Pakistan: Banning the internet?

Editorial: DAILY TIMES

It has been almost 10 months since the previous PPP government banned popular video sharing website YouTube. The reason it was banned was because a blasphemous low-budget movie was uploaded on the site, sending Muslims in Pakistan on a violent protest spree. The government’s response was to bury its head in the sand instead of proactively solving the matter. It closed down the website, which is used the world over for educational, information and entertainment purposes. Now, the new government is rumoured to be contemplating going one step further. The PML-N’s minister for information technology and telecommunications, Anusha Rahman, has said that the government would work to place mega filters on the internet to sieve out all blasphemous and pornographic content (which is also banned) and if Google did not offer its full support in filtering the blasphemous content from YouTube, not only would the indefinite ban stay but Google could face a ban also. One cannot fathom where these ‘bright’ ideas come from. Google is literally the most visited and comprehensive search engine online and its many affiliated websites and e-mail sharing sites are the backbone of correspondence and communications. To even mention a ban on it hints at a major lack of comprehension on how to exist with the world in the 21st century. The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has meanwhile taken suo motu notice of the ‘blasphemous’ content on the internet and has directed the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to submit a report within a week. Is the PTA really expected to scour the entire infinity of the internet and earmark every single link, site and video that may be deemed blasphemous? One would hate to think there is some sort of collective vendetta to isolate the citizens of Pakistan from freedom of information and speech, from exercising their right to access the entire, modern world at their fingertips. Why is it impossible for our representatives to approach this issue maturely and sanely? First and foremost, we citizens should be trusted enough to be able to freely choose what we wish to access or see. If that is ‘blasphemous’ for the authorities to consider then they should look at the matter in a way that does not amount to blanket bans. Other Muslim countries have signed agreements with Google to have blasphemous content removed from YouTube in their countries, so why does Pakistan not do this? Google has agreed to such an arrangement but our governments have been too lazy to move ahead on this proposal. We citizens are in the process being denied, and threatened with more denial, of freedom of information and hence knowledge and enlightenment. All such ideas should be relegated to the dustbin.