Friday, April 17, 2009

Saudi blogger site “removed”

Days after it had been announced that Hamoud Saleh Al-Amri, a 28 year-old Saudi national imprisoned in January for writing in his blog (www.christforsaudi.blogspot.com) about his decision to follow Jesus, had been released by the Saudi authorities on March 28th, Google has apparently removed his blogger site again.  Anyone trying to log on to the site today will see this message

bloggermessage

I am trying to see if I can find out why this site has been removed by starting a discussion on the Blogger Help Group.  Perhaps if a few of us ask for an explanation, we can find out what is going on here.  The last time this happened, it was due to the Saudi authorities first blocking the site and then Google claiming that it has committed a Terms of Service violation (which was never explained).  Eventually, under pressure, Google put the site back online. (Note: you can still find the blog in the cache, but who knows how long that will last). 

Of course, Hamoud may have shut the site down himself, but it just seems like an amazing coincidence that this site is "removed" just as he starts blogging again and his case gains publicity.

2 comments:

Scott said...

Although appearances can be deceiving, it looks like Hamoud removed it himself. Maybe his time in jail intimidated him so much that he thought he should lay low. It would be good if someone from Google would clarify what happened.

In any case, Hamoud needs prayer.

Glenn Penner said...

It's possible, of course, but I would be somewhat surprised if this is the case. The fact that he continued to blog after his release has me wondering about his being intimidated. Perhaps we will never know for sure.