Attorney General orders banning Blue Whale in Egypt

CAIRO - 21 April 2018: Attorney General Nabil Sadek ordered Saturday the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to take the necessary measures to ban all websites and platforms that allow access to suicide-encouraging games, like the Blue Whale and others.

The top prosecutor explained his decision that such games are dangerous to lives of youth and teenagers.

“Those games target the young people, incite them to commit suicide and hurt their beloved ones, which threatens the safety of the Egyptian family, and the national security as well,” the attorney general statement reads.

The Head of Egyptian Federation for Electronic Games, Sherief Abdelbaky, stated on April 5 that blocking any site or game needs high technical capabilities and he suggested providing support and strong local game alternatives.

His statement came as a reply to demands calling for the blocking of the “Blue Whale” game after it allegedly claimed the life of the son of former Egyptian MP Hamdy al-Fakharany, and many kids and teenagers followed him.

Known as the “Blue Whale Challenge”, the game requires players to go through 50 dangerous tasks over the course of 50 days. The tasks often begin with self-harm, leading up to the final challenge which is suicide.

Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, the Sunni Islamic institute concerned with Fatwa (Islamic Law) issuance, has religiously forbidden playing the “Blue Whale” game, which pushes children to commit suicide.

In its new fatwa, Dar al-Ifta clarified the reasons for banning this deadly game, mentioning that the player commits illegal actions.

“The users are asked to cut themselves with a sharp weapon such as a needle or a knife, and this act is religiously forbidden. The preservation of a person’s life is one of the most important purposes in Islam,” the fatwa read.

Egyptian writer Ghada Abdel Aal has launched an lternative charitable game called the Green Whale, which requires players to go through daily charitable challenges, countering the effects of the horrifyingly dangerous game, the Blue Whale.

Abdel Aal has turned the suicide game into a number of charitable challenges in Green Whale, in order to destroy the panic sparked by the deadly game.

The game assigns 30 charitable acts that need to be completed before Ramadan, varying from helping a person to cross the street, to feeding animals, making children happy, raising funds to save a woman debtor from going to prison and visiting orphanages.

Despite the awareness campaigns that have been raised recently in media outlets against the deadly online game “Blue Whale”, Beheira Governorate has seen another case of an Egyptian teenager committing suicide after playing the game, putting in question the effectiveness of these campaigns.

The 12-year-old Egyptian child committed suicide by taking poisonous pills on Thursday; implementing the orders throughout the stages of the 50-task game. The case was linked to the Blue Whale game after initial investigations showed that the Blue Whale-shaped sign was carved onto his arm.