Canadian Servers Hosting Many Syrian Gov't Sites

Hosting raises legal questions over whether Canada is obligated to take down sites due to sanctions placed on the Assad government.

Not only have Canadian oil companies likely helped to prop up the Syrian regime, a slew of Syrian government websites are hosted on servers here in Canada. A new report from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab shows that the websites of the Syrian ministries of transport, culture, electricity, and the patent office are hosted on web servers located in Canada. Further, the website of Addounia TV, a Syrian state television network that's been sanctioned by Canada and the EU, is also hosted by a Canadian server. Ditto for Al Manar, the online television network of the Palestinian political party Hezbollah, a party that's been deemed a terrorist organization here in Canada. The report says that these sites might be in contravention of the sanctions Canada has placed on Syria during the country's uprising, meaning Canada might be legally bound to take down the sites.