The Saudi Arabian government has banned more than 2,000 websites, including ones covering health, drugs, pop culture and womens' rights.

According to a survey by the Harvard Law School - compiled with the aid of the Saudi government - sites such those for Rolling Stone magazine, the Arab-American Roman Catholic Community and the Islamic cultural library have been blacklisted, as well as women's network iVillage.com, Beach Queen swimwear and Warner Brothers Records.

One of the Harvard researchers involved in the project said that although they were not surprised that pornographic or political sites had been censored, many that would be considered innocent in the West were also blocked.

If a site is blacklisted, the user is directed to a page that tells them they have been denied access.

The country filters all internet traffic through a central array of proxy servers maintained by the Internet Services Unit (ISU).

Most of the major personal homepage domains - including geocities.com and members.aol.com - have also been blocked.