YouTube has suspended the account of Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas, who has been posting videos of cases of torture in his country. One of the videos he posted, of a Cairo man being beating and sexually assaulting, was credited with helping bring pressure on Egyptian authorities. That pressure led to three-year jail sentences for two of the policeman involved in the assault. Abbas has called the suspension of his YouTube account "by far the biggest blow to the anti-torture movement in Egypt", according to Amira Al Hussaini on Global Voices.

Technorati Tags: Egypt, Google , human rights, YouTube

Amira has collected a good sample of reaction by Egyptian bloggers. Blogger Hossam El Hamalawy called the move by YouTube "un-bloody-believable" and said:

Wael's videos have been central in the fight against police brutality, and YouTube should be proud the Egyptian anti-torture activists have been using its channels in the current War on Torture

He predicted that activists would move the videos to other sites. The move has already started. A video showing scenes of torture in Egypt on the Global Voices post is hosted on the popular French video sharing site, DailyMotion.

But in a comment on Hamalawy's post, Mostafa Hussein said that YouTube's terms of service prevent the posting of such videos:

Well, the message from youtube is that waelabbas violated their terms of use.

This is actually true if you take a look at it. It states that content should follow the community guidelines[1]. In these community guidelines, there is this statement saying "Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it."

He suggested that activists use other sites, not just commercial sites like DailyMotion but "activist friendly" sites like IndyMedia.

Well-known Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh has called on readers of his blog to protest YouTube's decision.

These videos are the only mean to expose what happens in our police stations, without them the cry of people who were subjected to torture will go unheard.

Outside of Egypt, Stan Schroeder writing on Mashable, a site which covers social networking, questioned why Abbas' account was suspended when other videos of violence are on the site:

OK, why then can I find dozens of videos of people getting tasered by the police? If you ask me, a video of someone getting shocked with a high voltage weapon can definitely be described as graphic violence. And many will argue that the violence in such videos cannot be qualified as gratuitous. ... This is an ongoing problem with practically all sites which aggregate user-submitted content: double (or simply unclear) standards.

The question for Schroeder was whether showing police brutality qualified as 'gratuitous' violence. One of the commenters pointed out the Witness' Hub was created specifically to host videos of human rights abuses. But another commenter said that the audience at the Hub is much less than YouTube, and many of the videos on the Hub are in fact hosted elsewhere on sites like YouTube.

On the blog Mideast Youth, Esra'a from Bahrain says that this is pattern of YouTube and parent company Google giving into state pressure, saying that it recently gave into pressure from Turkish authorities.