LAHORE:
The Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court has cancelled its orders for the ban of seventeen websites containig blasphemous material on Monday.
After assurances by Muhammad Hussain Azad, Deputy Attorney General Pakistan, the bench led by Justice Mazhar Iqbal Sindhu quashed the stay orders for the ban of 17 websites including Yahoo, MSN and Google. The Deputy AG assured that the issue of a blanket ban on websites has been resolved, while the LHC appreciated the efforts of the government in this regard.
A draft of the PTA's new system and rules regarding blockage of websites was recently leaked online.
Ali Asghar, Director Law, PTA also appeared in the court today (Monday) for guaranteeing the blockage of all websites allowing access to sacrilegious material. Justice Mazhar Iqbal Sindhu has also given special instructions to the to set up a proper monitoring system and set of rules to block such offensive material on the internet.
The petitioner Latif-ur-rehman advocate appreciated the actions of PTA for banning the alleged websites and has taken back the petition against PTA and the Federation for contempt of court. The petitioner said that the case was withdrawn because the issue was becoming 'too sensitive' and they have decided to trust the system being put in place.
The court has been adjourned till September 22, in which time a committee of ulema who are also experts in the field of information technology will review the efforts of the government in that time.
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