Just recently the Egyptian government blocked access to news websites alleging that these websites were guilty of spreading “fake news”.

Several popular new websites were blocked by internet service providers at the request of the Egyptian government. Websites like the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al-Jazeera, Al-Sharq, Masr al-Arabia, Al-Shaab, and Rassd were blocked for publishing “content that supports terrorism and extremism and deliberately spreads lies”. Other websites known for investigative reporting like Mada Masr, and the Huffington Post’s Arabic-language website were also censored.

We’ve seen similar instances of censorship in countries like Russia and China, but Egypt has also been known for harsh censorship in the past. In 2011, mass protests forced President hosni Mubarak from office and the government censored websites, harassed and jailed journalists. In 2016, the Open Observatory of Network Interference reported that Egypt had blocked access to Al-Arab al-Jadid–a London-based news site.

Critics of Egyptian censorship think that free will should prevail over censorship. “Broad censorship of news websites represents a new low in Egypt’s lamentable record on press freedom,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour.”Egyptian authorities should cease blocking news websites and should allow the media to do its job unimpeded.”

Mada Masr, one of the blocked websites reports that the day of the block employees were unaware of the situation. The staff walked into the office unable to access the internet. Lina Attalah, co-founder of Mada Masr, thought that there was an internet outage. This example servers to prove how quick and decisive and how easy censorship can be for governments. Attalah surmised that the blockage was a result of news that could have embarrassed high-ranking officials in the Egyptian government.

Critics surmised that Egyptian internet service providers were using RST injections to censor these news websites. This technique is also popularly used in Chinese censorship.

As of December 2016, at least 25 journalists were still imprisoned in Egypt for writing articles in disagreement with the government.

If you want access to news sites or blocked content in Egypt, you can use TorGuard’s Stealth VPN and Stealth Proxy to encrypt and hide your traffic as well as get around VPN or website restrictions.