Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim Explains His Position on YouTube

Dahi clarifies YouTube content issue

04/14/2009 02:39 PM | By Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporter

Dubai: The Dubai Police chief expressed surprise at the response of Doha Centre for Media Freedom in condemning Dubai Police’s request to restrict access to pornographic materials on the internet.

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom stated in a press release that they sent an open letter to the internet giant Google “warning it not to give in to calls for censorship [by Dubai Police].”

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Chief of Dubai Police, said: “I did not request Google representatives to block pornographic materials uploaded on YouTube from Qatar internet services, but asked them to take this into account in the UAE.”

He was responding to a press release released by the Doha Centre for Media Freedom in which they condemned the Dubai Police for calling for a campaign to restrict electronic content that is pornographic, mocks religions, strengthens atheism, fosters a feeling of insecurity or is unsuitable for young children.

YouTube, a video sharing website, was the focus of a much-debated discussion reported earlier in Gulf News between Major-General Khamis Mattar Al Muzainah, Deputy Chief of Dubai Police and Giselle Hescuk, Google’s head of development for Europe and the Middle East.

The press release incorrectly stated that Lieutenant-General Dahi drew up a censorship plan with Hescuk, “which the UAE authorities said would maintain religious harmony and prevent any infringements of religious and ethnic integrity in the light of local culture and traditions.”…

Break Dancing in Fujairah

It is a typical evening for 16-year-old Khamis al Yamahi as he walks down to the basketball courts in Fujairah City for some break-dancing.

Yet his uniform of jeans, T-shirt, baseball cap turned backwards and black Reebok trainers, underlines a deeper message about the radical changes in how a new generation of Emiratis see themselves.

“I only wear my kandoora when I can’t find my jeans,” he says.

Like many other teenage boys of this small northern emirate, Khamis and his friends are as comfortable musing in English over the message of the murdered American rap artist Tupac Shakur as they are speaking in Arabic with their parents.

“Tupac, man, he has meaning,” Khamis says in fluent English that carries an American twang. “Every single word he sings has meaning.”

Bombarded with MTV music videos and MP3 downloads of their favourite rap artists – Eminem, Lil Wayne, Akon, 50 Cent – they emulate with precision the hip hop slang spoken on American streets.

They attend private schools in which English is the language of instruction and where there appears to be less emphasis on Arabic studies. They mingle with foreign friends who have never learned Arabic.

By embracing American youth culture, many are defying their parents like no previous generation, dimming hopes that one day they will be the torch-bearers of their ancestors’ customs.

Khamis is the product of the English-language instruction at Fujairah Private Academy, a majority Arab national institution where he also studies French and Italian. Very little of his classroom pursuits, he says, goes toward learning classical Arabic, or Fushah.

“I take Fushah, but we just talk in our local languages in class,” he says.

Much of his day is spent watching English-language music videos, or hanging out with Emirati and Pakistani and Australian friends at the Ozone internet cafe, playing video games or downloading music onto his MP3 player.

But his fondness for American culture does not mean he has totally abandoned that of his parents, he says. You have to choose what feels right...MORE