Meet Shamra Syrians Answer to US Sanctions on Internet Search Engines

The US sanctions against Syria are not news, the United States regime started imposing illegal sanctions against the Syrian state since more than 6 decades when Syrians started to look for partners without getting subjogated to undesirable choices. The US regimes with the help of their minions use sanctions against other countries as an arm twisting policy, if failed then they move to destabilizing using covert black ops and they end up with direct invasion, just to export their version of ‘democracy’.

One of the sides of sanctions the US regime use constantly and effectively is the technical sanctions and especially related to the internet, which is supposed to be a free space for all humans. The US agencies use all possible methods to impose their sanctions to the extent that many internet service providers don’t allow websites for companies based in Syria, and many don’t even show Syria in its list of countries.

Google, the large U.S. search engine provider turned magnet in technology, under the guise of opposing dictatorship, U.S. victimized countries not allies or even at home dictators, have gone to the extent of abusing their dominance in search to prefer anti-Syrian government propaganda over balanced information, and once even changed the names of main Syrian landmarks before a massive campaigning contributed by the author of this article facing the net giant with logic managed to restore the original names of these sites, one of them was Assad Lake which Google Maps changed temporarily to Syria Lake as an example. So not only sanctions but also forging history and geography.

A group of Syrians in the city of Latakia on the Syrian coast have launched Shamra, their response to Google search engine, an Arabic language search engine, to add some useful applications to it soon. The site initiated from within Syria using the .Sy TLD (Top Level Domain) will be available to Syrians in the country and others abroad not under the U.S. regime hegemony.

The young Syrian technicians used the name ‘Shamra’ to name their new search engine with reference to Ras Shamra historical area in Latakia where Ugarit kingdom in the second millennium before Christ. Worth noting that Syrians invented the Alphabet and the Muslim scientist Khawarzmi invented the Algorithm which is named after him, so it won’t be a surprise that Syrians can turn around any sanctions of such and re-invent any technology.

Sharma search engine was launched on 6th of September 2015 and achieved more than 4,000 search hits by 6,000 visitors, which was an exciting news to the engineers behind the site. Engineer Shadi Saleh, Shamra project manager confirms the idea came due to frustration from the U.S. imposed sanctions. The site can filter results within Syrian government sites, educational, cultural or medical sites as well.

The site was featured by Lebanese newspaper Assafir in its 08 September edition.