Rami Olwan

The past year witnessed some major achievements for Creative Commons in the Arab world. Highlights included Al Jazeera’s adoption of CC BY for the world’s first broadcast-quality online repository and CC Jordan’s substantial efforts on the first Arabic license port.

2010 promises more exciting developments for the rapidly-growing CC community in the Arab world. Today the legal team from CC Egypt, headed by Hala Essalmawi, produced the first BY-NC-SA license draft adapted to Egyptian law (.pdf).

The UAE leads the Middle East in terms of average broadband speed and penetration, according to Akamai Technologies' recently released 'The State of the Internet (Q3-2009)' report.

The Palestinian Rule of Law Program (PROL) supported by Soros Foundation and Open Society Institute (OSI) Netowk is holding a workshop for their alumni at Columbia University Middle East Research Center (CUMERC), Amman, Jordan on 23-24 January 2010. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together all alumni and keep them informded of the activities of OSI.

The Court of Cassation in Amman has issued a controversial decision that chill free speech over the Internet. The Court mentioned clearly that the Press and Publication Law is also applicable on websites and bloggers or others publishing offensive materials criticising the government and jeopardising national unity will be prosecuted under the law.