Sudan belittles US decision to allow web tech exports

March 9, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – The Government of Sudan downplayed the significance of the US decision yesterday to allow the export to Sudan of internet technologies produced by American companies like Facebook and Google.

Muawiya Osman Khalid, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “has belittled the effect of the step adopted by the US administration for alleviating the restrictions imposed on Sudan with regard to benefiting from the services offered by Google and Microsoft,” the state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported.

The US decision, which comes after over a year of American rhetoric to try to thaw US-Sudan relations, affects companies that had previously been banned from doing business with most Northern Sudanese and Iranians. Under the new rules, American technology companies now can export some personal communication products, but they have to first obtain a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry Spokesman said that this step will not have a big impact. He said that Sudan will only view as acceptable “full and unconditional lifting of the economic sanctions and the restrictions that were imposed by the US administration on Sudan,” according to SUNA.

He also suggested that the step was adopted mainly to “remove any sort of embarrassment that would occur inside the United States” should the ban on the Internet become regarded as a “direct violation on human rights and breach of the right of knowledge.”

Iranian opposition protesters have used American software like Twitter and YouTube to organize and spread their messages. Just days after clashes between Iranian opposition protesters and security forces in December 2009, the US Department of State on December 10 asked that a waiver be issued to allow the exportation to Iran of certain software. The State Department told Congress that “this software is necessary to foster and support the free flow of information to individual Iranian citizens and, therefore, is essential to the national interest of the United States.”

New regulations announced on Monday will allow Sudanese to download software that facilitates “instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging,” according to an US Treasury agency ruling.

Only publicly available software that is offered at no cost to users will qualify for this authorization, according to the US Treasury Department.

The rules also allow exportation of web-hosting services for personal use.

(ST)