Internet censorship in Pakistan

The Government of Pakistan censors all Internet traffic by means of routing all connections through a central exchange which is administered by the Internet Exchange. Furthermore Pakistani ISPs are also under orders to block certain websites on their own routers. A common victim by major ISPs in Pakistan was the weblogs hosted at blogspot.com (The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs is lifted), amongst other important social networking websites.

History and law

The Government of Pakistan some years back established the Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE), as a means to monitor all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic from Pakistan. The primary purpose of PIE is to filter content as the government deems fit. A secondary purpose is to keep track of all incoming and outgoing e-mail, which by parliamentary order are kept for a period of at least three months.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) announced in April, 2003 that it would be stepping up censorship of pornographic websites. "Anti-Islamic" and "blasphemous" sites were also censored. In early March 2004, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to all pornographic content. The ISPs, however, displayed absence of technical know-how, and advocated that the PTCL would be better fit to carry out FIA's requirement. A Malaysian firm was then hired to provide a filtering system.

Currently, there is no established law as to which websites the government censors, or when. In the past, mainly pornographic and anti-establishment political websites have been blocked. Once in a while, western news sites have also been blocked, though these blocks were usually short-lived.

YouTube

YouTube was blocked in Pakistan following a decision taken by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on February 22 2007 because of the number of "non-Islamic objectionable videos." One report specifically names Fitna, a controversial Dutch film, as the basis for the block. Pakistan, an Islamic republic, has ordered its ISPs to block access to YouTube "for containing blasphemous web content/movies."(Blasphemy law in Pakistan calls for life imprisonment or death.) The action effectively blocked YouTube access worldwide for several hours on February 24.

This follows increasing unrest in Pakistan by Islamic extremists over the re-printing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons which depict satirical Criticism of Islam. However, it has been suggested by some Pakistani vigilante web sites and electoral process watchdog groups that the block was imposed largely to distract viewers from videos alleging vote-rigging by the ruling MQM party in the recently concluded general elections. Allegations of suppressing vote-rigging videos by the Musharraf administration are also being leveled by Pakistani bloggers, newspapers, media, and Pakistani anti-Musharraf opposition parties.

On February 26, 2008, the ban was lifted after the website had removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government.

Supreme Court directive

The Supreme Court on March 1, 2006 directed the government to block Internet sites displaying the Muhammad cartoons and called for an explanation from authorities as to why these sites had not been blocked earlier.[1] A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, summoned the country's Attorney General as well as senior communication ministry officials on March 13 to give a report of "concrete measures for implementation of the court's order".

On March 2, 2006, in pursuant to a Petition filed by Dr. Mohammed Imram Uppal under Article 184(3) of the Constitution of Pakistan, the Supreme Court sitting en banc ordered the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) and other government departments to adopt measures for blocking websites showing blasphemous content. The Court also ordered Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan to explore laws which would enable blocking objectionable websites. In announcing his decision, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, said, "We will not accept any excuse or technical objection on this issue because it relates to the sentiments of the entire Muslim world. All authorities concerned will have to appear in the Court on the next hearing with reports of concrete measures taken to implement our order," which was scheduled on March 13, 2006.

Consequently, the government blocked a number of websites hosting the cartoons deemed to be sacrilegious. This ban included all the weblogs hosted at the popular blogging service blogger.com, as some bloggers had put up copies of the cartoons – particularly many non-Pakistani blogs.

On the hearing on March 14, 2006, the PTA informed the Supreme Court that all websites displaying the Muhammad cartoons have been blocked. The bench issued directions to Attorney General of Pakistan Makhdoom Ali Khan to assist the court on Monday on how it could exercise jurisdiction to prevent the availability of blasphemous material on websites the world over.[2]

The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs was lifted on May 2, 2006 [3]. Shortly thereafter the blanket ban was reimposed, and extended to Typepad blogs.The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs is lifted again. Pakistan also blocked Baloch nationalist websites.

How the Internet is censored

The government of Pakistan has a simplistic IP based filtering procedure in place, for example since all websites hosted on blogspot resolve to the same IP address, they were blocked. However since the PIE uses Cisco routers to block traffic, which are capable of more complex filtering rules, the government removed this blanket block on all blogspot weblogs few months ago, now it has the capability to only target specific websites.

As all Internet traffic is routed through the PIE, Pakistani ISPs have also been ordered to also block certain websites on their routers. Previously, all the major ISPs in Pakistan blocked weblogs hosted at blogspot.com, But now its been unblocked.

Wikipedia article on Islamic Emirate of Waziristan earns a threat of an Internet ban

On September 19, 2006 when a reporter from the Daily Times asked a Government of Pakistan Foreign Office spokeswoman to comment on a recent Wikipedia article "The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan", the spokeswoman characterized the article as "baseless propaganda". The news story pointedly ended with a reminder that "The federal government has said several times that it plans to ban several websites and web pages through the Ministry of Information and Technology and Pakistan Telecommunicatoin Authority (PTA).

See also

• Constitution of Pakistan
• Censorship in South Asia
• Freedom of Speech
• Censorship
• Freedom of the press

External links

• BBC :Web censorship is for the sake of National Interest-
• Pakistan 451: PTA letter blocking websites
• The Nation: SC Orders to Block Blasphemous Websites
• Censorship in Pakistani Urdu Textbooks
• President of Pakistan's Speech on the Importance of Information Technology to Pakistan
• Pakistan Information Security Association