Ahmed Mansoor has been threatened, spied on, and beaten — all payback, the human rights activist believes, for his outspoken criticism of the United Arab Emirates' numerous human rights violations, and its soaring crackdowns on dissent. Experts now say it was blocked with help from Canadian technology that has repeatedly found itself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. (Philip Street/CBC News)The Citizen Lab researchers argue that imposing such restrictions across a region or entire country can pose serious human rights concerns. 'Alternative lifestyles'Citizen Lab researchers say Netsweeper's filtering technology has also been deployed in several countries with records of human rights violations: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Sudan, UAE, and Yemen and Somalia. Citizen Lab also found that outspoken UAE human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor's blog and discussion forum Emirati Dialogue were blocked.

Source: CBC News April 25, 2018 07:52 UTC