The use of social media sites by the politically-minded in recent demonstrations is probably behind the block. There is now a Facebook group for unblocking YouTube in Sudan. As of Tuesday morning there are 495 members.

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Victor sends us a link to a story on YouTube being “partially blocked” in the Sudan. Unfortunately, the link won’t load for me. Nor does the GVO site in general.

Can anyone verify this?

That said, I wanted to immediately illustrate that this rule is a guideline rather, by telling you about an archaeologist, Dr. Muhammad Jalal Hashim, who’s been arrested in the Sudan. The news came from Egyptology News. EN quotes from the Sudan Times, who published the appeal to the Sudanese government by the Sudan Human Rights Organization-Cairo Branch (SHRO-Cairo).

Archaeologist Jalal is a human rights activist who has been critically voicing the deep irrevocable protest of the Kajbar (Kajabar) people in the Northern Province of Sudan against the government’s dam construction in the area that will inevitably destroy the national treasures and all sites of the ancient Nubia archaeology, as well as forcing a new Diaspora for the natives of the area; thus disrupting the social fabric of the whole population.

The Organization is deeply concerned that the top officials of the government’s legal security organs abused their constitutional jobs to keep, against the Interim Constitution, Dr. Jalal in unrestricted unlawful custody. Led by these officials, the authorities aimed to silence Dr. Jalal’s significant contributions in the increasing public protest of Kajbar against the dam.

Join SHRO-Cairo in calling for the doctor’s release.