Internet censorship in Pakistan is government control over information sent and received using the Internet in Pakistan.
Pakistan made global headlines in 2010 for blocking Facebook and other Web sites in response to a contest popularized on social networking sites to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. In general, Internet filtering in Pakistan remains inconsistent and intermittent, with screening especially targeted at content that is perceived as a threat to national security and religious content deemed blasphemous.
Video Internet censorship in Pakistan
Ikhtisar
By mid-2012 Pakistanis have relatively free access to a wide variety of content, including most of the sexual, political, social, and religious sites on the Internet. The OpenNet Initiative records Internet filtering in Pakistan as substantial in conflict/security areas, and is selective in the field of political, social and Internet tools by August 2012. In addition, Freedom House views Pakistan's "Freedom on Net Status" as "Not Free" in its report Freedom on the Net 2013 . This is still valid by 2016.
Internet filtering in Pakistan is governed by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under the direction of the government, the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT). Although the majority of filtering in Pakistan is intermittent - such as occasional blocking on major Web sites such as Blogspot or YouTube - PTA continues to block sites that contain content that is considered blasphemous, anti-Islam or threaten internal security. Online civil society activism that begins to protect freedom of expression in the country continues to grow as citizens use new media to disseminate information and organize.
Pakistan has blocked access to sites that are critical of the government or the military. Website blocking is often done under the rubric restricting access to "blasphemous" content, pornography, or religious immorality. By the end of 2011, the PTA has officially banned more than 1,000 pornographic websites in Pakistan.
Maps Internet censorship in Pakistan
Pakistan Internet Exchange
The Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE), operated by Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL), was created to facilitate the exchange of Internet traffic between ISPs inside and outside Pakistan. Since most of Pakistan's Internet traffic is channeled through PIE (98% of Pakistani ISPs use PIEs in 2004), it provides the means to monitor and possibly block incoming and outgoing Internet traffic as deemed appropriate by the government.
Internet surveillance in Pakistan is mainly done by PIE under the auspices of PTA. PIE monitors all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic from Pakistan, as well as emails and keywords, and saves data for a specified time. Law enforcement agencies such as the FIA ​​may be required by the government to monitor and monitor the content. Based on the Prevention of Electronic Crime Ordinance (PECO), ISPs are required to store traffic data for a minimum of 90 days and may also be required to collect real-time data and record information while safeguarding their involvement with government secrets. The ordinance does not specify what action is the basis for data collection and supervision.
Pakistan Telecommunication Company
In April 2003, PTCL announced that it would increase monitoring of pornographic websites. Sites "Anti-Islam" and "blasphemy" are also monitored. In early March 2004, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor access to all pornographic content. The ISP, however, lacked technical knowledge, and felt that PTCL was in a better position to execute FIA ​​orders. A Malaysian company was then employed to provide a screening system, but failed to provide a working system.
National URL filtering and blocking system
In March 2012, the Pakistani government took an unusual step in touting a company that could help build it as a nationwide content filtering service. The Telecommunications Authority of Pakistan issued a request for proposals for "national-level URL filtering and blocking" that will operate on the same line as China's Golden Shield, or "Great Firewall". Academic and research institutions as well as private commercial agencies have until March 16 to submit their proposals, according to a list of 35 system requirements requested request points. The key of which is as follows: "Each box must handle block list up to 50 million URLs (simultaneous filtering capacity) with processing delay of not more than 1 millisecond".
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoon controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depict the Prophet of Islam Muhammad, published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which rose to violence with cases of shootings against crowds of protesters, resulting in over 100 reported deaths, and including the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan, setting fire to the Danish Embassy in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, Europe, and the burning of Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French and German flags in Gaza City. Online cartoon postings added to the controversy.
On March 1, 2006, the Supreme Court of Pakistan directed the government to oversee Internet sites featuring cartoons and asked for clarification from authorities why the sites were not blocked earlier. On March 2, 2006, based on a petition filed under Section 184 (3) of the Constitution of Pakistan, the Supreme Court sat en banc ordering the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other government departments to adopt measures to block sites web that displays blasphemous content. The court also ordered Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan to explore legislation that would allow unfriendly website blocking. In announcing the ruling, Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said, "We will not accept any technical reason or objections to this issue because it relates to the sentiment throughout the Muslim world.All the authorities concerned must appear in the Court at the next session with concrete steps taken to carry out our order ".
As a result, the government continues to monitor a number of websites that hold cartoons that are considered as immoral. This prohibition includes all weblogs hosted on popular blogger blogging services, as some bloggers have put up a copy of the cartoon - especially many non-Pakistani blogs.
A three-member bench led by Supreme Court Justice Chaudhry, summoned the country's attorney general and senior communications ministry officials to report on "concrete steps for the implementation of court orders". At the hearing on March 14, 2006, the PTA informed the Supreme Court that all websites displaying Muhammad's cartoons had been blocked. The bench issued a directive to Pakistan's Attorney General, Makhdoom Ali Khan, to assist the court on how it could exercise jurisdiction to prevent the availability of blasphemous material on websites worldwide.
The blanket ban on blog blogspot.com was revoked on May 2, 2006. Shortly thereafter the blanket ban was reapply and extended to the Typepad blog. The ban on the blogspot.com blog is then revoked.
The alleged video suppression of Musharraf's suppression of votes was also flattened by Pakistani bloggers, newspapers, media and Pakistan's anti-Musharraf opposition party. The ban was lifted on February 26, 2008.
Ethno-separatist website
In 2006, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority blocked five websites for "providing misleading information". Some people allege that the real crime of the website is reporting the separatist conflict in Balochistan.
Social media and platform blocking
YouTube was blocked in Pakistan after a decision taken by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on February 22, 2008 due to the number of "un-Islamic videos." A special report called Fitna , a controversial Dutch film, as the basis for the block. Pakistan, an Islamic republic, ordered its ISPs to block access to YouTube "because it contains blasphemous web content/movies." This effectively blocks YouTube access worldwide for hours on 24 February. Defaming Muhammad under Ã, § 295-C of the Religious Blasphemy law in Pakistan requires the death penalty. This was followed by increasing unrest in Pakistan by reprinting Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons depicting satirical criticism of Islam. A router configuration error by one ISP Pakistan on February 24, 2008 effectively blocked YouTube access worldwide for several hours. On February 26, 2008, the ban was lifted after the website removed inappropriate content from its servers at the request of the government.
On May 19 and 20, 2010, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposed a ban on Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook in response to a competition entitled Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on Facebook, in an attempt to contain "blasphemy" material The ban imposed on Facebook is the result of a ruling by the Lahore High Court, while the restrictions on other websites are arbitrarily imposed by the PTA under the excuse of "unpleasant content", responses different from previous requests, such as pages created to promote peaceful demonstrations in cities, Pakistani cities were removed because they "incited violence". The ban was lifted on May 27, 2010, after the website removed inappropriate content from its servers at the request of the government. However, individual videos considered offensive to Muslims posted on YouTube will continue to be blocked.
In September 2012, PTA blocked a YouTube video-sharing site for not removing anti-Islam films made in the United States, the Innocence of Muslims, which ridiculed Muhammad. The website will remain suspended, as stated, until the movie is deleted. In related steps, PTA announced that they have blocked about 20,000 websites because of "unpleasant" content.
On July 25, 2013, the government announced that they are considering reopening YouTube during the second week of August. The 12-member special committee works under the Minister of IT and Telecommunications, Anusha Rahman, to see if unpleasant content can be removed. The Telecommunications Authority of Pakistan, the country's telecommunications superintendent, has declared its inability to filter the selected content.
On April 21, 2014, the Standing Committee of the Pakistani Senate on Human Rights called on the Federal Government to abolish the ban on YouTube.
On February 8, 2015, the government announced that YouTube would remain blocked 'indefinitely' as no tools or solutions were found that could block offensive content in total. Starting June 2015 - 1,000 days elapse - restrictions still apply, and YouTube can not be accessed from desktop or mobile device.
The ban was lifted due to a technical error on December 6, 2015 according to ISPs in Pakistan. As of September 2016, the ban has been officially lifted, as YouTube launched a local version for Pakistan.
On November 25, 2017, the NetBlock internet observation and Digital Rights Foundation observatory identified mass social media blocking and content sharing websites including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook across Pakistan imposed by the government in response to the violent Tehreek-e-Labaik protests. Technical investigations found that all of Pakistan's major fixed and mobile service providers were affected by the restrictions, which were revoked by the PTA the next day when the protests subsided following the resignation of Justice and Justice Minister Zahid Hamid.
Use of Netsweeper
In June 2013, Citizen Lab's interdisciplinary research lab found that Netsweeper's Canadian Internet-filtering product will be used nationwide in Pakistan. This system has categorized billions of URLs and added 10 million new URLs daily. The laboratory also confirmed that ISPs in Pakistan use DNS destruction methods to block websites on the orders of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
According to a report published by the lab, "Netsweeper technology is being implemented in Pakistan for political and social screening purposes, including separatist movement websites, sensitive religious topics and independent media."
Torrent ban
In July 2013, ISP Pakistan banned 6 of the top 10 public Torrent sites in Pakistan. These sites include Piratebay, Kickass torrents, Torrentz, Bitsnoop, Extra Torrent and Torrent Reactor. They also banned similar sites Mininova. But proxies for these torrent sites are still active and P2P connections work normally. This move led to massive public reactions, especially from the Twitter and Facebook communities of Pakistan. In the aftermath of the criticism, IT Minister of Pakistan, Anusha Rehman, disable her Twitter account.
Other important restrictions
- The Richard Dawkins website and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) are blocked for a short period in 2013.
- Xbox Live and GameRanger were accidentally blocked on February 7, 2013 by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.
- Pouet, the demoscene website is banned on June 19, 2015.
- Imgur, the image sharing/hosting website is prohibited by December 2015. Reddit is also prohibited by December 2015. There is no reason given for this prohibition.
- Extreme form of effective word censorship across all website URLs. URLs containing words like sex, porn blocked, this includes pages on medical information sites like WebMD, MedicineNet on sexual health and couples therapy. This is similar to the word sensor that applies to SMS and text messages
See also
- Censorship in Pakistan
- Sensors in South Asia
- Pakistan Constitution
- Sensors
- Internet censorship
- Press freedom
- Freedom of speech
- Internet in Pakistan
References
External links
- "Web ban in the national interest" (Urdu), Reba Shahid, BBC Urdu.com , July 29, 2006, (English translation)
- Karachi Journalists Association, website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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