Abstract
The aim of this paper is to reflect on the plans by UAE to bar Blackberry services in the region, supported by the implications that the measure have on the region, which gives the position to disagree against the move by the authorities. To prop the position of disagreeing with the move, this paper gives multiple examples of the impacts the move will have on the region.
Executive Summary
Research in Motion Blackberry is renown by its users for its cutting-edge services. Most notably, it has attracted many users because of its high security features in Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail and Blackberry Web-browsing services. Among its users, some have good intentions while others have bad ones; this has made several governments restless given its difficulty to monitor illegal activities because Blackberry manages its data, encrypts and sends to overseas therefore making it difficult to bring criminals into justice.

Among the governments concerned is the United Arab Emirates, which has led to its declaration that it would stop Blackberry’s services in the region. However, this is a move with demerits outweighing the merits. While the government is concerned about the users and the security of the general public, there are many disadvantages. One is destroying its reputation as the easiest place to start a business. Investors could worry that after closing the Blackberry’s services, the Internet would be next and they may pull out of the region, which is an international business hub, denying it of foreign exchange. This could have implications in serving over $100 billion of debt.

Furthermore, should the authorities implement the decision to stop Blackberry’s services, it may affect the more than 100,000 passengers who use the busiest airport in the region and compel them to seek alternatives, cutting short the social and economic sources that the region enjoys. In over 175 countries in the world, both users and governments have accepted Blackberry’s security features. Thus, stopping such features will isolate the region technologically. There are even unreasonable claims like the United Arab Emirates’ government is compelled by poor assertions such as the killing of al-Mahbouh by Israeli security operatives in the sense of protecting people. This is a kind of monopolization since it is endorsing Etisalat Company to offer the same services. The move is contrary to the human rights law under Article 19 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which state freedom of expression. The move is ill-advised because of claims almost unsupported thereby making it an unreasonable decision.

Structure
Section I UAE has garnered the reputation of being a place that is relatively easy to
conduct business.

Section II UAE is a hub for global finance, trade, and tourism.

Section III In the region, the airport situated in Dubai is the busiest whereby an
estimated 100,000 travelers use the airport daily.

Section IV The security features.
Overview
Blackberry’s services have had a mighty role in the society, serving good and evil deeds in equal measure. Blackberry’s services transcend the professional fields of its ever increasing numbers of users. Users of no specific age bracket use Blackberry services such as Blackberry Messenger, Black E-mail, Blackberry Web, among other services. Perhaps one of the most attracting factors that drive its users to embrace Blackberry’s services is its security features, acknowledging Research in Motion’s (RIM) technology developments which, unfortunately, have led to security concerns for many governments among them UAE, India and Saudi Arabia. Many of these governments have expressed or hinted their intentions to stop Blackberry’s services from operating in their regions. UAE has a frosty relationship with Blackberry services. This mostly resulted from crime investigations with the criminal trails ending and/or pointing to Blackberry.

The UAE authorities made the decision to stop Blackberry’s services for what they stated as, for the sake of public interest and the country’s political interest and for what it has called as some features of Blackberry not complying with the laws of the country, thereby causing it to have “judicial, social and national security concerns.” The UAE’s worries have arisen from the manner in which Blackberry manages data, encrypts it and subsequently routs it to its international RIM servers thus making difficulty in monitoring any illegal actions and terming Blackberry a criminal conspiracy (Musil n.p.). A clear example is the January 2010 killing of Mohamoud Al-Mabhouh, a Hamas influential figure, reportedly by Mossad that UAE authorities have been conducting investigations; it was found out that the suspected killers took advantage of the Blackberry’s security features whereby users are not monitored to carry out their activities.

Disagreeing opinion
Based on my opinion, I have to disagree with UAE’s decision to stop Blackberry services because the demerits of the move outweigh the merits and thus it is an ill-advised move.

Section I.
UAE has garnered the reputation of being a place that is relatively easy to conduct business with the Dubai visas acquired relatively easily; some citizens in the Cooperation Council for Arab States of the Persian Gulf are not required to have Dubai Visas before entering the Dubai with visitors being allowed as many as 90 days comparing to the 30 days imposed on visitors by many countries. Foreign visitors such as U.S can effortlessly get a Dubai Visa stamp upon getting in Dubai at free of charge. This therefore enables the visitors to execute their missions in Dubai hassle free as there are no unnecessary hindrances. This, coupled with the fact that the UAE authorities has embarked on efforts aimed at establishing the region as an international business haven, has drawn investors in the region. Therefore, the move to stop Blackberry services could mete out a mighty blow to the efforts of making the region an international business hub. Moreover, it could destroy the UAE’s reputation of being a safe place to conduct business for investors who might worry that with the stopping of Blackberry services, UAE could also institute that move on the Internet. This could prevent the country from earning foreign exchange.

Section II.
UAE is a hub for global finance, trade, and tourism. Ranging from modern shopping malls to Dubai’s environment that is familiar with many tourists from the West to the shopping malls stocked with the products similar to those in the West and the presence of world’s leading fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s; awesome sand dunes in the Empty Quarter southeast of the Arabian Peninsula and the breath-taking wadis near the border with Oman, to the many people touring UAE it is a “Disneyland.” The country profits much from those activities. On the other hand, UAE has a national debt of more than $ 100 billion. Imposing such a measure will reduce the scale of those activities and how they are conducted and in turn, jeopardize the efforts of the UAE to service its debt.
Section III.
In the region, the airport situated in Dubai is the busiest whereby an estimated 100,000 travelers use the airport daily. The Dubai International Airport is also important in that its a hub for the importation and exportation of the lucrative flower industry, handling of bulk cargo in the region through its cargo mega terminals, and a decongestant of the regions passenger air traffic. Being a central transit point in the region and serving such a huge number of passengers, it has social and economic advantages for UAE. Implementing the decision may affect foreign Blackberry users who use the airport and have roaming services since they will be unable to access the Blackberry Web and Blackberry E-mail services once in the region (Reuters n.p.). Such a decision can deter the passengers from using the airport thereby preventing the advantages that UAE enjoyed.

Section IV.
Blackberry’s services, the security features to put it in precise and concise terms, have been accepted in the over than 175 countries where the company provides services. As of 2011, Blackberry had over 67 million users worldwide with new rapidly emerging and growing markets in Africa, South East Asia and Western Europe, India, Middle East among others. This implies that almost all countries in the world use Blackberry’s features. Despite the fact that even the most security conscious nation, U.S, understands the difficulty of surveillance of Blackberry users, it has gone ahead and authorized even government officials such as military and employees in the law enforcement industry to use the confidential advantage of the Blackberry. Therefore, since the security features have been accepted by governments and even government employees users and authorized by their governments in the many countries it operates and not just U.S, stopping the operation of Blackberry services in the region will make it a region technologically-isolated.

One of the main reasons that led to UAE’s directive to ban the services of Blackberry in the region was Mohamoud al-Mabhouh’s death on January 20, 2010 in a Dubai hotel room; al-Mabhouh was an influential figure of Hamas and had a history of criminal activities. He’s allegedly a crucial figure during the abduction and the killing of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon, two Israeli soldiers whereby he described how he carried it out by disguising himself as an Orthodox Jew. Al-Mabhouh was also reportedly an important figure in creating relationships between Al-Quds Force, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Hamas government in Gaza. Israel also suspected al-Mabhouh’s involvement in weapons and explosives smuggling to Gaza. Al-Mabhouh was killed by Mossad, Israeli’s hit team, who though literally, violated the Emirates’ sovereignty. While al-Mahbouh was a criminal, his suspected killers, Mossad agents were an intelligence group that executes suspected criminals (Sharaf n.p.). Despite the fact that the suspected killers, Mossad agents, illegally executed him in another country, the killing was somehow justifiable to some extent (Whitaker n.p.). This case points out to one of the almost unreasonable reasons that Emirates’ authorities [are trying to] use in stopping Blackberry’s services in the region.

UAE government described the decision to stop the Blackberry services as motivated by the desire to protect the users themselves and contrary to what some people believed, not to restrict their liberty or freedom of expression. However, the UAE government made a confirmation that another company called Etisalat, would give alternative services for the users not less than the Blackberry services. If Etisalat company would provide alternative services, then it meant that just like the use of Blackberry services, the user’s freedom of expression would not be censored (intended to mean that users would not be censored). Therefore, if it would be the same services, it implies that nothing would change at all. The UAE was trying to monopolize the market in the veil of public safety.
Literature Review
Under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) also recognizes, freedom of expression is described as an international human right law whereby the ICCPR under Article 19 pronounces that “Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference…everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression” and that that “right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” The Emirates’ regulating officials, through their intention to stop the operation of Blackberry services in the region, are going against the aforementioned human rights law that allows free personal freedom of expression without censorship (Keller, p. 54). This law was violated by the UAE’s standoff through Mohamed al-Ghanim, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority’s general director of suspending Blackberry Messenger, Blackberry E-mail, and Blackberry Web until the provision of a solution. Being an autocratic government, the UAE also violates the human rights law through the control of “what information citizens consume…and share with others.”

Conclusion
The public or a Blackberry user’s safety does not merely depend on censoring the citizens’ freedom of conservation. Safety depends on the ability of the authorities to practice and offer effective security measures. One of the reasons why Emirates decided to stop the Blackberry’ services, was al-Mabhouh’s death. Even though communication played a role in his death, what played a key role were their suspects—the Mossad agents, entering into the country by using fake passports since it is reported that they have used European passports and innocent Israeli’s passports. Thus, what led to the death is mainly the ineffectiveness of the UAE’s immigration department in detecting their illegal entry and in knowing that they were using aliases (McDermott n.p.). Negligent immigration practices and regulations were to blame for the death. Therefore, in my opinion, the move was an ill-advised move which arose from an ill-conceived reason and above all, it was an act of ill-will.
Works Cited
Keller, J. Liberal Democracy and the New Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

McDermott, Nick & Kate Loveys. “Dubai Hit Squad Stole My Identity: British Man’s Name Used By Assassins Who Executed Senior Hamas Leader.” The Daily Mail. 16 Feb 2010.
Web. March 5, 2012.

Musil, Steven. “Two Mideast Countries to Ban Blackberry Functions.” cnet. 10 Aug 2010. Web. 2 Mar 2012.

Reuters. “UAE may limit some Blackberry services.” News24. 17 April 2011. Web. 3 Mar 2012.

Sharaf, Nihal. “No Plan Yet for Blackberry in Kuwait.” Arab Times. 3 Mar 2012. Web. 12 Mar 2012.

Whitaker, Brian. “Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh’s Murky World.” The Guardian. 17 Feb 2010. Web. 5 Mar 2012.