"There is no doubt that the internet is one of the most liberating forces in the Middle East," wrote Esra'a Al Shafei, the director of MideastYouth.com, on bitterlemons-international.org. Here is my Q&A with the woman behind the evergrowing network that promotes tolerance and understanding in the Middle East.

What was the idea behind your web sites?

"Well, we operate overall more than 8 campaigns and websites in about 3 languages now. Our main one remains Mideast Youth, which was created May 2006. The idea is to bridge the cultural and religious gaps between various nations of the Middle East. The original idea was to concentrate mainly to recognize and develop the relationship between different ethnic and religious communities, primarily in the Arab world and Iran. Often, in the process of dialogue, so many people are left out. We needed a place where we can communicate with each other. Many people focus on the gap between the "West" and the "Middle East," where they often just mean Israelis and Palestinians.

There is hardly any real dialogue taking place between Arabs or Kurds, or Iranians and Israelis, or the many religious minorities that have been forgotten and isolated for centuries. I realized that many of us know virtually nothing about our neighboring nations beyond what we hear in the news, and that's where Mideast Youth comes in. We realize the power of the internet and we are using it to our advantage; in order to learn from each other and to educate ourselves on minority groups within our communities and other countries of the Middle East that aren't accurately or fully represented in the media. And based on the awareness we gain from and about each other, we create campaigns that target things such as Baha'i human rights, Kurdish human rights, and freedom of speech for everyone including intellectual minorities.

While blogging is great, the language barriers are very huge, and it's something we wish to tackle. We have recently launched in Arabic and are now working on a site in Farsi. Some of our projects already operate in these different languages, which has resulted in our work being covered in some of the regional media outlets."

"Freedom. Never has there ever been a media outlet so widely publicized and shared like this, where you can meet different individuals from all over the world and be able to discuss things freely with them on a large scale. Many bloggers today are more widely known internationally than journalists, which shows how much power blogging has, and how many people are using our blogs as a vital source of information. Since a lot of media outlets here in the Middle East are state-owned, our blogs serve as a crucial alternative. And with group efforts like Mideast Youth, we are connecting blogging and cyber activism in order to increase awareness on issues that we feel we have an impact on.

Needless to say, blogging comes with many risks. For example, Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger, is currently serving a 4 year sentence due to his blog posts. He got 3 years for his criticisms of Islam, and 1 year for insulting the President of Egypt. In order to protest this, we launched FreeKareem.org, a campaign aimed to secure his release. Kareem is spending his 2nd year in prison now. There are many other bloggers, primarily in Iran, Egypt and Syria who remain detained as well."

"Yes. Blogging, and in fact the entire Internet and the opportunities it provides, is incredibly empowering for women specifically in the Middle East. No one can really stifle our voices anymore. There are many female bloggers in the region expressing their thoughts, socio-political opinions, requesting for more rights in countries like Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. I feel that we are extremely active in this field because in a way we have a lot to prove, to show the world what we are truly capable of. Because not only do we have to deal with consistent stereotypes from around the world who view us as pathetically oppressed, but even locally, and including in countries like Bahrain and the UAE, we still deal with discrimination. Blogging is a great way for us to protest this, while getting involved in social movements. Some of the best campaigns in the Middle East are run by women. This should be recognized."

"This trend will grow stronger until better, more prominent methods of communication are introduced. We are moving now to video, audio, microblogging platforms, etc. The authorities do crack down on bloggers and cyber activists often, but their attempts are often unsuccessful because the outcome is something they can't control. There are large and growing campaigns against internet censorship and much of this focus is in the Middle East. Cyber activism continues to grow as a result of the crackdown on blogs and sites. We're here to make sure that what belongs to us remains under our ownership for free usage. Right now, anyone can easily create a blog and start networking with other members.

The Middle Eastern blogosphere is getting bigger and more popular by the second, and their presence is also prominent in all fields of social media. Aside from bloggers appearing in the news, they are also in many ways creating the news, and exposing things journalists never reported before. We see this happening especially with underrepresented minorities, or isolated incidents and abuse, such as issues relating to homosexuality, sex trafficking, modern slavery, and honor crimes. The internet is shedding the light on all of these things that are "taboo" and are therefore rarely discussed.

Finally, we are not here to oppose our governments necessarily... we are here to secure what we finally found - a free outlet for information. Generally speaking, we are not harming anyone."