More than two dozen Web sites belonging to the government of Syria are being hosted by servers in the US, Canada and Germany, according to a report by Canadian researchers.
The report, released on Thursday, said the operations raise legal questions because they may violate Canadian and US sanctions against Syria. Syria has used police and military forces for the past eight months to put down a popular uprising.
Ronald Deibert, the director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, said several Syrian Web sites — including the ministries of finance, economy and trade, and religious affairs — are hosted on US-based servers.
Overall, the report said, 17 Syrian government Web sites are hosted by Canadian providers, seven are hosted by US providers and two by German companies.
“We had a moral obligation to report this, given the violence in Syria,” Deibert said in a telephone interview.
One of the US-based companies, called SoftLayer, is listed as hosting the ministries of finance and economy and trade, as well as the General Commission for Competition and Anti-monoply. SoftLayer did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
iWeb, a Montreal-based hosting company, is listed as hosting several Syrian government sites. A company spokeswoman said iWeb would have a statement later on Thursday.
The report said that in Canada and the US, a Web host typically has not been held liable for such content if the company responds to requests that it be taken down.
Deibert said it was unclear whether Web hosting violates US and Canadian sanctions. Canada’s foreign affairs department did not respond to a request for comment.
“There’s definitely a question. Cyberspace governance is immature and underdeveloped,” Deibert said. “Sanctions are designed around a world much less fluid and material than cyberspace is. I think if you are going to put named entities on a sanctions list that government needs to provide some guidance to the private sector about what that means.”
Deibert also cautioned that any removal of a Web site from a Web hosting service should also be treated as a potential infringement on freedom of speech and access to information.
The report also said Syrian state TV station Addounia TV, which has been sanctioned by Canada and the EU for inciting violence against Syrian citizens, uses Canadian-based Web servers to host its Web site.
“Addounia TV to me is probably the most serious because it is a television station that has been sanctioned for inciting violence,” Deibert said.
Deibert added that Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who headed the UN peacekeeping force during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, regretted not pulling the plug on a radio station that incited genocide in Rwanda.
The report also says a Web site for the Lebanese political party Hezbollah is hosted on Canadian and US-based servers. Canada classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
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