The proposal by telecommunications regulatory commissions in Saudi Arabia to ban VoIP services like WhatsApp and Skype, which are an inexpensive and preferred way by many to communicate, particularly between students and families abroad, has caused several in the Saudi media to take issue with the ban.
In this Al Arabiya opinion, republished from al-Hayat on April 1, 2013, Dr. Badria al-Bishr, a lecturer at King Saud University, takes direct issue with the regulatory commissions. Al-Bishr argues that “Monitoring WhatsApp, Skype and Viber in Saudi Arabia is only a threat to get users to pay more money.”
Al-Bishr (in Al-Arabiya via al-Hayat):
“Telecommunications regulatory commissions have the right to act smart with you and, for example, make your mobile number available for advertising companies. And thus the commission gets paid after imposing an obligatory service on you. On the other hand, your mobile device, if you had bought because it is smartphone, does not have the right to do its ‘smart job.'”
Al-Hayat, the Saudi arabic-language newspaper that published the original article from al-Bishr, also reported last week on March 27 that two Saudi human rights organizations “said the government plan to monitor messaging apps like Skype and WhatsApp could infringe on international accords that the government has signed,” according to the english-language Riyadh Bureau.
It is unknown whether the ban will actually happen, and if the ban takes effect, if Saudis will switch to other competing services.
