Egypt court rejects Facebook ban lawsuit

Egypt court rejects Facebook ban lawsuit
A Cairo court rejected on Tuesday a lawsuit requesting a ban on social networking website Facebook on grounds that it 'threatened national security'.
2 min read
26 August, 2015
Cairo's administrative court has ruled against the banning of Facebook [Getty]

Cairo's administrative court has rejected a lawsuit requesting a ban on social networking website Facebook on Tuesday, according to local media.

Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud Guwaili had filed the lawsuit against the country's Prime Minister and the minister of communications and information technology to request the banning of Facebook as it "corrupts morals" and "incites vice".

Guwaili also claimed in his lawsuit that Facebook "attracts those who seek forbidden pleasure" and "allows for the rapid spread of rumors".

"Users can create accounts [on Facebook] easily and with little information, in an almost random and unregulated manner, which allows rumormongers to create fake pages under the name of state institutions, such as the official pages of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Interior", the lawsuit claimed.

According to the court, in its response to Guwaili's lawsuit, banning Facebook would "undermine freedoms and rights enshrined in article 65 of the 2014 Egyptian constitution".

"I would like to salute the court for this respectable ruling"
- TV host Ramy Radwan

The court also said that even Saudi Arabia, which strictly applies the Islamic Sharia law, does not ban Facebook, as such step would be an "attack on freedoms", which would in turn lead to grave consequences.

In addition, the court pointed out to the technical difficulties regarding imposing a full ban on the social networking website, saying that Egypt does not have the authority shut it down since it is registered in the US.

Egyptian TV host Ramy Radwan commended the court's ruling in his show on Ten satellite channel.

"Perhaps the reasons why the lawyer filed this lawsuit are real", said Radwan, "but the manner by which he tackled the problem is wrong".

"Imposing a ban will not solve the problem. On the contrary, by doing so, we are burying our heads in the sand", he added. "To solve this problem, we must fix the root causes through education."

"I would like to salute the court for this respectable ruling", Radwan concluded.