Egyptian MP wants pornographic sites blockedBy DALLIA MONIEM in Cairo | Tuesday, February 21  2012 at  20:13

A member of Egypt's ultra-conservative Islamist party El Nour wants all pornographic websites in the country blocked.

According to a post on the party's website that has been corroborated, Mr Younis Makhioun is sponsoring an emergency motion in parliament that if adopted, would block all such sites.

"These sites spread evil among different sects of the Egyptian society," said the MP.

Currently, Egyptian law criminalises pornography, but the MP has played safe by saying that his proposal should not be seen as an attempt towards censorship.

Earlier this month, other members of the same party called for strict censorship of media content, a proposal that elicited diverse responses.

Amidst rising fears of the curtailing of personal freedoms, critics see proposal to censor internet as an indicator of other likely trends in the parliament, whose majority are conservative Islamists.

In 2009, following a lawsuit that called for a ban on porn sites, the ministry of Communication declined to implement the court's order, citing personal freedoms to choose.

With a conservative Islamist dominated People's Assembly, where the ultraconservative Salifists Nour party had 25 per cent of the seats, the censorship ban could easily take effect this time.

Last year, Egypt ranked fifth among countries where search for word 'sex' were most clicked.

Algeria and Morocco were also among top 10, according to Google Trends.