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Kuwait: Conservative MP Mohammad Hayef submitted yesterday a question to the Minister of Education Modhi Al-Homoud regarding students’ accessibility to pornography websites on computers in public high schools. The lawmaker said that the Ministry of Education is ‘unable to control the phenomenon’ and was urged to take immediate action.
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He warned the minister against taking this matter easily, urging to avoid its spread among the local community. He requested to be provided with photocopies of the contracts of the Ministry of Education and local internet service providers, and demanded that the minister justify this shortcoming on the part of ministry officials. The conservative tribal lawmaker is known for his extreme stance on what he calls "foreign phenomena.

The Kuwait Times attempted to contact Ministry of Education officials but failed to get any quotes. Commenting on this, Omar Al-Enizi, a 38-year old teacher of Computer Studies in a public high school said that the internet service providers block all access to improper websites and that the allegations of the MP are false.

Some students know how to bypass censorship and use proxies to access blocked sites. Others carry pictures and videos on their mobile phones, and the mobile phones are not allowed inside the schools. It is not our responsibility as teachers to do anything other than punish students and inform their parents," he said.

The teacher continued that the phenomenon is not only present inside schools, but everywhere in the country. Hadeel Al-Shatti, a parent in her early forties said that the MP should not blame schools and the Ministry of Education, but rather encourage good upbringing. "Porn films are sold in video stores and are available all over the internet, with or without proxies," she said.

She argued that it is not a phenomenon, it is merely a case based on a few incidents and it should not be generalized and blown out of proportion. "We were all students at some point in our lives and we know that the upbringing is what makes a good or a bad kid," she added.

Earlier this week, a conservative pressure group published an open letter on the internet requesting Hayef to urge MPs and government officials to ban the use of Blackberry smart phones.

The letter claims that Blackberry smart phones bypass censorship and access pornography websites directly. It calls for the MP to ‘take action’ against what it named a "crime against any decent family in Kuwait." "The catastrophe lies in the fact that the internet browser on the Blackberry opens all websites with no limitations … which explains why it is being marketed at very affordable prices by local telecommunication companies," states the letter.

Hussain Al-Qatari, Staff Writer