News: Pakistan steps up internet censorship

Pakistan has become the latest nation to force internet censorship on its users. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) recently issued orders for 17 websites to be blocked while another seven sites and search engines are to be closely monitored.

Khurram A. Mehran, a spokesman for the PTA stated via email that the group had issued the orders after receiving a directive from the country’s Ministry of Information Technology.

The sites have been put under scrutiny for content which are considered offensive and blasphemous to Islam. The seven sites that are being monitored are Yahoo, Google, YouTube, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail and Bing, according to media reports from Pakistan.

Facebook was ordered blocked by a Lahore court in a separate case on the 19th of May after a petition objecting to a Facebook page called “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”, which invites users to draw pictures of the prophet. A day later YouTube was also blocked for content that was considered “sacrilegious”.

The block on Facebook was lifted after the company agreed to prevent the page from being visible in Pakistan and YouTube’s block was also lifted, although the PTA continues to block content they consider offensive on the site. Another 450 links on the Internet were also banned during May.

Pakistan steps up internet censorship

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