Public Backlash: ‘No website will be blocked without investigation,' Pakistan explains

The Ministry of Information and Technology has decided to block 17 websites, including YouTube, although the date of implementation of this order has not been ascertained. The websites are being blocked for allowing access to blasphemous material as presented to the Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Int'l Desk
Source & Credit: The Express Tribune
By Express | June 25, 2010

The advisor to prime minister on Information Technology, Latif Khosa stated on Friday that no website will be blocked without proper investigation.

According to latest reports, The Ministry of Information and Technology has decided to block 17 websites, including YouTube, although the date of implementation of this order has not been ascertained. The websites are being blocked for allowing access to blasphemous material as presented to the Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court. Search engines such as Yahoo and MSN will also be closely monitored for now, said ministry sources.

The Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench has summoned IT ministry officials on the 28th of this month, to further discuss the matter.


Online response

The Express Tribune ran an online poll: Should an online search engine be banned because it provides access to blasphemous content?

The results: No – 86%, Yes – 14%

The online community of Pakistan has responded strongly to the announcement of the possible ban.

Blogger Ammar Yassir wrote

The news that Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg may face a death penalty by the Lahore High Court (LHC) didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the facebook fiasco in Pakistan. Keeping in view the recent few verdicts by the LHC which ironically defied some basic laws of physics, geography and common sense, there is a major possibility that the young entrepreneur from New York is sentenced to a death penalty under Criminal Code 295-C on blasphemy laws.

Salman Latif blogged

Banning a score of sites, including Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, Bing, YouTube and Amazon, the moral axe has yet again grinded on the pretext of blasphemous content. Without a doubt, such a ban is bound to impact millions of users across the country, positively inhibiting their online activity.

Mahvesh commented

Excellent!! If we can’t see blasphemous material, obviously it doesn’t exist. The definition of ‘blasphemous material’ and methods of controlling it is getting to be a highly ridiculous joke now. These people need to go out and actually do something constructive in the world.

Tanzeel said

Simply ridiculous. Even the earlier ban on facebook was ridiculous. The lawyers and judges first need to understand how “internet” works before going all out against it. They are simply making a joke out of our nation.

Ali Habib wrote

I would have hoped that after the Facebook debacle, our courts would have had the sense to throw petitions like this out of court instead of taking them seriously and fast tracking us to the Stone Age. I do not pay taxes to have judges who clearly don’t understand how the Internet works upholding ridiculous petitions like this. This obsession we have with blasphemy colours

 everything else we do, usually at the expense of common sense and basic freedoms.

Kashan said

I appreciates the decision taken by the court & the voice raise by a Pakistani. Do not be dependent on your country’s enemies’ products or technology so much.Make your self Independent.

Moiz Ahmed wrote

A block means block of massive traffic, which is the real loss one suffers. Block is a protest, not stone age; protest that they have hurt the people’s feelings. I am not too sure about feelings of people (who have posted anit-judiciary comments) for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH); but mine are very strong. Like many others, I would voice for Prophet Muhammad if some one tries to make fun of him. Search engines has a term called “sponsored search results”; I wonder if they listed blasphemous material under sponsored search results. Above all, no one should ever post sacrilegious material on internet anyway. We, struggled a lot of independence of judiciary and stand by it till the end. And I feel every Pakistani should; if they are Pakistani.

Altaf Hussain

Can anyone ask the definition of blasphemous materials from Lahore High Court Judges ( I wish they have taken such a serious notice for the daily killing of innocent Pakistanis, Missing Pakistanis, against religion terrorist.

What about and where is Lahore high Court and its crew members when mother and four children committed suicide, As long as we have Lahore High Court and Ministry of information we would not progress at all.

Fawwad Shafi

Stupid decision to ban the websites. Doesn’t the LHC have better things to do.

SadafFayyaz

Come out of these bans please :::::

Hunain Ali

Hahaha :)

Cool..I like it :), I mean look who’s talking..people who don’t even know what Internet or ‘blasphemous material’ is :D

Regardless of all the blocks, my message to LHC and Ministry of IT. “Block whatever you want to, You can’t stop us from accessing what we want to :)”

Ali

The quality of language and the hap-hazard thoughts presented by the pro ban posts demonstrate the intellectual level of the people trying to support the ban. The lack of education again seems to be the cause of our downfall. In the modern world how can we hope to compete with other states for technological superiority when even the people like the Information Technology Advisor probably would not even know how to spell Technology. Our IT companies have no hope of ever competing with the rest of the world as the infrastructure they depend on is subject to being hijacked by such people.

Paix Mundi

facebook fiasco and other attempts to “block” certain websites because they contain blasphemous material is a grand commentary on the utter ignorance of the advocates of the ban. they are telling the whole world that neither pta nor our courts know how the internet works! blasphemous sites are not one or two; there are millions of them. just google under the keyword islamophobia and you’ll know. now block a search engine and you don’t block just those sites but all other sites covered by the engine. on the other hand, courtesy of computer enthusiasts, the block can be circumvented. instead of wasting time and money on site sorting, we should invest the same in improving access to the internet.

Muhammad Usman Ghani

Ban the Bans!

Adil Mansoor

LHC should get a life

Karim Khan

By banning any websites, LHC will further ruin the image of Pakisatn in the eyes of the world.

Danish Butt

nothing should be blocked for watever reason may be. there are more benefits than bad usage websites. Also, bad usage of something doesn’t make that thing bad! I have a question for the courts: why dont u ban the porn or adult sites rather than banning useful sites like google or any other search engine?

S.A.R.A

Bass kerdo bass!

Dr Ayaz

Yet another ridiculous decision. Ban on free access to information is violation of fundamental right. Banning these popular websites is not the solution. It would look funny when we block these sites and millions of sites containing pornographic material are freely accessible. Aren’t they unislamic. I suggest block the whole internet at all.

Callen

These politicians and lawyers the so called “old” and “wise” have no idea about what the situation is, they only assume the possible evil that they face. Ignoring the reality is the reason why our country has failed several times due to certain ignorant people. It’s not like stopping or restricting access to someone could have a possible impact on these so called websites containing “blasphemous content” rather people would find alternatives for the problem and loose all remaining respect that they have for their seniors.

Zain Abbass

14% of the tribunes readers are officially ******!

Faraz

I think its there new monopoly to suppress political criticism.these court people don’t even know how to start a computer and they have taken the responsibility to just ban all important sites and we suffer.

IS OUR VOICE UNHEARD? WHERE IS OUR FREEDOM?

Faraz

Inter-net is like a world, in world without boundries (Ummah-West). we can find every type of people religious, athiest and many more. to Google the blasphemy content is 1st you r commiting a crime..and also like you will be preached by some athiest. just dont listen to him, why ban. and if by chance you find blasphemy content I think it will give strength to my Imaan and my Imaan will be stronger then ever.

ban from the facebook means you are withdrawing from the battle ground (billi ko dekh k ankhain band karna)..

Shayan

I agree with Ali, and Danish. The irreverant content displayed on certain websites, is frivolous to the progression of our daily endevours. The blocking of the supposed “blashemous” websites, does not comply with the conformities of logic. This implies on the seemingly deliberate restriction of our involvement in the proceeding for compelling the apathetic society, of the incorrect and fallible information spread across. Rectifying their beliefs, or stopping the brains of other people from processing this false information, would have been our targeted goal. Generally, the blocking of certain sites is not a logical form of proceeding, but just a representation of limited intellectual capablities.

Shayan

And by the way, Youtube can be used for a versatile set of assimilations. In my opinion, it one of the most useful sites available on the internet. Blocking this would surely ascertain these authoritative entities as completely “whacko”.

Mohammed Abbasi

Ban the MULLAHS – what nation that cares for its future can tolerate this infestation in its body-politic. Pakistan and Pakistanis want to move forward not exist as slaves to these fanatics

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