In May 2017, a total of 21 websites were blocked in Egypt, including Qatar’s Aljazeera.
After YouTube was blocked in Egypt temporarily on religious grounds in 2018, a Cairo administrative court has set September 20, 2020, as the day to announce ruling over blocking the video-sharing website in the country, according to a statement from the court.
It comes after a lawsuit was filed by lawyer Mohamed Hamid Salem, who had previously won a court ruling in 2013 to shut down Youtube in Egypt for a month after a blasphemous video hurting religious sentiments of Muslims surfaced online.
The court suspended the sentence two weeks after when the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression appealed the decision.
The ruling was postponed until the final decision on the case before the Supreme Administrative Court, the highest administrative court in Egypt.
Meanwhile, YouTube has grown with the massive user base since the lawsuit was first filed. Last month, YouTube announced that YouTube Music, a music streaming application and YouTube Premium, a paid subscription which provides an ad-free experience on YouTube, will be rolled out in Egypt starting September 10, 2020.
All users in Egypt will be offered a free trial for a month on YouTube Premium, which costs between US$3 and $6 depending on the package chosen.
