Egypt bans scores of news websites in less than three weeks

‘Egyptian authorities have blocked access to more than 60 news websites, critical of government, in the past three weeks, mounting a growing crackdown on the press in the North African country.
According to a Monday report by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTEH), an Egypt-based NGO tracking the affected sites, the AFTEH group has “monitored the blocking of 62 websites from May 24th to June 12th, 2017.”
It added that the monitoring association had also noticed that the authorities had begun blocking websites that provide Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, a technology that enables users to circumvent strict state censorship of the Internet.
“Let’s be clear, the Egyptian websites going through this are dealing with a long-term shutdown — this is not short term,” said Egyptian journalist Khaled al-Balshi, whose news website al-Bedaiah was blocked on Sunday. Balshi’s news outlet, a dissident voice in Egypt, was the 57th blocked site in the past three weeks.’
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