My harmless little blog Cool Travel Guide has been blocked in Syria for a whole 24 hours – I was confronted with the dreaded “Access Denied” sign when I tried to update it yesterday.
But, there’s been a miracle, or someone came to their senses, and now I can access it. I realize my mistake – my Syrian friends and advisors on Twitter tell me it’s because I used the ‘I’ word, which I’m not about to use again, so guess all you like.
So, how did it get unblocked? Did the censors actually read the content and realise my content was harmless? That I was just a travel writer who writes about places she loves and stays clear of politics here? Or was it that the Minister for Information and her staff, who were staying at the same hotel as us last night, overheard my loud complaints to the general manager this morning? Ha! Ha! In this part of the world, stranger things have happened.* Either way, I can post for the moment, but if you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know why. Come and follow me on Twitter at @laradunston instead.
Post-script: this post and my tweets on Twitter generated scores of responses via email and Twitter about blogging in Syria. Most were friendly messages from Syrian bloggers, IT experts and officials, with tips on how to get around proxies, using Blogger/Blogspot and other blogging software in Syria, and advice on what’s acceptable and what’s not regarding blog content. Just as there are censors in the UAE who sit in a empty with black textas marking lines through magazines and ripping out pages, there are also censors in Syria who do block blogs and sites. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to follow everyone’s advice – it was an incredibly busy trip with little time for blogging unfortunately – but a huge thanks to everyone who got in touch.