Global Research

The move comes as the Youtube owners refused to take down an insulting video against the prophet of Islam [PBUH] claiming that taking down such an insulting video would be against the principles of freedom of speech.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mimi Laham, activist from the Persian Gulf littoral city of Dubai to shed more light on the topic of the program. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Ms. Laham let us look at what do you think is the main reason for what we are seeing as a censorship, this attack on freedom of speech and dealing with the Iranian media?

Laham: I think, you, know, it is really across the board, any media that is taking an anti-Syrian insurgent line, in particular, is getting harassed.

Your journalist Maya Nasser was, actually, assassinated in Syria and of course there are too many journalists who mentioned that have experienced kidnapping and execution at the hands of the insurgents in order to suppress their word of decent against insurgency and even Youtube has been taking down many anti-Syrian channels that have been documenting the war crimes of the FSA in Syria, the FSA being the Syrian insurgents.

I mean I have a play list of 60 videos that documented the war crimes and 30 of those videos are now gone along with their channels and this was within six months. Ironically Youtube publicly apologized for mistakenly shutting down a pro-rebel channel and reinstated that channel. That channel being the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

So there is a clear double standard here.

Press TV: Have you been given an explanation by Youtube why your videos have been taken down?

Laham: Well, for one thing, one of the videos taken down was accused of copyright infringement but it was a video of a security mercenary firm Aegis gunning down civilians in Iraq.

Now this Aegis, which is similar to Blackwater but the British version, claimed copyright on a video of themselves shooting civilians in Iraq and Youtube accepted this as an excuse to take down the video and flag my channel and this is one excuse.

Another flag was given to me because I posted videos of war crimes conducted by the FSA and they said that, you know, this is shocking, do they took it down even though their guideline says that you should not remove videos that document war crimes.
So clearly Youtube is taking part in covering up war crimes for mercenary firms such as Aegis and for the Syrian insurgents.

Press TV: There is only a minute left Ms. Laham, but I want to look at in general, what do you think can be done with these attacks of freedom of speech?

Because as you said, for example like Youtube, obviously you were saying that they are taking these measures against you, so what other forms can be used? We see for the Iranian TV the satellite operators are taking off.

So what is the answer in order to make sure that free speech is out there and that we can stop them from stopping the free speech?

Laham: Well I just want to say that Youtube itself has admitted that it takes down videos upon request of governments internationally, in particular the US and the UK. So they admit that they censor videos.

Now what some people have been doing is that just pumping out videos on many, many channels at a time this is something that Syriantube does and in case one gets shut down, there will be like hundreds to take its place.

Another way is to set up your own website and put your own videos up there, as Press TV has done, and we need an alternative to Youtube and there is a new one coming out called Truetube but what we really need is something that is not controlled and that is a difficult feat but I think that is what the world is needing.