Hosting porn websites and circulating, copying and producing any kind of porn materials are liable for punishment under the new law.
The Advisory Council that approved Qatar’s draft law “on combating cyber crime”, with some amendments, has recommended an extensive media campaign to raise awareness about the law and punishments for violations.
The Council met on Monday and recommended scrapping the “minimum punishment” clause from the draft.
According to the draft law, which contains 54 articles and five chapters, those who try to make illegal access or hack any sort of official data or website will be violating the law and liable for punishments.
Those who have got information on any kind of cyber crimes should share that with the investigating agency during interrogation.
ON THE EXTRADITION OF THE ACCUSED INVOLVED IN INTERNATIONAL CASES, THE DRAFT LAW SAYS A FOREIGNER CONVICTED IN A CYBER CRIME IN QATAR WILL NOT BE HANDED OVER TO THEIR COUNTRY. IT IS IMPORTANT TO LAUNCH AN EXTENSIVE CAMPAIGN ABOUT THE NEW LAW. PEOPLE MUST BE EDUCATED THROUGH THE MEDIA ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF VIOLATING THE LAW AND PUNISHMENTS THAT AWAIT VIOLATORS.
REPORTED CRIMES IN QATAR:
STUDENT JAILED IN CYBER PORN CASE IN QATAR
A Qatar high school student has been sentenced to one year in prison after he hacked into a classmate’s email account and used it to send porn material.
Police arrested the hacker following a complaint by the classmate about the misuse of his account to disseminate pornographic pictures and harass contacts. The victim said that he could not access his account after the hacker changed the password.
The matter was referred to the cyber crime cell the hacker was eventually identified, arrested and referred for legal action.
The court ruled that the teenager would have to spend one year in jail and to pay a 10,000 Qatari riyals fine.
Child pornography: the production, sale, import, display, transfer, exchange, distribution, broadcast of such material through the use of information technology will attract a higher penalty of imprisonment for up to five years and a fine of QR500,000. Possession of such material shall result in imprisonment for a maximum term of a year and/or a fine of QR250,000. For the purposes of the offence, a child is anyone under the age of 18 years, and the consent of the child is vitiated.
PLEASE DON’T TRY TO ACCESS BLOCKED WEBSITES IN QATAR:
IN QATAR WEB CENSORSHIP REVOLVED ROUND THREE MAIN AREAS; PORNOGRAPHY, POLITICAL CRITICISM OF GULF COUNTRIES AND ANTI-ISLAMIC SITES, QTEL SOURCES SAID.
The cyber crime centre aims to crack down on offenders who use sophisticated electronic devises to engage in criminal activities,
The new law also requires telecommunications providers – which right now are Ooredoo and Vodafone – to comply with all prosecutorial requests for evidence.
Service providers must also “block any websites or links when asked by judicial entities.They have to keep users information for a year and temporarily keep record of electronic information, traffic data or content information for 90 days that can be renewed at the request of the investigating entity.”
