Tag: Omania2.net

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defamation

Ali Al Zuwaidi’s Trial Outcome

Ali Al Zuwaidis Trial(Baby photo credits: utpal)

Earlier today the court issued its ruling on the two cases of Ali Al Zuwaidi. The first case involved a defamation claim made by the CEO of OmanMobile  for content published on Omania2.net – an online discussion board which Al Zuwaidi moderated. Posting on various forums report that the court held that Al Zuwaidi is not guilty of the offenses of Article 61(4) of the Telecom Act. This Article specifies that a forum moderator is to be held responsible for content written by third parties on his forum if that content is contrary to public order.

It is unknown how the court reached the conclusion that Al Zuwaidi is not to be held liable, did the judge concluded that the defamatory content in that post did not amount to material contrary to public order? was it because the content did not remain for a long period on the website, or was there another defence? We don’t know.

The second case involved the disclosure of a confidential government document by Ali Al Zuwaidy on the forum. Al Zuwaidi, who is a civil servant, acquired a document through the course of his employment and then published it on a number of Omani discussion boards. The document disclosed the government’s intention to have a popular radio show pre-recorded instead of airing it live to ensure it’s ability to censor anything on it if it wishes. The court held that Al Zuwaidi was guilty of an offense for leaking a confidential government document in accordance with Article 164 of the Criminal Law 7/74. Al Zuwaidi was sentenced for a 10 day imprisonment and the payment of a fine of RO 200 ($500).

The court held that the time served during the interrogation (11 days) is to be deducted from the prison sentence, so in practice Al Zuwaidi would be required to pay the fine.

As a civil servant, Al Zuwaidi job might also be terminated in accordance with Article 140 of the Civil Service Law for committing a criminal offense or an offense related to trust and honor.

The actual text of the judgement is expected to be available to the public in a period of two weeks.

Categories
defamation

The Booz Allen Defamation Trial in Progress

The Booz Allen Hamilton Case(Baby photo credits: utpal)

An anonymous member called “Boozallen” published a post on Omania2.net defaming the CEO and CTO of Oman Mobile. The CEO complained to the Public Prosecution which took action under Section 61 of the Telecom Law to prosecute the administration of the website.

There are many interesting points in this case, but it is necessary to talk about the facts. On the 20th of August 2008, the offending post was written in English on Omania2.net, but as An Arabic forum, the moderator named Ali Al Zuwaidy temporarily deleted this post on the grounds that it was written in a foreign language, however, after receiving some messages from other members, he unlocked it and made the following post:

 
أخي الكريم..
قمت في المرة الأولى بغلق الموضوع بسبب الكتابة باللغة الانجليزية، لكن بعد مراجعة الأمر مع احد الأخوة قررت فتح الموضوع وابقائه مع دعوة أي شخص لترجمة الموضوع ليتسنى للجميع الاطلاع عليه…
 

Translation: Generous Brother, I initially locked the topic because the writing was in the English langauge, but after reviewing the issue with one of hte brothers I decided to open it and keep it while inviting any other person to translate the topic so that everyone can view it.

On the 21st of August, the administration of the website decided to remove the thread from the public because of their fear that it offended a website policy on not posting anything that might violate the ruling system of the country. 

The complaint by Oman Mobile was made after the thread was removed from the forum.

This case is interesting because it probably is the first one to be about a post written in the English language. All previous major cases were written in Arabic, the case is also intereseting because the identity of the original post author was not discovered, and because the action is made against a specific moderator and not the owner or main administrator of the website. The court made the decision to take an action again Ali Al Zuwaidi specifically because he responded to the thread and actively unlocked it after it he locked it before.

The case is currently in progress and the next hearing will be held on the 17th of March. 

I think that this is a classical case for which Section 61(4) was specifically introduced. Webmasters should be responsible for content published on their website, it is illogical to think that people could simply argue that the post was written by someone else one a  website when they actively maintain as commercial platform for people to post messages for which they have direct control over.  However, the law is unfair because it does not provide a defence for webmasters who take reasonable diligent action to remove defamatory content from their website, which you can argue was the case here as the post was allegedly removed within 24 hours – even though the moderator previously did make an active choice to allow that post on the forum.

If Ali Al Zuwaidi is found guilty he could be prisoned for a period up to a year and fined up to a 1000 Omani Rials. 

It is worth noting that the Public Prosecution issued a press release today reminding people that sending messages that offen the public order could lead to criminal sanctions. 

Will be looking forward to see how this case progresses.