Monday, February 14, 2011

BEIRUT: A Saudi hacker hit the Beirut-based SKeyes center for Media and Cultural Freedom Sunday, bringing down their internet site, which continued to be off-line well into Sunday evening. Skeyes (Samir Kassir eyes) is the official web page of the Samir Kassir Foundation, which is dedicated to the memory of the slain journalist, killed in 2005. The hacker, calling himself Khaled al-Anzi, posted a message on the site, dedicating the act of piracy to the King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah Bin Abdel-Aziz and to the Syrian President Bashar Assad. Skeyes media watchdog was set up in 2008 to monitoring and report on press freedom in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. A prominent left-wing activist and An-Nahar columnist, Kassir was a major critic of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. He was also a leading figure in the Cedar Revolution, a series of protests in 2005 which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. – The Daily Star