Sheik Abu Ishaq al Heweny in December 2011 who said that "a woman's face is like a vagina so that it should be covered with a veil". Traffic and influence In 2003, it was reported that Elaph gained a wide audience among liberal and democratic writers. It was much more popular than on-line versions of the leading printed newspapers such as Al Hayat in 2004. The newsportal became the most popular internet site, ahead even the website of Al Jazeera, in Saudi Arabia in 2005. Then, it enjoyed popularity in other countries as seen in the following figures of 2009: Egypt (11.4%), Saudi Arabia (8.3%), the United States (8.0%), Iraq (6.8%), the United Arab Emirates (6.4%), Libya (5.0%), Kuwait (4.9%), Algeria (4.8%), Lebanon (4.6%) and Qatar (4.0%). The other countries where Elaph is read include Germany, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, France, Finland and Switzerland. On 5 November 2008, the day following the US presidential elections, Elaph reached an all-time record high of 18 million hits. As a result of its popularity and international readership, Elaph.com became one of the leading news portals in the Arab world. The website was officially audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Its traffic was certified in May 2010 which produced ABC's certificate of 1,179,801 users and 8,565,601 page impressions. Furthermore, based on data from August 2010, the website had 1.3 million global users per month. Elaph was the tenth most visited website in the Arab world in 2012. Bans Elaph was blocked in Saudi Arabia in May 2006. The block for which no official reason had been stated was lifted in 2009. However, after publishing the cables released by WikiLeaks in an article with the title of "Gulf after WikiLeaks storm, Riyadh Speaks while all are silent", the site was again blocked in Saudi Arabia on 6 December 2010. It is clear that the site, along with the other news portal Al Quds Al Arabi, has been continuously blocked and unblocked in Saudi Arabia. It was also blocked in Yemen in 2004 for a period of time based on the claim that it posted "sexual material". However, it was argued by Yemen Observer that the real reason for the block was reports of Elaph containing personal criticism of then Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh and his elder son Ahmed. Libya and Syria also blocked Elaph before 2006. Expansion It was announced