Pakistan stops access to Toronto Sun's website

http://www.torontosun.com

Looks like we’re bad in Islamabad. If you judge your success by the quality of your enemies, then you can only join us here at the Toronto Sun in profound disappointment that our online presence has been blocked in Pakistan. Of course we are disappointed on behalf of our followers in Pakistan who obviously enjoy going to torontosun.com to read news and views expressed in an honest, open and forthright fashion. It’s what we do best. At another level, we are disappointed that someone unknown in the Pakistan government has taken the decision to place us behind a censorship firewall. Maybe they think no news is good news, especially when it comes to a newspaper that consistently exposes a raft of questionable policies and decisions. After all, this is a military administration that in the past has shown scant regard for basic values of democracy, rule of law, accountability and a host of other principles we here in Canada take for granted. The evidence of our website being attacked is stark. YouTube has experienced the same problem in the same period as has social media network BuzzFeed. The latter announced Friday it had been banned with this statement: “Pakistan’s ever-changing firewall system appears to have blocked citizens from viewing BuzzFeed, as well as the Toronto Sun. “Other major sites have long been blocked, though the government has promised to make some of them available again, including YouTube, after new firewall technology is deployed. “‘We believe in access to free information’,” Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said regarding the YouTube ban, claiming that the ‘only reason’ to block YouTube is the ‘presence of blasphemous material.’” BuzzFeed revealed the Pakistan government claimed to have a “filtration” mechanism — a part of the firewall that may have blocked torontosun.com — that could filter such content selectively. The numbers certainly support this theory in our case. Up until Jan. 16 this year the Toronto Sun had recorded 63, 814 visits in the 12 months to that date in Pakistan. Then nothing from Jan. 17 onwards except a sole visit on Jan. 19. There could be many reasons for a censorship decision the Pakistan High Commission in Ottawa would neither confirm nor deny Friday. Their press counsel would only say they “would make a statement on Monday.” Well, what we can say in the interim is this. The Sun extensively covered the visit to Toronto by outspoken former Pakistan cricketer turned politician Imran Khan who was yanked from his flight to New York and questioned at Toronto Pearson International Airport last October. This followed a local speaking engagement. “I was taken off from plane and interrogated by U.S. Immigration in Canada on my views on drones. My stance is known. Drone attacks must stop,” Khan tweeted at the time. We published that. The Sun has also worked hard to expose failings within the Consulate General of Pakistan in Toronto that saw a senior diplomat recalled last July over a sex assault investigation. The married father of two allegedly assaulted a female passport applicant inside the North York consulate in February. He subsequently left Canada when his visa expired. We published that. Then there are Sun columnists like Tarek Fatah. He has been unsparing in his criticism of Pakistan. Fatah feels that the decision to ban us is definitely politically motivated and it does no credit to the current administration in the national capital Islamabad. “I have had it confirmed for me by an extremely senior member of the government,” Fatah said. “I have the tweet where he outlined why the firewall has been imposed. “The tweet says, when asked why the Sun has been blocked: ‘Your criticism and exposure of Fauji-Jihadi shenenigans. Decision from Aabpara.’ “The word “Fauji” stands for Army and the word “Aabpara” is code for the intelligence organization ISI. It’s the neighborhood that houses the secret military intelligence unit. “That clearly shows that this banning decision has been made by the Pakistan military. It is they who really run Pakistan. “Here is another thing. All the journalists over there who I used to talk to have gone silent. They no longer take my calls. “It seems the Toronto Sun is now persona non grata in Pakistan.” We sought comment from Google, who administer the Chrome search engine that handles traffic in Pakistan, but received no reply by press time.