Blogger in KSA Blocked Within the Kingdom

Sand Gets in My Eyes is one of my favorite reads among the blogs coming out of Saudi Arabia. It is written by an American woman with grown children who has lived in Saudi Arabia for several years with her American husband who works for Aramco. Her posts are always well written and thought provoking. She writes with passion about important topics regarding women's and children's issues and societal problems.

Her blog has been blocked from viewing within Saudi Arabia. This happened to my own blog about a year and a half ago. Websites that are blocked are usually blocked because they contain pornography or show too much skin, religious (especially when they are critical of Islam), or sites that are critical of the Saudi government or culture. Many people do not realize the stress that bloggers in the Middle East are under because there is no freedom of speech here like in the West. Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan was imprisoned in KSA in December of 2007 for criticizing the corruption in this country and advocating for change. No charges were ever brought against him, he had very limited contact with his family, and he was thankfully released four months later.

Above is the page that people within Saudi Arabia see when a website is blocked in the country. This situation can often be rectified by the government department which blocked it in the first place, likely the result of receiving a complaint and going ahead and blocking the blog without really looking into it. If enough people send in requests to unblock the website, then someone at the Saudi government internet office will physically go in and look at the site and hopefully come to the conclusion to unblock it.

Here is the link to the page where you can file an "Unblock Request." It's a very short and easy to fill out form. Please help FREE Sand Gets in My Eyes!