Image via WikipediaThe internet traffic in Syria was suspended unannounced and abruptly by the orders of the Syrian government, just in attempt to suppress the fast-growing revolt in the Middle Eastern nation. According to an internet traffic monitory firm, Renesys, the blockage “starting at 3:35 UTC today, lead to approximately two thirds of all Syrian networks being unreachable from the global Internet.” It was published on the official website of Renesys that “over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table.”Almost every mobile phone operator and Internet service provider (ISP) was largely affected by this unreasonable act. It was stated in today’s issue of The Wall Street Journal, that all the government-run websites of Syria, like the Oil Ministry’s website, were still operational even at the time of the suspension. Syria has kept a sporadically spread ban on the major online social networking services, like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, for the last several months. But this time the internet was not blocked for only these handfuls of websites, but the full time internet access was suspended in the most of the country.
This of the government is most likely going to make the protests even more aggressive and intensified than they were before. Just this Friday, a protest against the government went so fierce that it had to be broken down by the security forces, and by their own gun fires at least 34 lives were lost. This uprising against the government’s rule, which is initiated since around late January, has its focal point set on the president of the country, Bashar Al-Assad and not the government as a whole. Al-Assad took the office of the Presidency in 2000 after the death of his father, who ruled the country for previous 29-years.The situation of Syria is developing to take the story very much similar to the Former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak also began suppressing the uprisings in his country by suspending the Internet services in his country while it was at its peak of gathering a revolt. Though it is true that without the internet it was definitely difficult for the protestors to organize themselves, but on the other hand, it also gave the drive and courage which resulted in the Egyptian revolution. All the efforts of Egyptian president were unsuccessful and he had to resign finally on 11th February, 2011.
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