Syria plans to add 200,000 new Internet connections by 2001, moving swiftly on a project, promoted by the country’s President Bashar Assad, who has pledged to take Syria into the computer age, Khaleej Times reported Friday.
Board member of the Syrian Computer Society (SCS) Saadalla Agha Kalaa said that the new connections would be additional to the 7,000 available now. He added that access to international web sites would be unrestricted but the government reserved the right to block access to web sites deemed unethical or immoral.
"The sites which the government will continue to bar are those banned in many countries for ethical reasons. But even those ones the government knows that it cannot fully control the access to them," he added.
"For that reason, the SCS would encourage a policy of spreading awareness among youth about those sites rather than banning them in the future. I believe all Syrians under the new plan would have free access to all electronic mail sites." Syrian statistics show the number of users of a single connection point is about 15 people as the Internet is installed mainly in public offices, universities and big private businesses. The normal average is about three people for each connection point, the paper added – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
