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I am contemplating coming to work in Dubai for a year and this is an important issue for me in terms of quality of life.

Is internet access filtered? To what extent? Are some websites blocked? Which ones or what categories? Are there ways around it (alternative service providers, academic settings, tourist or foreigner zones, etc.)?

What about English-language books and magazines? What is not accessible in stores? What about receiving them by mail? How dangerous is it if the book or magazine is on a banned list?

What about movies? In theaters? in DVD?

What about cable or satellite TV stations?

Thank you for any current information on this.

I am contemplating coming to work in Dubai for a year and this is an important issue for me in terms of quality of life.

by the way you'll be very lucky to be offered a contract for a year, the norm is a 3 year contract - usually not less!

dbxsoul wrote:

artteacher wrote:How dangerous is it if the book or magazine is on a banned list?

Define banned list? And from who’s perspectives.

I was imagining some official list of what's illegal to own in the country. Following your example of an art book with nudes in it (I won't actually need that), how often do they randomly open mail-order material in your real-life experience? Would they actually follow up with calls to my employer, etc., or just confiscate the material?

What about news magazines and websites, commentary magazines and websites? Virtually all of them are in favor of at least the existence of Israel and positive mentions of Israel are found all over the place. I can't think of a mainstream US news source that could not be considered "pro-Israeli" with evidence in every issue.

Also, the term "pornography" is loose. Many western clothing catalogues, entertainment magazines and women's magazines could easily be called that.

Are you kind of saying that newsstands are more "open" than the postal service?

If I want to subscribe to cable TV, can I get BBC News? Comedy Central? TV 5 Monde? MTV? HBO?

dbxsoul wrote:There is plenty of bootleg DVD’s around mainly uncut, but normally have members of the audience jumping up and down.

I don't understand the second part of this sentence. DVDs are for private home viewing. Also, can you get in trouble for owning bootleg DVDs? Do they actively sek to stamp them out?

Sorry for nitpicking, but this helps me get a sense of the prevailing atmosphere in the country.

Thank you very much for your help, dbx.

this has been discussed to deathb on the forums - please use the search function.

dxbsoul has given a pretty good overview of what is acceptable and what is not.

basically if its "iffy" forget it. It makes no difference whether you view it in the privacy of your own home or not. If it came through customs and you get caught - thats your look out.

Suggest you contact the authorities for a list of banned material/products but again dxbsouls overview was spot on.

artteacher wrote:how often do they randomly open mail-order material in your real-life experience? Would they actually follow up with calls to my employer, etc., or just confiscate the material?

When I order model cars from USA, only some of the boxes get held back, if they suspect "something." You go to the post office and they open the box in front of you, although they didn't bother in my case after I told them its just a bunch of cars inside. Pretty flexible, just like every other law here.

Hi there, no problem with nitpicking. It is very difficult though to explain things like censorship over a forum, as there is no standard to measure it against. For example I would say that it far more strict than the UK, but less than KSA or Qatar for example. Personally, when I arrived I expected it to be far more draconian than what it actually is.

Most of this I can put down to them governing and policing the systems value that they have set in place. When I originally landed in Dubai there were a handful of European magazines available, censoring was fairly common place, and they would physically delete (with a marking pen) any objectionable body parts!
Before I left Dubai last year, there were literally hundreds of local and international publications available, some were censored, but normally only lightly by comparison to the diligence that was performed when there was only handful! By the same token a publication with the same content in KSA would be destroyed out of hand without deleting, the distributor having to carry the loss.

As to the “list” apparently there is one but it is never published and I have never heard of any particular publications that may even be on the list. This does give them a lot more leeway when dealing with “questionable” publications, they can simply withhold it, and say “It’s on the list”, who’s to question? Additionally you could ask for a copy of the list until you were blue in the face and still never see it, that’s the way certain things work in the UAE.

The question on how often do “they open mail? Well I expect any parcel with the labelled contents “books” or DVD’s will be subject to inspection. I have had 3 out of 5 parcels opened – in every case the ones containing books or DVD’s ordered from Amazon. I would also expect them to put parcels through an x-ray machine or some such screening device in any case. Most of the time they are interested in checking the declared value of the parcel against what it actually contains, as they are subject to 5% import duty

I agree with your comments about the media and pro-Israeli sentiments, this obviously can’t be “sanitized”, in actual fact I have found the people of the UAE quiet open to debate on the issue, although the official line is the State of Israel does not exist and is not officially recognised. To the point that the flag is banned in the UAE, the country name is physically deleted from maps and teaching aids and at one point mobile phones were not allowed to be imported with Hebrew as a language choice! Personally I found it quite wake-up call to be able to watch Al Jareera covering an event, and then watching the same event covered on CNN or the BBC – being able to see the event portrayed from two different view-points. Also living in the region it made me aware just how much the western media can be biased, while advocating objectiveness.

The definition of pornography is an interesting one, and while I have my own definition I would possibly like to hear what one or two of the Muslim forum members consider being gratuitous. As I mentioned in earlier years some of the women’s magazines were subject to censoring exposed backsides etc. It seems to be a lot more lenient in this regard now.

I don’t know about cable, but there are a number of satellite systems available, and I don’t think you will miss out on any of your regular programming. There was even a recent post from a Canadian being able to find his favourite Ice Hockey channel.

Bootleg/ pirate DVD’s are two a penny in the UAE, they are normally poor quality, bad Chinese subtitles or dubbing and in most instances are copied with a hand held DVD camera in the movie house, hence the people laughing over the soundtrack or standing up in front of the picture. The official stance of the UAE is zero tolerance to counterfeit or pirate products, typing that I have a HUGE smile on my face and will leave it at that before tears start running down the corner of my eyes!

On occasion they have a token clamp down on pirate goods or when a shipment of pirated stuff unexpected falls into their laps they take it out and put a steamroller over it to show that they can

ooops, sorry a large typo... "they will send the police or secrete police" - are these the guys that lisp and spit on you??



And here I’ve been quiet good lately, using a spelling check and all!

dbxsoul wrote:Personally I found it quite wake-up call to be able to watch Al Jareera covering an event, and then watching the same event covered on CNN or the BBC – being able to see the event portrayed from two different view-points. Also living in the region it made me aware just how much the western media can be biased, while advocating objectiveness.

Hmmm, when the news org doesn't recognise a country the rest of the world recognises you have to wonder how "objective" it is too, though I get your point!

I get my favourite music and football magazine delivered no problems, otherwise you can get get all the big US and UK publications with almost no censorship here (never seen an Economist or Newsweek censored, only a Maxim or FHM).

Parcel opening happens, but it also happened a lot when I lived in the UK and shipped stuff in from the US, all part of the work governments do to make sure laws are adhered to and no weird and wonderful substances find their way in to the country.