to its riches from the oil industry, the country is 27 00:02:31,540 --> 00:02:37,090 actually quite modern when it comes to commodities and technology. And I'm going 28 00:02:37,090 --> 00:02:42,770 to throw some statistics at you. The total population of Saudi Arabia is around 33 29 00:02:42,770 --> 00:02:49,610 million people and 75% of them are younger than the age of 30. And you can see here 30 00:02:49,610 --> 00:02:55,440 the population pyramids of Saudi Arabia compared with the population pyramid of 31 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:59,220 Germany, and you get a very good idea what a country with a younger population looks 32 00:02:59,220 --> 00:03:04,080 like versus a country with an older population. And the young population of 33 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:08,550 Saudi Arabia is one of the factors why so many Saudis are active on social media 34 00:03:08,550 --> 00:03:15,670 compared to other countries. Around 75% of the population are owning a smartphone and 35 00:03:15,670 --> 00:03:21,180 35% are really active on social media, and active in this case means that they log in 36 00:03:21,180 --> 00:03:29,300 to their social media accounts at least once every month. 25% of the population 37 00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:34,739 are active users on Facebook and 20% of the population are active on Twitter, and 38 00:03:34,739 --> 00:03:40,879 Saudi Twitter users account for 40% of all Twitter users and the whole Arab world, 39 00:03:40,879 --> 00:03:45,159 and that's a lot of people. And if you can't remember any of these statistics 40 00:03:45,159 --> 00:03:49,239 right now, never mind. The important thing to take away from this is the population 41 00:03:49,239 --> 00:03:52,470 of Saudi Arabia is very young and most of them are active on 42 00:03:52,470 --> 00:03:56,430 social media and on the Internet. And now that we are all excited about the 43 00:03:56,430 --> 00:04:00,269 widespread use of social media in Saudi Arabia, let's have a look at Saudi 44 00:04:00,269 --> 00:04:07,460 Arabia's cybercrime law. Saudi Arabia cybercrime law was instated in 2007 and 45 00:04:07,460 --> 00:04:12,620 the law specifies what is seen as a cybercrime and which crimes are met with 46 00:04:12,620 --> 00:04:17,209 which punishments. And most of the articles are just what you would expect 47 00:04:17,209 --> 00:04:21,899 from the cybercrime law, but have a look at article 6 at paragraph 1 that you can 48 00:04:21,899 --> 00:04:29,819 see here. It says there at the end that a cyber crime is, like... actions on the 49 00:04:29,819 --> 00:04:34,350 Internet are considered a cyber crime if they are a threat to public order, 50 00:04:34,350 --> 00:04:39,219 religious values, public morals, or privacy, and then article 7 focuses on 51 00:04:39,219 --> 00:04:44,089 cyber crimes in relation to terrorism, or being active on the Internet in regards to 52 00:04:44,089 --> 00:04:49,009 terrorism. And as you can probably imagine, the problem here is that these 53 00:04:49,009 --> 00:04:54,360 are super vague terms that are not really defined, which means that any judge can 54 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:59,149 give his own interpretation of what he thinks qualifies as a cyber crime, what he 55 00:04:59,149 --> 00:05:07,650 thinks is a threat to public safety or to public morals. In 2011 the cybercrime law 56 00:05:07,650 --> 00:05:10,580 was overhauled and the Saudi government introduced 57 00:05:10,580 --> 00:05:15,689 new rules and regulations, so that now internet newspapers and also bloggers had 58 00:05:15,689 --> 00:05:22,409 to obtain a license from the Ministry of Culture and Information. And in 2014 the 59 00:05:22,409 --> 00:05:26,289 cybercrime law was overhauled once again, so that now the Saudi authorities could 60 00:05:26,289 --> 00:05:31,389 also take legal action against social networking sites like Twitter, because 61 00:05:31,389 --> 00:05:37,660 they would allow accounts to be active that would supposedly promote adultery, 62 00:05:37,660 --> 00:05:43,099 homosexuality, and atheism. And Saudi authorities are also trying to regulate 63 00:05:43,099 --> 00:05:48,339 the content of YouTube channels. And now you would think that something that is 64 00:05:48,339 --> 00:05:54,789 called cybercrime law is used to actually chase and catch and convict the bad guys, 65 00:05:54,789 --> 00:06:02,139 and the cybercrime law actually does that. In July this year a Saudi man was 66 00:06:02,139 --> 00:06:06,460 sentenced to seven years in prison and a ten years travel ban because he was 67 00:06:06,460 --> 00:06:10,889 supporting the terror organization Daesh, also called ISIS, and he had tried to 68 00:06:10,889 --> 00:06:16,169 travel to Syria and also support the fighting there. But he was also convicted 69 00:06:16,169 --> 00:06:21,429 of other charges. He was also convicted of charges saying that he was preparing, 70 00:06:21,429 --> 00:06:27,279 storing, and sending material that would harm the public through his tweets. And 71 00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:31,669 also his tweets were supposedly insulting the Saudi rulers. His cell phone was 72 00:06:31,669 --> 00:06:35,330 confiscated, his Twitter account was closed, and he is forbidden to tweet for 73 00:06:35,330 --> 00:06:40,979 up to five years after his release from prison. Now this is just one case, but up 74 00:06:40,979 --> 00:06:46,479 until 2014 the Saudi religious police claimed that they had closed over 10,000 75 00:06:46,479 --> 00:06:50,949 Twitter accounts and they had arrested plenty of users because of religious and 76 00:06:50,949 --> 00:06:56,339 ethical violations. But some of the people who are prosecuted under the Saudi 77 00:06:56,339 --> 00:07:00,759 cybercrime law are actually just liberal activists. They are young people who try 78 00:07:00,759 --> 00:07:04,779 to form a movement. They want to be outspoken on the Internet. They want to 79 00:07:04,779 --> 00:07:10,889 campaign and push for change. And now we're going to meet some of them. First up 80 00:07:10,889 --> 00:07:15,610 is Ashraf Fayadh. He is an artist and a poet and he was arrested and sentenced 81 00:07:15,610 --> 00:07:20,090 because of apostasy, because of things that he supposedly said on Twitter and in 82 00:07:20,090 --> 00:07:26,249 one of his books. And when police failed to bring proof of his apostasy or atheism 83 00:07:26,249 --> 00:07:31,280 they said that he was arrested because he was smoking and wearing long hair. And it 84 00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:37,989 is actually suspected that he was arrested because previously he had made a video of 85 00:07:37,989 --> 00:07:42,670 Saudi religious police lashing a young man in public, in his home town Abha, and he 86 00:07:42,670 --> 00:07:46,960 had then posted that video online. And a lot of people think that this is the real 87 00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:51,659 reason why he was arrested. And his sentence has changed many times in 88 00:07:51,659 --> 00:07:56,050 different appeal courts, from four years in prison and eight hundred lashes, to a 89 00:07:56,050 --> 00:08:00,490 death sentence because of the supposed apostasy, and then back to eight years in 90 00:08:00,490 --> 00:08:05,639 prison and eight hundred lashes. And Amnesty International classifies Fayadh as 91 00:08:05,639 --> 00:08:11,939 a prisoner of conscience. As far as I know, he is still in prison today. Hamza 92 00:08:11,939 --> 00:08:16,699 Kashgari is also young poet and a writer. He was arrested because of three tweets 93 00:08:16,699 --> 00:08:19,129 that he had written about a fictive meeting with the 94 00:08:19,129 --> 00:08:25,529 Prophet Mohammed. He was accused of blasphemy or apostasy as well, to which 95 00:08:25,529 --> 00:08:30,499 the penalty is usually death under sharia law. He tried to leave the country and 96 00:08:30,499 --> 00:08:34,820 claim asylum in New Zealand, but he was caught at Kuala Lumpur Airport and he was 97 00:08:34,820 --> 00:08:38,940 brought back to Saudi Arabia and arrested, and he was held in prison for two years 98 00:08:38,940 --> 00:08:44,089 without trial. And similar to the case of Ashraf Fayadh, the accusation of apostasy 99 00:08:44,089 --> 00:08:49,089 is actually highly suspicious to be an excuse, because Kashkari was very publicly 100 00:08:49,089 --> 00:08:53,139 outspoken on the internet and social media. He had supported the Arab Spring. 101 00:08:53,139 --> 00:08:57,830 He was supporting pro-democracy movements in Saudi Arabia. He had criticized 102 00:08:57,830 --> 00:09:02,840 authorities about mishandling the Jeddah flat disaster and other issues. And he was 103 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:09,170 released in October 2013. Mariam Al Otaibi is a young Saudi woman who was arrested 104 00:09:09,170 --> 00:09:13,620 because she was very active in the movement against the male guardianship 105 00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:17,839 system. And she was very active in the movement to abolish the system. As you 106 00:09:17,839 --> 00:09:22,590 see, in Saudi Arabia, every woman has to have a male guardian. 107 00:09:22,590 --> 00:09:25,810 And even when they are a grown ups, when they are adults. And why is that a 108 00:09:25,810 --> 00:09:30,220 problem? Without the permission, or the consent, of their male legal guardians, 109 00:09:30,220 --> 00:09:34,720 women cannot go to university, they cannot take up jobs, they can't go see the 110 00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:38,740 doctor, they can't leave the country and a lot of other things. And the Guardian can 111 00:09:38,740 --> 00:09:43,880 be their father, husband, uncle, brother, or even their son. And activist in Saudi 112 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:48,969 Arabia have fought for a very long time to abolish this male guardianship system. And 113 00:09:48,969 --> 00:09:52,759 here you can see the Twitter account of Mariam Al Otaibi. You can see that she has 114 00:09:52,759 --> 00:09:58,829 almost 50,000 followers. And here, in her Twitter bio, you see one of the core 115 00:09:58,829 --> 00:10:03,510 hashtags of the movement in which she is active, and it's an Arabic hashtag and it 116 00:10:03,510 --> 00:10:08,599 translates to "Saudi women want the abolishment of the guardianship system." 117 00:10:11,439 --> 00:10:16,079 Mariam actually herself tried to flee her abusive brothers and her father, and she 118 00:10:16,079 --> 00:10:18,470 moved to a different city to live her own life. And then 119 00:10:18,470 --> 00:10:23,910 she was arrested at her workplace because her father had filed a runaway report. But 120 00:10:23,910 --> 00:10:30,660 very soon, the charges against her changed from being a runaway to disruption of 121 00:10:30,660 --> 00:10:35,260 public order because of her activism on Twitter. And her house was searched and 122 00:10:35,260 --> 00:10:39,480 her cellphone and her laptop were confiscated. And after 104 days in 123 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:44,269 detention without trial, she was released in July this year. And her release was 124 00:10:44,269 --> 00:10:49,410 actually deemed a very big success and a victory by Saudi feminists because she was 125 00:10:49,410 --> 00:10:53,589 released from prison without the presence or the permission of a male guardian, 126 00:10:53,589 --> 00:10:58,069 because usually how it works is if a woman is released from prison, her male guardian 127 00:10:58,069 --> 00:11:02,949 has to pick her up. If he doesn't do that she just stays in detention. But she was 128 00:11:02,949 --> 00:11:08,089 released just like that. And here you can see two designs of the Saudi artist 129 00:11:08,089 --> 00:11:13,120 MsSaffaa. On the left you see a poster that she designed to support the release 130 00:11:13,120 --> 00:11:18,490 of Mariam Al Otaibi from prison. The hashtag says "We are all Miriam Al 131 00:11:18,490 --> 00:11:22,389 Otaibi." And on the right you see another design that she did, that is very famous 132 00:11:22,389 --> 00:11:25,950 for the movement to abolish the mayor guardianship system, 133 00:11:25,950 --> 00:11:33,240 and this hashtag says "I am my own guardian." Loujain AlHathloul is another 134 00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:37,680 young Saudi woman who was arrested in December 2014 when she was trying to drive 135 00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:42,730 her car over the border from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia. Shortly 136 00:11:42,730 --> 00:11:46,490 before, she had tweeted "follow me on Twitter to find out what will happen at 137 00:11:46,490 --> 00:11:51,110 the border." And she had for a very long time been active in the woman to drive 138 00:11:51,110 --> 00:11:56,220 movement. That means that she had already posted videos of herself driving in Saudi 139 00:11:56,220 --> 00:12:02,060 Arabia online, showing how she was defying the ban on women driving. She live-tweeted 140 00:12:02,060 --> 00:12:06,810 this whole experience of being detained at the border. Her passport was confiscated. 141 00:12:06,810 --> 00:12:11,830 Her friend and lawyer, who came to her support, was also arrested, and ultimately 142 00:12:11,830 --> 00:12:17,819 she was released after 73 days without trial. Raif Badawi is probably the 143 00:12:17,819 --> 00:12:21,560 activists that most of you have heard of, because Amnesty International did a huge 144 00:12:21,560 --> 00:12:26,240 campaign to support his release, and also his wife is very active, publicly, to 145 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:31,800 work for his release. He is a writer and an activist, and he was arrested in 2012. 146 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:37,020 He was charged of insulting Islam through electronic channels and he was brought to 147 00:12:37,020 --> 00:12:41,569 court on several charges, including apostasy, and as you already know by now, 148 00:12:41,569 --> 00:12:48,440 the death penalty is included when you are charged of apostasy. And similar to Ashraf 149 00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:52,610 Fayadh, his sentence was changed multiple times in different appeal courts and 150 00:12:52,610 --> 00:12:55,029 eventually he was sentenced to 10 years in prison 151 00:12:55,029 --> 00:13:00,580 and a fine and thousand lashes, of which only the first 50 were administered, 152 00:13:00,580 --> 00:13:05,509 probably because of international attention and outrage. And what got Raif 153 00:13:05,509 --> 00:13:11,060 Badawi in trouble in the first place was setting up a website that was called Free 154 00:13:11,060 --> 00:13:16,480 Saudi Liberals. In court he was accused of setting up a website that undermines 155 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:21,470 general security, ridiculing Islamic religious figures, and going beyond the 156 00:13:21,470 --> 00:13:27,249 realm of obedience. And he was told that his website would violate Islamic values 157 00:13:27,249 --> 00:13:32,420 and propagates liberal thought. And the court ordered his website to be closed and 158 00:13:32,420 --> 00:13:36,319 he is still in prison today. The last activist that 159 00:13:36,319 --> 00:13:40,720 we are going to look at is Muhammad Salih Al Bajadi. He was, prior to his arrest, 160 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:45,759 also very politically active. In 2009, for example, he managed a website that was 161 00:13:45,759 --> 00:13:50,720 called "monitor of human rights in Saudi Arabia." And he is also the co-founder of 162 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:55,340 a Saudi Arabian human rights organization called "the Saudi Civil and Political 163 00:13:55,340 --> 00:14:00,230 Rights Association." He was also arrested. His office was searched. And Amnesty 164 00:14:00,230 --> 00:14:04,510 International labeled him a prisoner of conscience as well. And they said that he 165 00:14:04,510 --> 00:14:09,959 was held solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression, 166 00:14:09,959 --> 00:14:14,879 assembly, and association. But in court, however, he was charged with insurrection 167 00:14:14,879 --> 00:14:19,250 against the ruler, instigating demonstrations, and speaking with foreign 168 00:14:19,250 --> 00:14:22,980 media channels. And he was sentenced to four years in prison 169 00:14:22,980 --> 00:14:29,649 and a five-year ban on foreign travels. Now, even if you don't see yourself as an 170 00:14:29,649 --> 00:14:33,950 activist, if you are active on social media in Saudi Arabia you can find 171 00:14:33,950 --> 00:14:38,060 yourself the center of unwanted attention in just a second. There are some 172 00:14:38,060 --> 00:14:42,589 conservatives who would flat-out think that being on Twitter is a sin in and of 173 00:14:42,589 --> 00:14:47,900 itself, as you can see here. And just three month ago, actually, Saudi 174 00:14:47,900 --> 00:14:54,269 authorities urged citizens to monitor each other and to report posts on social media 175 00:14:54,269 --> 00:14:59,410 that would harm the state's reputation. So as you can imagine, that leads to a huge 176 00:14:59,410 --> 00:15:03,850 level of self-censorship. When I was living and working in Saudi Arabia, I once 177 00:15:03,850 --> 00:15:08,870 talked to a work contact and I asked him why he wasn't more active on Twitter, and 178 00:15:08,870 --> 00:15:13,330 he said the first day that he had signed up on Twitter, he had received a direct 179 00:15:13,330 --> 00:15:17,980 message by a person he didn't know, and the message just said "welcome. We are 180 00:15:17,980 --> 00:15:25,180 watching you." And when you live in Saudi Arabia and you don't use a VPN or TOR all 181 00:15:25,180 --> 00:15:29,850 the time you inevitably run across a website that is blocked at some point. For 182 00:15:29,850 --> 00:15:33,779 me, for example, that was the search engine StartPage. When I was trying to 183 00:15:33,779 --> 00:15:39,699 access that page, I would land on a site that would look like this. And Saudi 184 00:15:39,699 --> 00:15:42,970 authorities are hosting a firewall which blocks access to 185 00:15:42,970 --> 00:15:48,490 thousands of websites. Actually the Saudi authorities, they openly acknowledge that 186 00:15:48,490 --> 00:15:53,309 widespread filtering takes place, and they would say that it targets pornographic, 187 00:15:53,309 --> 00:15:58,440 Islam related, human rights, and political sites. And as you can imagine, criticism 188 00:15:58,440 --> 00:16:04,689 of the royal family and of Islamic teachings is generally not tolerated. Now, 189 00:16:04,689 --> 00:16:09,699 rewind three years. Three years ago at Congress I ran into a guy named Arturo, 190 00:16:09,699 --> 00:16:14,389 and he told me how he and his friends were working on this OONI project, and they 191 00:16:14,389 --> 00:16:19,589 were running probes all over the world to measure the extent of filtering and 192 00:16:19,589 --> 00:16:24,100 Internet censorship in different countries. And so we teamed up and we did 193 00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:30,059 some measuring in Saudi Arabia. And OONI stands for Open Observatory of Network 194 00:16:30,059 --> 00:16:34,509 Interference. And I would very much like Arturo to come on stage for a few minutes 195 00:16:34,509 --> 00:16:40,209 and to tell you himself what OONI is all about, and how running that probe in Saudi 196 00:16:40,209 --> 00:16:41,239 Arabia worked. 197 00:16:41,239 --> 00:16:42,079 Arturo: Thank you Miriam 198 00:16:42,079 --> 00:16:47,329 *applause* 199 00:16:47,329 --> 00:16:52,019 Arturo: So, yeah. As ??? three years ago we met and 200 00:16:52,019 --> 00:16:56,490 I was already working at the time on this project ??????????? for the Open 201 00:16:56,490 --> 00:17:02,160 Observatory of Network Interference. What we do is we're a community mass project 202 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,120 I guess that does network measurements with 203 00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:09,369 ??? of what we call "network interference" or "network 204 00:17:09,369 --> 00:17:13,360 ?????????." That can be a sign of internet censorship or surveillance 205 00:17:13,360 --> 00:17:18,749 And we do this for a variety of different ????????? look into the blocking of 206 00:17:18,749 --> 00:17:24,099 websites such as the one we saw in the previous slide in Saudi Arabia. But also 207 00:17:24,099 --> 00:17:29,279 whether or not circumvention tools like tor, VPNs work or do not work or whether 208 00:17:29,279 --> 00:17:35,060 or not and how instant messaging apps are blocked or not blocked around the world 209 00:17:35,060 --> 00:17:40,480 and we do this through some apps that can be installed either on your mobile phone 210 00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:46,280 or on your computer and these are run by tens of thousands of volunteers around the 211 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:51,500 world to gather evidence of internet censorship around the world. 212 00:17:52,995 --> 00:17:58,429 I guess I will not go too much into what OONI does because we actually have an 213 00:17:58,429 --> 00:18:02,370 assembly on the third floor where you-- called the OONIverse and you are welcome 214 00:18:02,370 --> 00:18:07,130 to come by and we can tell you all about it but also we have a longer presentation 215 00:18:07,130 --> 00:18:13,880 on the third day at 2:30 in borg room and there I can go more into what OONI is 216 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:20,615 about and how we have been working with people like Miriam to collect sort of 217 00:18:20,615 --> 00:18:25,223 undeniable evidence that internet censorship is happening but also how. 218 00:18:26,174 --> 00:18:29,179 Miriam: Perfect thank you very much. I would very much suggest that you go and 219 00:18:29,179 --> 00:18:30,584 see that talk as well. 220 00:18:30,584 --> 00:18:35,179 *applause* 221 00:18:35,179 --> 00:18:38,179 So apart from the websites that you would expect to be 222 00:18:38,179 --> 00:18:42,770 blocked in Saudi Arabia like porn and gambling websites or the website of the 223 00:18:42,770 --> 00:18:47,700 Israeli Secret Service there are plenty of other websites that are blocked and OONI 224 00:18:47,700 --> 00:18:52,330 has compiled a very huge and comprehensive list of different websites that are 225 00:18:52,330 --> 00:18:56,640 blocked in Saudi Arabia that you can find on their website and I brought you three 226 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:01,010 short examples just to show you what kind of websites could be blocked. 227 00:19:01,010 --> 00:19:05,690 On the left you always see the information that is provided on the OONI web page and 228 00:19:05,690 --> 00:19:10,299 on the right side you see a screenshot of the actual web site that is blocked in 229 00:19:10,299 --> 00:19:15,930 Saudi Arabia. So first up we have Al- Manar, Al-Manar is a news media web site 230 00:19:15,930 --> 00:19:22,110 with ties to Hezbollah. Second we have bahai.org, the Bahai are a religious 231 00:19:22,110 --> 00:19:26,650 group, they are a religious minority and they are oppressed in pretty much all of 232 00:19:26,650 --> 00:19:31,120 the Arab countries. You can see that actually their website is also blocked in 233 00:19:31,120 --> 00:19:36,530 the United Kingdom and in Italy for whatever reason. And thirdly we have 234 00:19:36,530 --> 00:19:40,919 proxify.com, it's just one of many examples of different websites that offer 235 00:19:40,919 --> 00:19:46,050 services of anonymity and of circumvention. And now because I don't 236 00:19:46,050 --> 00:19:50,370 want to leave you too depressed when you leave this talk I also want to look at 237 00:19:50,370 --> 00:19:55,159 some positive things that have happened as well because despite all this persecution 238 00:19:55,159 --> 00:19:59,640 that I have talked about up until now activists in Saudi Arabia have been able to 239 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:04,170 secure some very important victories in the past years and if you have followed 240 00:20:04,170 --> 00:20:08,240 the news lately a little bit then maybe you have noticed that a lot of things are 241 00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:13,490 happening in Saudi Arabia, a lot of laws and traditions are changing and because of 242 00:20:13,490 --> 00:20:17,690 time restraints I'm only focusing on two issues here right now that I personally 243 00:20:17,690 --> 00:20:22,190 find especially important. So the first example are the Saudi 244 00:20:22,190 --> 00:20:28,850 municipal elections in 2015 these were the very first elections when women in Saudi 245 00:20:28,850 --> 00:20:33,850 Arabia were allowed to actively and passively participate in the elections and 246 00:20:33,850 --> 00:20:40,290 in the end 20 women were elected to municipal councils out of 2,000 seats that 247 00:20:40,290 --> 00:20:45,230 were open in these elections and women had to overcome incredible hurdles to 248 00:20:45,230 --> 00:20:50,809 participate or to be candidates. For example, organizations that were set up to 249 00:20:50,809 --> 00:20:56,210 educate women about the elections to help them to run as candidates and to tell them 250 00:20:56,210 --> 00:21:01,169 how to register these organizations were forbidden. Female candidates weren't 251 00:21:01,169 --> 00:21:06,860 allowed to hold public rallies, they were not allowed to give speeches online, in 252 00:21:06,860 --> 00:21:10,350 TV, in public. They were not allowed to post pictures of 253 00:21:10,350 --> 00:21:15,779 their faces put them on posters or post them anywhere really. So women were 254 00:21:15,779 --> 00:21:21,930 basically confined to campaigning online really and especially registering as 255 00:21:21,930 --> 00:21:26,930 candidates but also as voters was super hard some women were flat-out denied being 256 00:21:26,930 --> 00:21:32,330 registered without being given any reason but one problem that also the men actually 257 00:21:32,330 --> 00:21:37,720 had one problem was that voters in order to be registered they had to bring proof 258 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:42,419 of their residency and they would usually prove that by showing a rental contract. 259 00:21:42,419 --> 00:21:45,860 Now the problem is that women cannot produce a rental contract because their 260 00:21:45,860 --> 00:21:50,290 names are not on these contracts but the names of their fathers or their husbands. 261 00:21:50,290 --> 00:21:55,090 That's just one of the many problems they had and this is one example from YouTube 262 00:21:55,090 --> 00:21:59,070 because up until now I have talked a lot about Twitter but there's also a huge and 263 00:21:59,070 --> 00:22:04,070 thriving and very important YouTube scene in Saudi Arabia and the following video is 264 00:22:04,070 --> 00:22:08,341 by a famous Saudi YouTube group and they are called Telfaz11 and they have a 265 00:22:08,341 --> 00:22:12,850 regular show that is called ??? and this clip is actually part from one of 266 00:22:12,850 --> 00:22:18,860 their shows and they produced this video mocking how women were organizing and how 267 00:22:18,860 --> 00:22:23,809 women had to work so hard to just participate in these elections while men 268 00:22:23,809 --> 00:22:29,039 were just lazy and enjoying their privileges and now let's see if this 269 00:22:29,039 --> 00:22:29,751 works. 270 00:23:55,129 --> 00:24:04,350 So that's just one example. I like them very much because they have a very fine 271 00:24:04,350 --> 00:24:08,700 sense of where the red lines are and how much fun they can actually make of the 272 00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:15,380 government and of actual problems that persevere in Saudi Arabia. And then we 273 00:24:15,380 --> 00:24:21,100 have another example, three months ago the Saudi King announced that he would lift 274 00:24:21,100 --> 00:24:25,799 the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia and starting from May next year women 275 00:24:25,799 --> 00:24:29,950 would be for the first time ever be-- oh not for first time ever, for the first 276 00:24:29,950 --> 00:24:34,240 time in a long time they would be allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, and 277 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,899 activists had campaigned for this change they had campaigned for the lift of the 278 00:24:38,899 --> 00:24:43,769 ban on women driving for a long time for many years that's a long story I don't 279 00:24:43,769 --> 00:24:48,830 have that much time as I want to to talk to you about it but we have one example 280 00:24:48,830 --> 00:24:55,519 here one out of many and this is a music video from 2013 and this went viral in 281 00:24:55,519 --> 00:25:01,470 Saudi Arabia and they were supporting the campaign by the women to drive movement 282 00:25:01,470 --> 00:25:07,570 who were trying to get the ban lifted and in their music video they are making fun 283 00:25:07,570 --> 00:25:12,380 of the baseless arguments that were used to justify the driving ban, why women were 284 00:25:12,380 --> 00:25:19,070 not allowed to drive cars and the context for the fall of 2013 is that at this time, 285 00:25:19,070 --> 00:25:23,399 a lot of women were defying the ban on women driving, they were driving around, 286 00:25:23,399 --> 00:25:26,690 they were filming themselves while doing it, they were posting all these videos 287 00:25:26,690 --> 00:25:32,309 online a lot of women were arrested yet more women were driving around and yeah 288 00:25:32,309 --> 00:25:37,179 that was just one of the videos that came out at that time, I also want to show it 289 00:25:37,179 --> 00:25:37,946 to you. 290 00:26:39,149 --> 00:26:44,370 All right just wanted to show you this short short part but the whole video is really 291 00:26:44,370 --> 00:26:54,019 ridiculous you have to look it up you're gonna find it on YouTube. And so you know 292 00:26:54,019 --> 00:26:58,399 the story eventually after many years of activism the ban on women driving was 293 00:26:58,399 --> 00:27:03,850 lifted just now. The work, the really hard work of all the activists is just one of 294 00:27:03,850 --> 00:27:08,210 many aspects why it was lifted but we have to appreciate this and here you see some 295 00:27:08,213 --> 00:27:14,268 of the reactions of women in Saudi Arabia being super happy about this development. 296 00:27:14,269 --> 00:27:22,149 And so final thoughts, what can we learn from all of this? I would say one thing 297 00:27:22,149 --> 00:27:25,451 that we can learn from it is the government is not your friend. Whatever 298 00:27:25,451 --> 00:27:31,380 technology is at their disposal they will use and they will not only use it to catch 299 00:27:31,380 --> 00:27:35,460 terrorists and put them in prison but they will also use that technology or these 300 00:27:35,460 --> 00:27:41,080 laws to also persecute activists for example or anybody whom they label as 301 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:46,359 terrorists because of this really vague terms and the cybercrime law. And that is 302 00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,520 also why it's really important that we don't let the government put 303 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,890 backdoors in our safety-- like in our software anywhere because the wisdom the 304 00:27:53,890 --> 00:27:57,590 government is not your friend applies to pretty much every government really if you 305 00:27:57,590 --> 00:27:58,758 think about it. 306 00:27:58,758 --> 00:28:05,150 *applause* 307 00:28:05,150 --> 00:28:08,660 And also you have heard how the Saudi government changes laws and 308 00:28:08,660 --> 00:28:12,900 seemingly becomes more modern and more liberal and tries to appease the young 309 00:28:12,900 --> 00:28:18,660 population but you have to keep in mind that they are still super autocratic, it's 310 00:28:18,660 --> 00:28:22,310 still an absolute monarchy and I don't think that this will change anytime soon 311 00:28:22,310 --> 00:28:28,239 no matter how many news we get next year about like women-- the first woman becomes 312 00:28:28,239 --> 00:28:32,840 Minister of Foreign Affairs or Saudi Crown Prince gives a speech about the importance 313 00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,160 of freedom of religion for the economy or something like this. But still, the 314 00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,980 government is trying to appease the younger generation and the younger folks 315 00:28:40,980 --> 00:28:44,890 and that is at least something and I think one of the important aspects here is, how 316 00:28:44,890 --> 00:28:49,019 do they know with what they can appease the young generation? Well they know it 317 00:28:49,019 --> 00:28:53,939 because the young people keep telling them on social media all the time and they go 318 00:28:53,939 --> 00:28:59,460 to jail over and over for speaking their minds for pushing for change and we have 319 00:28:59,460 --> 00:29:04,170 to acknowledge this as the victory and the sacrifice that it is and it also shows us 320 00:29:04,170 --> 00:29:08,509 that it makes sense to keep speaking up and to tell the government what it is that 321 00:29:08,509 --> 00:29:12,750 they want and what it is that they want to change and to keep up the pressure because 322 00:29:12,750 --> 00:29:17,750 the rule of the royal family rests on a rather unstable religious legitimation so 323 00:29:17,750 --> 00:29:22,159 they have to make an effort to stay in the good graces of the population because they 324 00:29:22,159 --> 00:29:26,100 certainly don't want to see another Arab Spring in their country. 325 00:29:26,100 --> 00:29:30,059 And now I'm hoping that you can take away something from this talk and that it has 326 00:29:30,059 --> 00:29:34,440 helped to-- helped you to see the Saudis in a different light so that next time 327 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,429 when someone talks to you about Saudi Arabia and how they are all rich beheading 328 00:29:38,429 --> 00:29:43,630 bigots you can tell them well, not all Saudis and then you think of the activists 329 00:29:43,630 --> 00:29:47,880 and that you appreciate the hard work that Saudi activists are doing on the ground 330 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:53,299 all the time. There's a lot more I would like to tell you but time is up. If you 331 00:29:53,299 --> 00:29:57,570 are interested in this kind of subject check out some of these talks I saw the 332 00:29:57,570 --> 00:30:02,160 talk "Tightening the net in Iran", it was superb, go and watch it online, see the 333 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:06,820 video, go and see the OONI talk also and lastly I would say thank you very much for 334 00:30:06,820 --> 00:30:08,426 your time and your attention. 335 00:30:08,426 --> 00:30:12,401 *applause* 336 00:30:12,406 --> 00:30:17,053 *34c3 outro* 337 00:30:17,053 --> 00:30:34,000 subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2018. Join, and help us!