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*34c3 intro*

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Herald: All right, so the next talk is

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"Catch me if you can: Internet Activism in
Saudi Arabia." Now I have one question for

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you. Who has ever been in Saudi Arabia?
Like, actually in the country. And no,

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Dubai is not Saudi Arabia. I see a couple
of hands, like three or something. That's

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actually more than I thought. I'm
surprised, because you cannot just get a

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tourist visa for Saudi Arabia, even if you
would like to go there. But our next

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speaker, she has been in Saudi Arabia and
actually lived and worked there for two

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years. So Miriam, also known to you maybe
as Noujoum, has quite some knowledge about

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the culture, people, and politics of this
country that seems quite foreign to us

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all. So we're all excited to hear Miriam
now. Give her a nice applause, thanks.

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*applause*

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Noujoum: Thank you very much for the kind

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introduction, and welcome everyone. I'm
super excited to talk to you today about

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internet activism in Saudi Arabia. It's
one of my favorite subjects. I could go on

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and on for hours, but we just have half an
hour. So let's dive right into it. First I

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want to show you what
I want to tell you today about. First I

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want to give you some basic information
about Saudi Arabia. Then we are going to

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look at Saudi Arabia's cybercrime law and
see how it has affected activists in

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recent years, and then I want to talk
about internet censorship and how we can

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actually measure it by running an OONI
probe. And then finally, because I don't

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want to leave you depressed I also want to
spend some minutes on talking about

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positive things. The modern state of Saudi
Arabia was founded in 1932 by the Al Saud

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family, who is still ruling to this very
day and it's an absolute monarchy and the

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culture is dominated by an
ultraconservative branch of Islam that is

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called Wahhabism and due to its riches
from the oil industry, the country is

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actually quite modern when it comes to
commodities and technology. And I'm going

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to throw some statistics at you. The total
population of Saudi Arabia is around 33

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million people and 75% of them are younger
than the age of 30. And you can see here

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the population pyramids of Saudi Arabia
compared with the population pyramid of

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Germany, and you get a very good idea what
a country with a younger population looks

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like versus a country with an older
population. And the young population of

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Saudi Arabia is one of the factors why so
many Saudis are active on social media

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compared to other countries. Around 75% of
the population are owning a smartphone and

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35% are really active on social media, and
active in this case means that they log in

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to their social media accounts at least
once every month. 25% of the population

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are active users on Facebook and 20% of
the population are active on Twitter, and

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Saudi Twitter users account for 40% of all
Twitter users and the whole Arab world,

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and that's a lot of people. And if you
can't remember any of these statistics

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right now, never mind. The important thing
to take away from this is the population

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of Saudi Arabia is
very young and most of them are active on

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social media and on the Internet. And now
that we are all excited about the

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widespread use of social media in Saudi
Arabia, let's have a look at Saudi

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Arabia's cybercrime law. Saudi Arabia
cybercrime law was instated in 2007 and

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the law specifies what is seen as a
cybercrime and which crimes are met with

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which punishments. And most of the
articles are just what you would expect

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from the cybercrime law, but have a look
at article 6 at paragraph 1 that you can

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see here. It says there at the end that a
cyber crime is, like... actions on the

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Internet are considered a cyber crime if
they are a threat to public order,

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religious values, public morals, or
privacy, and then article 7 focuses on

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cyber crimes in relation to terrorism, or
being active on the Internet in regards to

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terrorism. And as you can probably
imagine, the problem here is that these

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are super vague terms that are not really
defined, which means that any judge can

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give his own interpretation of what he
thinks qualifies as a cyber crime, what he

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thinks is a threat to public safety or to
public morals. In 2011 the cybercrime law

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was overhauled and the Saudi government
introduced

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new rules and regulations, so that now
internet newspapers and also bloggers had

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to obtain a license from the Ministry of
Culture and Information. And in 2014 the

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cybercrime law was overhauled once again,
so that now the Saudi authorities could

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also take legal action against social
networking sites like Twitter, because

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they would allow accounts to be active
that would supposedly promote adultery,

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homosexuality, and atheism. And Saudi
authorities are also trying to regulate

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the content of YouTube channels. And now
you would think that something that is

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called cybercrime law is used to actually
chase and catch and convict the bad guys,

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and the cybercrime law actually does that.
In July this year a Saudi man was

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sentenced to seven years in prison and a
ten years travel ban because he was

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supporting the terror organization Daesh,
also called ISIS, and he had tried to

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travel to Syria and also support the
fighting there. But he was also convicted

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of other charges. He was also convicted
of charges saying that he was preparing,

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storing, and sending material that would
harm the public through his tweets. And

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also his tweets were supposedly insulting
the Saudi rulers. His cell phone was

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confiscated, his Twitter account was
closed, and he is forbidden to tweet for

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up to five years after his release from
prison. Now this is just one case, but up

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until 2014 the Saudi religious police
claimed that they had closed over 10,000

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Twitter accounts and they had arrested
plenty of users because of religious and

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ethical violations. But some of the people
who are prosecuted under the Saudi

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cybercrime law are actually just liberal
activists. They are young people who try

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to form a movement. They want to be
outspoken on the Internet. They want to

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campaign and push for change. And now
we're going to meet some of them. First up

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is Ashraf Fayadh. He is an artist and a
poet and he was arrested and sentenced

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because of apostasy, because of things
that he supposedly said on Twitter and in

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one of his books. And when police failed
to bring proof of his apostasy or atheism

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they said that he was arrested because he
was smoking and wearing long hair. And it

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is actually suspected that he was arrested
because previously he had made a video of

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Saudi religious police lashing a young man
in public, in his home town Abha, and he

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had then posted that video online. And a
lot of people think that this is the real

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reason why he was arrested. And his
sentence has changed many times in

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different appeal courts, from four years
in prison and eight hundred lashes, to a

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death sentence because of the supposed
apostasy, and then back to eight years in

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prison and eight hundred lashes. And
Amnesty International classifies Fayadh as

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a prisoner of conscience. As far as I
know, he is still in prison today. Hamza

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Kashgari is also young poet and a writer.
He was arrested because of three tweets

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that he had written about a fictive
meeting with the

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Prophet Mohammed. He was accused of
blasphemy or apostasy as well, to which

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the penalty is usually death under sharia
law. He tried to leave the country and

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claim asylum in New Zealand, but he was
caught at Kuala Lumpur Airport and he was

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brought back to Saudi Arabia and arrested,
and he was held in prison for two years

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without trial. And similar to the case of
Ashraf Fayadh, the accusation of apostasy

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is actually highly suspicious to be an
excuse, because Kashkari was very publicly

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outspoken on the internet and social
media. He had supported the Arab Spring.

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He was supporting pro-democracy movements
in Saudi Arabia. He had criticized

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authorities about mishandling the Jeddah
flat disaster and other issues. And he was

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released in October 2013. Mariam Al Otaibi
is a young Saudi woman who was arrested

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because she was very active in the
movement against the male guardianship

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system. And she was very active in the
movement to abolish the system. As you

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see, in Saudi Arabia,
every woman has to have a male guardian.

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And even when they are a grown ups, when
they are adults. And why is that a

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problem? Without the permission, or the
consent, of their male legal guardians,

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women cannot go to university, they cannot
take up jobs, they can't go see the

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doctor, they can't leave the country and a
lot of other things. And the Guardian can

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be their father, husband, uncle, brother,
or even their son. And activist in Saudi

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Arabia have fought for a very long time to
abolish this male guardianship system. And

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here you can see the Twitter account of
Mariam Al Otaibi. You can see that she has

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almost 50,000 followers. And here, in her
Twitter bio, you see one of the core

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hashtags of the movement in which she is
active, and it's an Arabic hashtag and it

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translates to "Saudi women want the
abolishment of the guardianship system."

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Mariam actually herself tried to flee her
abusive brothers and her father, and she

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moved to a different city to live her own
life. And then

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she was arrested at her workplace because
her father had filed a runaway report. But

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very soon, the charges against her changed
from being a runaway to disruption of

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public order because of her activism on
Twitter. And her house was searched and

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her cellphone and her laptop were
confiscated. And after 104 days in

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detention without trial, she was released
in July this year. And her release was

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actually deemed a very big success and a
victory by Saudi feminists because she was

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released from prison without the presence
or the permission of a male guardian,

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because usually how it works is if a woman
is released from prison, her male guardian

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has to pick her up. If he doesn't do that
she just stays in detention. But she was

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released just like that. And here you can
see two designs of the Saudi artist

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MsSaffaa. On the left you see a poster
that she designed to support the release

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of Mariam Al Otaibi from prison.
The hashtag says "We are all Miriam Al

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Otaibi." And on the right you see another
design that she did, that is very famous

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for the movement to
abolish the mayor guardianship system,

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and this hashtag says "I am my own
guardian." Loujain AlHathloul is another

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young Saudi woman who was arrested in
December 2014 when she was trying to drive

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her car over the border from the United
Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia. Shortly

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before, she had tweeted "follow me on
Twitter to find out what will happen at

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the border." And she had for a very long
time been active in the woman to drive

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movement. That means that she had already
posted videos of herself driving in Saudi

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Arabia online, showing how she was defying
the ban on women driving. She live-tweeted

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this whole experience of being detained at
the border. Her passport was confiscated.

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Her friend and lawyer, who came to her
support, was also arrested, and ultimately

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she was released after 73 days without
trial. Raif Badawi is probably the

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activists that most of you have heard of,
because Amnesty International did a huge

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campaign to support his release, and also
his wife is very active, publicly, to

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work for his release. He is a writer and
an activist, and he was arrested in 2012.

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He was charged of insulting Islam through
electronic channels and he was brought to

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court on several charges, including
apostasy, and as you already know by now,

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the death penalty is included when you are
charged of apostasy. And similar to Ashraf

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Fayadh, his sentence was changed multiple
times in different appeal courts and

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eventually
he was sentenced to 10 years in prison

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and a fine and thousand lashes, of which
only the first 50 were administered,

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probably because of international
attention and outrage. And what got Raif

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Badawi in trouble in the first place was
setting up a website that was called Free

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Saudi Liberals. In court he was accused of
setting up a website that undermines

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general security, ridiculing Islamic
religious figures, and going beyond the

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realm of obedience. And he was told that
his website would violate Islamic values

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and propagates liberal thought. And the
court ordered his website to be closed and

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he is still in prison today. 
The last activist that

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we are going to look at is Muhammad Salih
Al Bajadi. He was, prior to his arrest,

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also very politically active. In 2009, for
example, he managed a website that was

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called "monitor of human rights in Saudi
Arabia." And he is also the co-founder of

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a Saudi Arabian human rights organization
called "the Saudi Civil and Political

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Rights Association." He was also arrested.
His office was searched. And Amnesty

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International labeled him a prisoner of
conscience as well. And they said that he

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was held solely for the peaceful exercise
of his rights to freedom of expression,

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assembly, and association. But in court,
however, he was charged with insurrection

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against the ruler, instigating
demonstrations, and speaking with foreign

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media channels. And
he was sentenced to four years in prison

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and a five-year ban on foreign travels.
Now, even if you don't see yourself as an

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activist, if you are active on social
media in Saudi Arabia you can find

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yourself the center of unwanted attention
in just a second. There are some

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conservatives who would flat-out think
that being on Twitter is a sin in and of

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itself, as you can see here. And just
three month ago, actually, Saudi

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authorities urged citizens to monitor each
other and to report posts on social media

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that would harm the state's reputation. So
as you can imagine, that leads to a huge

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level of self-censorship. When I was
living and working in Saudi Arabia, I once

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talked to a work contact and I asked him
why he wasn't more active on Twitter, and

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he said the first day that he had signed
up on Twitter, he had received a direct

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message by a person he didn't know, and
the message just said "welcome. We are

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watching you." And when you live in Saudi
Arabia and you don't use a VPN or TOR all

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the time you inevitably run across a
website that is blocked at some point. For

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me, for example, that was the search
engine StartPage. When I was trying to

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access that page, I would land on a site
that would look like this. And Saudi

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authorities are hosting
a firewall which blocks access to

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thousands of websites. Actually the Saudi
authorities, they openly acknowledge that

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widespread filtering takes place, and they
would say that it targets pornographic,

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Islam related, human rights, and political
sites. And as you can imagine, criticism

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of the royal family and of Islamic
teachings is generally not tolerated. Now,

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rewind three years. Three years ago at
Congress I ran into a guy named Arturo,

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and he told me how he and his friends were
working on this OONI project, and they

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were running probes all over the world to
measure the extent of filtering and

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Internet censorship in different
countries. And so we teamed up and we did

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some measuring in Saudi Arabia. And OONI
stands for Open Observatory of Network

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Interference. And I would very much like
Arturo to come on stage for a few minutes

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and to tell you himself what OONI is all
about, and how running that probe in Saudi

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Arabia worked.

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Arturo: Thank you Miriam

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*applause*

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Arturo: So, yeah. As
??? three years ago we met and

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I was already working at the time on this
project ??????????? for the Open

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Observatory of Network Interference. What
we do is we're a community mass project

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I guess that does network
measurements with

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??? of what we
call "network interference" or "network

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?????????." That can be a sign of internet
censorship or surveillance

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And we do this for a variety of different
????????? look into the blocking of

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websites such as the one we saw in the
previous slide in Saudi Arabia. But also

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whether or not circumvention tools like
tor, VPNs work or do not work or whether

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or not and how instant messaging apps are
blocked or not blocked around the world

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and we do this through some apps that can
be installed either on your mobile phone

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or on your computer and these are run by
tens of thousands of volunteers around the

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world to gather evidence of internet
censorship around the world.

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I guess I will not go too much into what
OONI does because we actually have an

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assembly on the third floor where you--
called the OONIverse and you are welcome

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to come by and we can tell you all about
it but also we have a longer presentation

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on the third day at 2:30 in borg room and
there I can go more into what OONI is

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about and how we have been working with
people like Miriam to collect sort of

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undeniable evidence that internet
censorship is happening but also how.

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Miriam: Perfect thank you very much. I
would very much suggest that you go and

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see that talk as well.

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*applause*

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So apart from the
websites that you would expect to be

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blocked in Saudi Arabia like porn and
gambling websites or the website of the

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Israeli Secret Service there are plenty of
other websites that are blocked and OONI

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has compiled a very huge and comprehensive
list of different websites that are

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blocked in Saudi Arabia that you can find
on their website and I brought you three

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short examples just to show you what kind
of websites could be blocked.

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On the left you always see the information
that is provided on the OONI web page and

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on the right side you see a screenshot of
the actual web site that is blocked in

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Saudi Arabia. So first up we have Al-
Manar, Al-Manar is a news media web site

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with ties to Hezbollah. Second we have
bahai.org, the Bahai­ are a religious

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group, they are a religious minority and
they are oppressed in pretty much all of

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the Arab countries. You can see that
actually their website is also blocked in

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the United Kingdom and in Italy for
whatever reason. And thirdly we have

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proxify.com, it's just one of many
examples of different websites that offer

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services of anonymity and of
circumvention. And now because I don't

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want to leave you too depressed when you
leave this talk I also want to look at

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some positive things that have happened as
well because despite all this persecution

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that I have talked about up until now
activists in Saudi Arabia have been able to

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secure some very important victories in
the past years and if you have followed

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the news lately a little bit then maybe
you have noticed that a lot of things are

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happening in Saudi Arabia, a lot of laws
and traditions are changing and because of

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time restraints I'm only focusing on two
issues here right now that I personally

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find especially important.
So the first example are the Saudi

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municipal elections in 2015 these were the
very first elections when women in Saudi

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Arabia were allowed to actively and
passively participate in the elections and

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in the end 20 women were elected to
municipal councils out of 2,000 seats that

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were open in these elections and women had
to overcome incredible hurdles to

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participate or to be candidates. For
example, organizations that were set up to

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educate women about the elections to help
them to run as candidates and to tell them

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how to register these organizations were
forbidden. Female candidates weren't

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allowed to hold public rallies, they were
not allowed to give speeches online, in

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TV, in public.
They were not allowed to post pictures of

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their faces put them on posters or post
them anywhere really. So women were

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basically confined to campaigning online
really and especially registering as

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candidates but also as voters was super
hard some women were flat-out denied being

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registered without being given any reason
but one problem that also the men actually

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had one problem was that voters in order
to be registered they had to bring proof

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of their residency and they would usually
prove that by showing a rental contract.

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Now the problem is that women cannot
produce a rental contract because their

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names are not on these contracts but the
names of their fathers or their husbands.

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That's just one of the many problems they
had and this is one example from YouTube

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because up until now I have talked a lot
about Twitter but there's also a huge and

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thriving and very important YouTube scene
in Saudi Arabia and the following video is

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by a famous Saudi YouTube group and they
are called Telfaz11 and they have a

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regular show that is called ??? and
this clip is actually part from one of

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their shows and they produced this video
mocking how women were organizing and how

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women had to work so hard to just
participate in these elections while men

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were just lazy and enjoying their
privileges and now let's see if this

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works.

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So that's just one example. I like them
very much because they have a very fine

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sense of where the red lines are and how
much fun they can actually make of the

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government and of actual problems that
persevere in Saudi Arabia. And then we

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have another example, three months ago the
Saudi King announced that he would lift

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the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia
and starting from May next year women

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would be for the first time ever be-- oh
not for first time ever, for the first

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time in a long time they would be allowed
to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, and

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activists had campaigned for this change
they had campaigned for the lift of the

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ban on women driving for a long time for
many years that's a long story I don't

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have that much time as I want to to talk
to you about it but we have one example

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here one out of many and this is a music
video from 2013 and this went viral in

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Saudi Arabia and they were supporting the
campaign by the women to drive movement

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who were trying to get the ban lifted and
in their music video they are making fun

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of the baseless arguments that were used
to justify the driving ban, why women were

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not allowed to drive cars and the context
for the fall of 2013 is that at this time,

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a lot of women were defying the ban on
women driving, they were driving around,

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they were filming themselves while doing
it, they were posting all these videos

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online a lot of women were arrested yet
more women were driving around and yeah

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that was just one of the videos that came
out at that time, I also want to show it

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to you.

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All right just wanted to show you this short 
short part but the whole video is really

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ridiculous you have to look it up you're
gonna find it on YouTube. And so you know

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the story eventually after many years of
activism the ban on women driving was

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lifted just now. The work, the really hard
work of all the activists is just one of

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many aspects why it was lifted but we have
to appreciate this and here you see some

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of the reactions of women in Saudi Arabia
being super happy about this development.

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And so final thoughts, what can we learn
from all of this? I would say one thing

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that we can learn from it is the
government is not your friend. Whatever

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technology is at their disposal they will
use and they will not only use it to catch

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terrorists and put them in prison but they
will also use that technology or these

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laws to also persecute activists for
example or anybody whom they label as

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terrorists because of this really vague
terms and the cybercrime law. And that is

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also why it's really important
that we don't let the government put

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backdoors in our safety-- like in our
software anywhere because the wisdom the

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government is not your friend applies to
pretty much every government really if you

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think about it.

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*applause*

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And also you have heard
how the Saudi government changes laws and

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seemingly becomes more modern and more
liberal and tries to appease the young

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population but you have to keep in mind
that they are still super autocratic, it's

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still an absolute monarchy and I don't
think that this will change anytime soon

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no matter how many news we get next year
about like women-- the first woman becomes

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00:28:28,239 --> 00:28:32,840
Minister of Foreign Affairs or Saudi Crown
Prince gives a speech about the importance

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of freedom of religion for the economy or
something like this. But still, the

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government is trying to appease the
younger generation and the younger folks

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and that is at least something and I think
one of the important aspects here is, how

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do they know with what they can appease
the young generation? Well they know it

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because the young people keep telling them
on social media all the time and they go

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to jail over and over for speaking their
minds for pushing for change and we have

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to acknowledge this as the victory and the
sacrifice that it is and it also shows us

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that it makes sense to keep speaking up
and to tell the government what it is that

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they want and what it is that they want to
change and to keep up the pressure because

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the rule of the royal family rests on a
rather unstable religious legitimation so

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they have to make an effort to stay in the
good graces of the population because they

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certainly don't want to see another Arab
Spring in their country.

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And now I'm hoping that you can take away
something from this talk and that it has

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helped to-- helped you to see the Saudis
in a different light so that next time

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when someone talks to you about Saudi
Arabia and how they are all rich beheading

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00:29:38,429 --> 00:29:43,630
bigots you can tell them well, not all
Saudis and then you think of the activists

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and that you appreciate the hard work that
Saudi activists are doing on the ground

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all the time. There's a lot more I would
like to tell you but time is up. If you

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are interested in this kind of subject
check out some of these talks I saw the

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talk "Tightening the net in Iran", it was
superb, go and watch it online, see the

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video, go and see the OONI talk also and
lastly I would say thank you very much for

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00:30:06,820 --> 00:30:08,426
your time and your attention.

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*applause*

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*34c3 outro*