Egypt: Action against Vodafone, which partially owns Verizon

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Have you heard what Vodafone (which partially owns Verizon) just did? After shutting off its entire Egyptian internet

 connection for 5 days, it then sent millions of its Egyptian customers a pro-dictator text from the 'Armed Forces' calling on “Egypt’s loyal men to confront the traitors and the criminals and to protect our families, our honor and our precious Egypt.”

This week, tens of thousands of us have signed Access petitions calling upon President Obama and Vodafone to play their part in pushing the Egyptian government to turn the internet back on -- and it helped! Now, as innocent civilians are being killed in the streets, we must draw a line in the sand and tell Vodafone that there can be no more excuses -- we're done hearing that they had no choice!

Decades of emergency law suited Vodafone when they were making billions of profit in Egypt. Now that the story's hurting Vodafone big time, they're scrambling to claim innocence. Tell Vodafone to put their customers and human rights above profits and the repugnant demands of repressive regimes. Sign this petition, which we’ll urgently deliver to Vodafone’s CEO, shareholders, and their vulnerable board:

http://www.facebook.com/l/c0526CcfSKiRsVnu1Rm8nvnNtLg;https%3A%2F%2...

While Egypt was shrouded in an information blackout, Mubarak’s police forces shot and killed peaceful protesters, hurled Molotov cocktails and cans of tear gas at unarmed civilians, arrested innocent journalists, and confiscated cameras. Having been complicit in these events by shutting off vital communications channels, Vodafone now has gone one step further -- from silencing freedom of expression, it has now become a mouthpiece of the regime.

Vodafone says they were forced to send the messages by the Egyptian government and that it's not at fault. We say that they should have thought about the consequences before they started profiting from business deals with the regime. They understood the "terms" of the contractual arrangements when they entered into them, and in any case there is significant precedent for corporations standing firm against regimes, such as Google in China. Now it's time to put principles over profits. Sign here to get Vodafone and other mobile operators to stand firm against the dictator:

 

 

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