Damascus-based bloggers reported Wednesday thatSyrian Telecom, one of two main internet service providers in Syria,has blocked access to all blogs hosted at Blogger.com. Any blogassociated with the domain name blogspot.com was not accessible bySyrian Telecom subscribers as of February 15.

The other main state-owned ISP, the Syrian Computer Society (SCS), hasagain blocked access to Al-Domari, a political satirical blog that wasblocked by SCS on January 26, but unblocked again a few days later. TheSCS did not censor any other blogspot.com addresses.

Most Syrian blogs are hosted at Blogspot.com. And as a result of this move, at least 70 Syrian blogs will not be accessible to approximately 126,000 subscribers of the Syrian Telecom ISP.

It is not clear whether Syrian Telecom had intended to censor allBlogspot addresses or blocked them in an effort to censor Al-Domari. Theaddress www.blogger.com, which Blogspot subscribers use to post and controlsettings on their blogs, is still accessible on both Syrian Telecom andSCS.

It's ironic that Syrian Telcom has recently published an article introducing blogging and highlighting the importance of blogs. Following are some excerpts translated from Arabic:

Blogs can become a serious rival to conventional media, because oftheir ability to draw attention and because of their accessibility andinteractivity. In addition, a blog does not need a huge capital nor apermission from authorities. [...]

In the Arab World, the blogging phenomenon is spreading quickly, withthe number of blogs reaching thousands. In this region,where the freedom of speech is limited, blogs are of high importancebecause they present an alternative to censored media and an outlet ofcriticism for those who want to express their suppressed feelings. [...]

It's worth mentioning that the spread of blogs in Arab countries thatban private newspapers or media outlets, poses a challenge to theauthorities because censorship is practically difficult, while closingdown blogs can evoke negative reactions more than serving theauthorities' objectives.

It's action time! I could not find the email address of the SyrianTelecom ISP. It is not listed on their website and they don't have afeedback form. (though I found one at their main website). Anyway, theSyrian Telecom ISP can be reached at phone numbers 3087 (technicalsupport) and 3086 (customer care).

SCS can be contacted at support@scs-net.org orcustomer-care@scs-net.org  and telephone numbers 9955 (technicalsupport) and 9981 (customer care).

Update @ 2/15/05 5:45 PM: Possibly because of the huge load of complaints it  is receiving, theSCS has changed the message that users get when trying to access ablocked site. The new message says:

"This website is blocked according to the regulations of the service-governing party which is Syrian Telecom."

The old version said: "This page cannot be displayed because itbelongs to a blocked website. For more information, please contactTechnical Support at support@scs-net.org"

Update @ 2/20/05 2:20 PM: Syrian Telecom has unblocked Blogspot.com. Al-Domari remains blocked.