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Archive for the ‘Pakistan’ Category

LHC dismisses petition seeking Wikileaks ban | Pakistan | DAWN.COM

December 3, 2010 (3 days ago)

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a petition registered by one Arif Gondal seeking a ban on the Wikileaks website.

Gondal in his petition termed the leakage of secret information by WikiLeaks (a not-for-profit media organisation) a conspiracy to create a rift among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim and Western countries.

Requesting the court to issue orders for imposing a ban on the website, the petitioner argued that since Pakistan had good bilateral relations with a number of countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the leakage of secret information would adversely affect these ties.

LHC’s Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed dismissed the petition, calling it non-maintainable.

We must bear the truth, no matter how harmful it is, television reports quoted Justice Saeed as saying.

BBC News – Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’: “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’

25.06.2010

Google website – file Pakistan says the main website will be unaffected

Pakistan will start monitoring seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, for content it deems offensive to Muslims.

YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail and Bing will also come under scrutiny, while 17 less well-known sites will be blocked.

Officials will monitor the sites and block links deemed inappropriate.

In May, Pakistan banned access to Facebook after the social network hosted a ‘blasphemous’ competition to draw the prophet Muhammad.

The new action will see Pakistani authorities monitor content published on the seven sites, blocking individual pages if content is judged to be offensive.

Telecoms official Khurram Mehran said links would be blocked without disturbing the main website.
Cartoon controversy

The ban on Facebook was lifted after about two weeks, when the site blocked access to the page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad.
Protesters condemn a page of Facebook – May 2010 The Draw Muhammad page on Facebook sparked protests in Pakistan

Facebook itself is not on the new list of websites to be monitored. A number of links from YouTube will be blocked but not the main site itself.

Many Muslims regard depictions of Muhammad, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.

In 2007, the government banned YouTube, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted.

BBC News – Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’: “Pakistan to monitor Google and Yahoo for ‘blasphemy’

Page last updated at 16:01 GMT, Friday, 25 June 2010 17:01 UK

Google website – Pakistan says the main website will be unaffected

Pakistan will start monitoring seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, for content it deems offensive to Muslims.

YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail and Bing will also come under scrutiny, while 17 less well-known sites will be blocked.

Officials will monitor the sites and block links deemed inappropriate.

In May, Pakistan banned access to Facebook after the social network hosted a ‘blasphemous’ competition to draw the prophet Muhammad.

The new action will see Pakistani authorities monitor content published on the seven sites, blocking individual pages if content is judged to be offensive.

Telecoms official Khurram Mehran said links would be blocked without disturbing the main website.

Cartoon controversy

The ban on Facebook was lifted after about two weeks, when the site blocked access to the page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad.
Protesters condemn a page of Facebook – May 2010 The Draw Muhammad page on Facebook sparked protests in Pakistan

Facebook itself is not on the new list of websites to be monitored. A number of links from YouTube will be blocked but not the main site itself.

Many Muslims regard depictions of Muhammad, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.

In 2007, the government banned YouTube, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted. “

(Via .)

BBC News – Pakistani court removes Facebook ban

Page last updated at 6:51 GMT, Monday, 31 May 2010 7:51 UK

Anti-Facebook protest in Quetta on 27 May 2010 Muslims consider it un-Islamic to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad

A court in Pakistan has ordered the authorities to restore the Facebook social networking site.

The court had ordered the blocking of the site after a petition was filed against a competition featuring caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

The petition, filed by a lawyers’ group called the Islamic Lawyers’ Movement, said the contest was ‘blasphemous’.

Pakistan’s deputy attorney told the court on Monday that Facebook had withdrawn the competition.

The Facebook page in question contained caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and characters from other religions, including Hinduism and Christianity, as well as comments both critical and supportive of Islam.

On Monday, Justice Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court reversed his 19 May order to the Pakistani authorities to block the site.

‘Restore Facebook. We don’t want to block access to information,’ Justice Chaudhry told the court.

He asked the government to develop a system to find out how countries like Saudi Arabia were blocking access to ‘blasphemous’ content on the internet.

‘It is the government’s job to take care of such things, which spark resentment among the people and bring them onto the streets.

‘They should take steps to block any blasphemous content on the internet,’ Justice Chaudhry said.

Last week, Pakistan restored access to popular video sharing website YouTube only after blocking some pages for ’sacrilegious content’.

Correspondents say that the internet is uncensored in Pakistan but the government monitors content by routing all traffic through a central exchange.

In the past, Pakistan has often blocked access to pornographic sites and sites with anti-Islamic content.

It has deemed such material as offensive to the political and security establishment of the country, says the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.

In 2007, the government banned the YouTube site, allegedly to block material offensive to the government of Pervez Musharraf.

The action led to widespread disruption of access to the site for several hours. The ban was later lifted.

Pak blockage of Facebook, YouTube might increase traffic to these sites-Internet-Infotech-The Economic Times:

21 May 2010, 1613 hrs IS, AGENCIES

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s blockage on wildly popular web-sites like YouTube and Facebook will likely have a reverse effect from the one desired by authorities as curious Netizens would log onto these sites to see what the brouhaha is about.

Pakistan’s telecom regulatory body, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has said it found ’sacrilegious’ content on YouTube, leading them to block it. Incidentally, YouTube has been co-founded by Jawed Karim, a Muslim.

‘We have asked the Internet service providers to block more than 450 web links, which contain derogatory material,’ The News quoted a PTA spokesman, as saying.

‘The action follows our repeated attempts to convince these websites to discard such material,’ he added.

He said the PTA had approached the administrators of the websites through emails, however he could not name the officials who had been contacted.

Industry officials, on the other hand, say the authorities have yet to get in touch with the people who run Facebook and YouTube, the report said.

These hasty suppressive tactics are probably not going to be too fruitful, according to industry officials.

‘There is no way of stopping this. The day government lifts restriction from these websites, the Internet traffic will double. People will visit them just out of curiosity,’ said an advertiser, who deals with Facebook and YouTube.

AFP: Pakistanis shout ‘Death to Facebook’, burn US flags: “Pakistanis shout ‘Death to Facebook’, burn US flags

By Hasan Mansoor (AFP) – 6 hours ago

KARACHI — Pakistani protesters shouted ‘Death to Facebook’, ‘Death to America’ and burnt US flags on Friday, venting growing anger over ’sacrilegious’ caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on the Internet.

A Facebook user organised an ‘Everyone Draw Mohammed Day’ competition to promote ‘freedom of expression’, inspired by an American woman cartoonist, but sparked a major backlash in the conservative Muslim country of 170 million.

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the row has sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) banned access to Facebook, YouTube and more than 450 links, including restricted access to Wikipedia in view of what it called ‘growing sacrilegious content’.

PTA released a toll-free telephone number and email address, and has acted on complaints received by the regulator.

In Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, religious parties mobilised hundreds of protesters onto the streets to demand a ban on Facebook and an apology from the social networking site for humiliating Muslims.

Activists shouted slogans such as ‘Death to Facebook’, ‘Death to America’ and branded the United States the ‘root cause of all mischief’ at the peaceful rallies, said an AFP reporter.

In Multan, a shrine city in Punjab province, hundreds of people rallied, burning US flags and tyres to block traffic before dispersing peacefully.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, about 250 students and religious activists staged small protests, chanting ‘Death to Facebook, death to Youtube,’ and on one occasion torched a US flag, an AFP reporter said.

The offending Facebook page has attracted 105,000 fans — and five pages of crude manipulated pictures and caricatures. Pages denouncing the competition and calling for a boycott of the May 20 competition attracted far more fans.

Facebook expressed disappointment at being blocked and said it was considering whether to make the offending page inaccessible in Pakistan.

YouTube, the Google-owned video-sharing site, said it was ‘working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible’.

The controversy has yet to incite a mass outpouring onto the streets in Pakistan, where there are an estimated 2.5 million Facebook users, and it remains to be seen how far protests will spread to other Muslim countries.

Sweden said it has closed its embassy in Islamabad for more than two weeks due to the security situation, refusing to say whether any direct threats had been issued against the mission.

An Al-Qaeda front organisation has offered 100,000 dollars to anyone who kills Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has angered many Muslims by drawing highly blasphemous caricature of the prophet.

Pakistan condemned the caricatures on Facebook and said that ’such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the feelings of Muslims around the world’.

The PTA asked Facebook and YouTube, which are wildly popular in Pakistan and set up in the United States, to resolve the matter as soon as possible in a manner that ‘ensures religious harmony and respect’.

The purported creator of the Facebook page told a US television channel in a voice-only interview that he had meant to stand up for ‘freedom of expression’.

‘We know that the fight for freedom of expression, freedom of speech can’t be stopped by a country like Pakistan censoring the Internet,’ the man, who would be identified only as ‘Andy’, told MSNBC.

A rival Facebook page called ‘Against Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ started to oppose the caricature page had drawn some 106,300 fans.

Molly Norris, the American cartoonist whose work inspired the controversial page, condemned the Facebook spin-off and apologised to Muslims.

She drew a cartoon in April to protest against the cancellation of an episode of popular show ‘South Park’. Norris satirically proposed May 20 as an ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.’

‘The vitriol this ‘day’ has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place,’ she said.

Pakistan blocks YouTube in ‘sacrilege’ row: Pakistan blocked access to YouTube today because of ‘growing sacrilegious content’ on the video-sharing website. It is the latest twist in an escalating international row over Islam and freedom of speech online.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

PK – Pakistan blocks access to YouTube in internet crackdown: (BBC)
Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube because of its ‘growing sacrilegious content’. Access to the social network Facebook has also been barred as part of a crackdown on websites seen to be hosting un-Islamic content. A Pakistani court ordered Facebook to be blocked because of a page inviting people to draw caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Some Wikipedia pages are also now being restricted, latest reports say.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Pakistan court orders blocking of Facebook over Muhammad cartoon: “Facebook was sucked into a growing row over Islam and freedom of speech yesterday after a Pakistani court ordered the site to be blocked over a page advertising a contest to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Pakistan president Asif Zardari bans jokes ridiculing him – Telegraph: “Pakistan president Asif Zardari bans jokes ridiculing him
Pakistan’s president, Asif Zardari, has been accused of suffering from a sense of humour failure after banning jokes ridiculing him.

By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Published: 7:04PM BST 21 Jul 2009″

Pakistanis who send jokes about Asif Zardari by text message, email or blog risk being arrested and given a 14-year prison sentence.

The country’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been asked to trace electronically transmitted jokes that “slander the political leadership of the country” under the new Cyber Crimes Act.

Mr Malik, said the move would punish the authors of “ill motivated and concocted stories through emails and text messages against the civilian leadership”.

The step, which was described by human rights groups as “draconian and authoritarian”, came after government was particularly riled by a barrage of caustic jokes being sent to the presidency’s official email.

Critics have accused the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), a party that espouses a liberal agenda, of stooping as low as the former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, who took television broadcasters off air when he faced political opposition.

Mr Zardari, the widower of the assassinated former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, has long courted controversy.

During his wife’s two tenures he earned the nickname of “Mr 10 per cent” on account of his alleged penchant for demanding kickbacks on government contracts.

A former polo-playing playboy, Mr Zardari has proved to be prickly about what others say of him since he was elected as president by the national parliament a year ago.

Most of the criticism stems from his government’s inability to address problems such as severe power outages and inflation, and his inability to shake off old allegations of corruption.

Mr Zardari’s thin-skin when it comes to jokes has forced Pakistanis to find other ways to refer to the president, with nicknames ranging from “dacu” or “bandit” to chief choor, meaning thief.

The ban has become the focus of intense television debate in Pakistan, as Mr Zardari’s aides have attempted to justify the move using every argument ranging from counter-terrorism concerns to saying that women parliamentarians had received abusive messages.

The prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, with whom Mr Zardari has clashed, has distanced himself from the ban saying that it would not be enforced.

Mr Zardari’s PPP-led government tried to target text messages and emails last month when it levied a new tax on all text messages.

The tax was abandoned after it emerged that it would ruin a major source of revenue for Pakistan’s five mobile phone companies.

As soon as the tax was announced, a text message began making the rounds saying: “The government has imposed a tax on all messages. This means that until now President Zardari was getting abused for free. Now he’ll get paid every time someone abuses him!”

Zardari jokes:

* “Terrorists have kidnapped our beloved Zardari and are demanding $5,000,000 or they will burn him with petrol. Please donate what you can. I have donated five litres.”

* To commemorate the ascension to the Presidency, Pakistan Post has officially launched a new stamp. But the people of Pakistan are confused which side on the stamp to spit on.

* Robber: “Give me all your money!”

Zardari: “Don’t you know who I am? I am Asif Ali Zardari.”

Robber: “OK. Give me all my money”