Internet censorship in Pakistan is government control of information sent and received using the Internet.
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The OpenNet Initiative listed Internet filtering in Pakistan as substantial in the social and conflict/security areas, as selective in the Internet tools area, and as suspected in the political area in December 2010.[1]
In late 2010 Pakistanis enjoyed generally unimpeded access to most sexual, political, social, and religious content on the Internet. Although the Pakistani government does not employ a sophisticated blocking system, a limitation which has led to collateral blocks on entire domains such as Blogspot.com and YouTube.com, it continues to block websites containing content it considers to be blasphemous, anti-Islamic, or threatening to internal security. Pakistan has blocked access to websites critical of the government or the military.[1]
The Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE), operated by the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd (PTCL), was created to facilitate the exchange of Internet traffic between ISPs within and outside of Pakistan.[2] Because the majority of Pakistan's Internet traffic is routed through the PIE (98% of Pakistani ISPs used the PIE in 2004), it provides a means to monitor and possibly block incoming and outgoing Internet traffic as the government deems fit.[3]
In April 2003 the PTCL announced that it would be stepping up monitoring of pornographic websites. "Anti-Islamic" and "blasphemous" sites were also monitored.[4] In early March 2004, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor access to all pornographic content. The ISPs, however, lacked the technical know-ho, and felt that the PTCL was in a better position to carry out FIA's order. A Malaysian firm was then hired to provide a filtering system, but failed to deliver a working system.
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with instances of firing on crowds of protestors, resulting in more than 100 reported deaths,[5] and included the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan, setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, storming of European buildings, and the burning of the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French, and German flags in Gaza City.[6] [7] The posting of the cartoons online added to the controversy.
On 1 March 2006 the Supreme Court of Pakistan directed the government to keep tabs on Internet sites displaying the cartoons and called for an explanation from authorities as to why these sites had not been blocked earlier.[8] On 2 March 2006, pursuant to a petition filed 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 of objectionable websites. In announcing the 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".
Consequently, the government kept tabs on 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.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Chaudhry, summoned the country's Attorney General as well as senior communication ministry officials to give a report of "concrete measures for implementation of the court's order". At the hearing on 14 March 2006, the PTA informed the Supreme Court that all websites displaying the Muhammad cartoons had been blocked. The bench issued directions to the Attorney General of Pakistan, Makhdoom Ali Khan, to assist the court on how it could exercise jurisdiction to prevent the availability of blasphemous material on websites the world over.[9]
The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs was lifted on 2 May 2006.[10] Shortly thereafter the blanket ban was reimposed and extended to Typepad blogs. The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs was later lifted again.
It has been suggested by some Pakistani vigilante web sites and electoral process watchdog groups that the blocks were 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 were also leveled by Pakistani bloggers, newspapers, media, and Pakistani anti-Musharraf opposition parties. The ban was lifted on 26 February 2008.[11][12]
In 2006 the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority blocked five websites for "providing misleading informations".[13] Some allege that the websites' real crime was reporting on the Balochistan separatist conflict.[14]
YouTube was blocked in Pakistan following a decision taken by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on 22 February 2007 because of the number of "non-Islamic objectionable videos."[12][15] One report specifically named Fitna, a controversial Dutch film, as the basis for the block.[16] Pakistan, an Islamic republic, ordered its ISPs to block access to YouTube "for containing blasphemous web content/movies."[17] The action effectively blocked YouTube access worldwide for several hours on 24 February.[18] Defaming Muhammad under § 295-C of the Blasphemy law in Pakistan requires a death sentence.[19]
On the 19th and 20th of May 2010, Pakistan's Telecommunication Authority (PTA) imposed a ban on Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook in response to a competition entitled "Draw Muhammad Day" on Facebook.[20] The competition involved drawing caricatures and cartoons depicting the image of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. The ban imposed on Facebook was the result of a ruling by the Lahore High Court, while the ban on the other websites was imposed arbitrarily by the PTA on the grounds of "objectionable content" on these websites. The Facebook Terms of Service were being violated by the objectionable drawings and Facebook did not remove them of its own accord. This was a different response from earlier requests by the Pakistani government to remove objectionable content, as was the case when pages being created to promote peaceful demonstrations in Pakistani cities were removed because they were "inciting violence".
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