Talk:Baháʼí Faith in the United Arab Emirates

Legitimacy of Adherents

Smkolins, thank you for reviewing and working on the site. Prior to moving to the States, I was a member of the Baha'i community in the UAE. The numbers stated in regards to adherents is a bit far far off the charts from what reality represents. Based on best estimates, Baha'is hardly reach 1100 adherents at present. ABehjat (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate those understandings ABehjat. I'm a Baha'i too. The problem is that 1) such personal observations are not backed by publications and 2) definitions of who is and isn't an Baha'i are dependent exactly on specifics. Baha'is have not generally published exactly what the definition is in the case of the UAE. For that matter neither has this statistical publication. But it is very likely not the same exact definitions. Never-the-less it is published and a reputable source. Moreover the only study examining the validity of the basis of this source has affirmed it's overall agreement with other data sets. See World Christian Encyclopedia for ref #3 - this is an earlier incarnation of the same data set as used by ARDA. It may well be off for Baha'is - but to argue the case without a source is to invite arguments of OR. All that being said I'm perfectly willing to include any revised stats that come out or studies that reflect an examination of these sources. But I'm not in favor of editing based on personal opinion not backed up by reliable sources. That's all I'm trying to do. --Smkolins (talk) 01:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I see. So, is it possible to remove the source for adherents, or state in the tone of "one source suggests the number of adherents is..." ABehjat (talk) 19:12, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Removing it would be an incorrect approach - it is a reliable source so to make the article better it doesn't serve to remove valid material. And saying "one source" implies somehow it is limited when I just pointed out the overall validity of the source has been held up. If there are other source that give more numbers then by all means let them be included. Or find more studies that examine or even just comment on the kinds of results. The goal is to make the article better by referring to reliable sources. For example the 2010 version is out - see [1] which is rather different than the 51k reported in 2005. The problem then is speculating about the change doesn't help - that's not allowed. But perhaps some evidence can be found for emigration? Or some other cause for the revision? Looking for evidence on the subject or overall about the religion in UAE would make the article better. It's a pretty brief article anyway and could certainly use more information. --Smkolins (talk) 04:24, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Internet service provider

Smkolins, this is a great article. I read through it and think it is put together fairly well. There was just one thing that I would like to discuss. The last sentence of the article says:

However, the country's sole Internet service provider, Etisalat, sometimes block websites relating to the Bahá'í Faith.

Etisalat is no longer the sole provider. A new provider, du, was created in 2006. Please see Communications in the United Arab Emirates#Duopoly for a quick overview. But, I am unsure if du also blocks websites relating to Bahá'í. I just thought I should inform you of this. I am not sure how you would like to change the wording to include this information. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 03:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite right - I saw something about du as a telco but now see it's an ISP. The citation about filtering is older than du coming along(2005). There is mention of the filtering in the State Dept. reference but it's vague. Hmmm.... wording....

However, the country's long term Internet service provider, Etisalat, sometimes block websites relating to the Bahá'í Faith. The newest ISP, du, was created in 2006 and it's unclear what it's filtering practices are.

What do you think? The Dupoly link above mentions some filtering but nothing Baha'i specific.-- (talk) 03:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

hmmm on further thought... However, the country's long term Internet service provider, Etisalat, sometimes block websites relating to the Bahá'í Faith. The newest ISP, du, has been ordered to do similar filtering. See Communications in the United Arab Emirates.

-- (talk) 04:04, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Those two sentences sound akward. In the second one, it says "... has been ordered to do similar filtering." But, there is no source for that and I doubt we can get it. Sometimes in the UAE there is selective self-censorship because there are no definitive laws against certain things. So maybe, du does block Bahá'í-related websites, but not because it is ordered to do so. But, we have no way of finding this information. So, how about saying:

However, the country's primary Internet service provider, Etisalat, sometimes blocks websites relating to the Bahá'í Faith.

We can just leave out whether du does it or not and only mention Etisalat just because there is a source for it and because it is the largest provider. It that okay? I would also like to recommend leaving a message on User:MMuzammils's talk page. This editor seems to have some knowledge on the issue of censorship in the United Arab Emirates and may be able to help you. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 06:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. By "similar" I was actually refering to things not mentioned in the article. All the reviews of the filtering refer to sex issues. That's in common. The citation for the Baha'i Faith is a particular extension known in the one case and not the other. But it would be consistent for a government agency to have a policy which the ISPs are bound to do. It's seems most unlikely a particular ISP would begin filtering things not asked for. But that's not citable of course.--Smkolins (talk) 17:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello Everyone! Leitmanp, good to see you active as always :-) I went through the first two pages of Google search results. Neither Etisalat nore du are blocking access to any site related to the Bahá'í Faith in the UAE, they're all accessible. If you have any specifc sites, I can check if those are accessible or not here. Please note, I wouldn't rely on that Communications in the United Arab Emirates page too much its pretty outdated. —IncidentFlux _{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 05:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

So MMuzammils, do you know if some of those websites are no longer blocked or if only certain ones are blocked but not the ones you visited? Also, did you check both English and Arabic sites? Can you also check these religion-related websites that (according to the source provided for the Bahá'í blocking (which is from 2005)) are listed as the only four religion websites that were blocked out of a total of 50 that were tested: http://www.answering-christianity.com/, http://www.aish.com/, http://www.bahai.org/, http://www.bahai.com/.

Now, back to Bahá'í. I looked through that source to find exactly what it says about the Bahá'í censorship. Here is one paragraph about it:

EMIRNET blocks some of the most visible Bahai Web sites (two of the top 10 results in Arabic and 4 of the top 10 results in English from a Google query). This blocking, however, does not extend to most material concerning the Bahai faith in either language - only 6% of the top 100 results in Arabic, 10% of the top 100 in English, and 7% of the dmoz sites on the subject were filtered.

As you can clearly see, a large majority of the sites related to Bahá'í are not blocked. I propose a rewording of that sentence. It would be best to include the percentage of Bahá'í-related sites that are blocked instead of just saying that some sites are blocked, which is vague. More precise data is better.

MMuzammils, although this is not related to the Bahá'í discussion, it is a perfect opportunity to ask it. On that source, it mentions EMIRNET and UAEUNET. What are these? Are they related to Etisalat? Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 01:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Your first two links are blocked by Etisalat but fine with du. No I didn't check Arabic sites, only English results. Calculating a percentage accurately isn't easy. I've never heard of EMIRNET and UAEUNET, As far back as I can remember, it was always referred to as Etisalat.—IncidentFlux _{[ TalkBack | Contributions ]} 11:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thank you MMuzammils. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 23:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

A rewording could and should be done better. A couple notes:

• It's not that just a small subset of of Baha'i websites are blocked, but it is that the official Baha'i websites in English and Arabic are blocked.
• We have to go with what is verifiable. The document specifically talks about Etisalat, and not Du, so we can't mention anything about Du.
• We also can't have original research. If there is a newer document that states that Baha'i websites are now accessible, then the statement can be removed/edited.

And regarding EMIRNET and UAEUNET the article states "EMIRNET is the network utilized by the sole public ISP within the UAE, while UAEUNET is a university-specific network. EMIRNET is the only public network in the UAE; UAEUNET is the network of the United Arab Emirates University and is operated through its Information Technology Center."

I'll try rewording the sentence. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 03:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

A good result I'd say. --Smkolins (talk) 22:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 23:55, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

What if the source for Du and Etisalat are present within the Department of State's "Religious Freedom" report (from 2009)? "The country's two Internet service providers, Etisalat and du, occasionally blocked websites containing religious information. These sites included information on the Baha'i Faith, Judaism, atheism, negative critiques of Islam, and testimonies of former Muslims who converted to Christianity. The Government's Cyber Crime Law provides penalties for using the Internet to preach against Islam, inciting someone to commit sin, and using the Internet to promote a breach of public decency. No incidents were reported during the period covered by this report." (http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2009/127360.htm) ABehjat (talk) 21:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

ABehjat is that substantially different than

However, as of 2005, the country's long-term Internet service provider at the time, Etisalat, blocked some of the most visible websites related to the Bahá'í Faith. The blocking did not extend to most material concerning the Bahá'í Faith on the internet however.

As for the basic use of the "Religious Freedom" report - yes it can be included but it seems to me that the used source of "Internet Filtering in the United Arab Emirates in 2004-2005: A Country Study". "Reports - Case Studies - 2005". OpenNet Initiative. 2005." states both that filtering exists and that the filtering is limited. --Smkolins (talk) 01:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC)