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Egyptian Government Blocks Anonymous Mobile Phone Accounts

Posted on: Monday, 5 May 2008, 20:18 CDT

Officials with two of Egypt’s mobile phone companies said Monday they are complying with government requests to block service to anonymous subscribers.  The request was made as a public security measure as the government attempts to suppress public frustration amid rising prices and low wages that have set off a series of strikes against the government. The strikes were planned and mobilized primarily through mobile phones and the Internet.

The mobile phone block is expected to affect several hundred thousand customers who did not register their names and addresses when they obtained mobile phone service,  phone lines.

"Everyone who uses the telephone must be known," Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid said during a news conference, reiterating that the block was needed for "public security".

A spokesman for Vodafone Egypt, one of the country’s three mobile operators, said the company had disabled text messaging capabilities for anonymous subscribers, and had asked them to come forward with their details.

Rival wireless operator Mobinil EMOB.CA associated the block to the Egyptian government’s plans for mobile number portability, which would allow subscribers to keep their original phone number if they change service providers.

"We are contacting our subscribers to update their data in order to avoid future suspension or disconnection," a Mobinil investor relations official told Reuters.

Egypt's third mobile operator, Etisalat, was not available for comment, but both Mobinil EMOB.CA  and Vodafone Egypt said they were acting as a result of a government request .

Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based political analyst, told Reuters there were "legitimate security reasons" for the move by telecoms regulators, but was skeptical of the timing.

"The timing raises eyebrows because it coincided with the calls for a strike," Zarwan said. "I think it is worrisome."

"In the last strike, the organizers took out new cell phones just for the occasion and were very, very careful of talking on their own phones with the assumption that their phones were already tapped," he said, speaking of an April 6 action.

Liberal political activists called for a new strike against rising food prices on Sunday, coincident with President Hosni Mubarak’s 80th birthday. However, most Egyptians ignored the call, indicating that the leftist activists may lack the ability to mobilize large-scale public opposition.

According to Egypt's financial daily, Al-Mal, the move to block anonymous subscribers is associated with concerns that such lines could be misused in "acts of terror".   The National Telecoms Regulatory Authority, the agency that made the request, had no immediate comment.  

Between 2004 and 2006, Islamist militants carried out bomb attacks on tourist areas in the Sinai Peninsula between.  But the attacks have not occurred again since that time.

In recent years, Egypt, the most populous Arab country, has also tried to quell peaceful political dissent.  The government has launched waves of arrests, mainly targeted at the opposition Muslim Brotherhood but which have also included some activists and bloggers opposed to the Egyptian government.   

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Vodafone Egypt

Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports

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