LAHORE: A petition was filed in Lahore High Court on Wednesday seeking ban on pornographic sites and cancellation of licences of internet service providers failing to block these.
Petitioner Kashif Waseem submitted through his counsel, Fahad Ahmad Siddiqi, that the easy availability of obscene material online was one of the reasons behind violence against women. Siddiqi submitted that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had issued a list of 170,000, websites to the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, Wateen Telecom, WorldCall Telecom Limited, LINKdotNET, Wi-Tribe Wireless Broadband Internet Service, Broadband Internet Service Provider, Qubee Pakistan, Mobilink Infinity, COMSATS Internet services, and Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT directing them to stop providing access to porn sites.
He said none of these companies had complied with the PTA and Pemra directions. He requested the court to cancel their licences and direct the IGP to register criminal cases against the respondents.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2012.
COMMENTS (24)
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Great Action by our government. Also, they should block other sites ... Coz our youngest getting very bad ideas and lesson from it ... I'm in favor of this action and all other sites should be blocked. Furthermore, Government should block those sites that are showing / making fun about Islam / Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) or all other things about Islam. Try to live like a real Muslim and adopt the way that Our Prophet (PBUH) and Islam taught us ...
there r still some porn sites r opened in pakistan plz tell me how can i complian these websites to PTA????
my message is all your viewers . dear friend our nation mean no god but only for allaha .right
this is very best for us and our coming generation block all porn sites because our nation not usa and not europe this is only islamic nation and there is not allow to any porn or any worang work . so i am very happy and pray for all our leader plase band all of illegal work in all of pakistan hope your all will be understand my mind soarry for that my english is very week t a k e c a r e and good bye.
Thanks Kashif Waseem & Fahad Ahmad Siddiqi for their good work I pray 4 you both.
It is good banned all types of ill website which harm our society, our kids our future, when i heard that Pakistan is top porn searcher it hurt me badly. Please work on the markets where these stuffs are available easily like rainbow center and its surrounding.
I agree with Uzair also stop the harassment against women and child girls, likely Honour killing, etc etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WomeninPakistan#Crimesagainstwomen
What would all the people who are advocating porn sites do when/if there brothers or sisters start appearing on smutty dvds or even some porn site,,,
Important: Ban child porn by ANY means necessary.
Mistake: Taking away civil liberty like watching adult porn by adults.
There is a well-established negative correlation between porn (and legality of abortion, it is however not a major issue in Pak.) and incidences of rape.So to suggest that prevalence of porn causes rape is fallacious and highly misleading.
Block them all...........
I am getting out of here!!!!
Porn for adults above 21 should be allowed. Pornography cannot, can never be blocked. It's in the mind folks.
My concern is different. I regard that watching porn is un Islamic and against moral values of our society, but if porn websites are banned, people will still have means to access porn in shape of CDs and DVDs. This will result in increase of CD and DVD sales, which will let terrorists launch bomb blasts in CD and DVD markets and destroy law and order situation of country.
pornography should be regulated if not banned...its ok for adults to watch porn...young boys who watch pornography have their normal desires of attraction for girls replaced by violent and deviant fantasies. besides pornography doesnot educate about sex...
besides porn is sexist..the labels put on women n none on men...watching porn is not gonna make us any less sexually frustrated...n when u watch porn, u create demand for prostitutes....n in Pakistan that means a majority of porn actresses being smuggled into sex slavery...
i have worked in a sexual and reproductive rights NGO...we are frustrated because we treat sex as a taboo..children attaining puberty cant talk to their parents, making them turn to wrong people for advice...
n please. porn viewing and sex are very common in USA..still that country scores high on sex crimes--primarily because such attitudes are accepted
They even banned Last.fm
You can't block porn. If you block porn on the internet, people will watch it on CDs and DVDs. Humans are social animals and they can't be stopped from adopting or expressing their instinctual preferences unless such preferences fall into the domain of crimes. Were there no rapes, sodomy, brothels etc. in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan before the arrival of the internet? A group of minority can't thrust their sense of morality on others.
100 % Agree with you Uzair. Let the two adults decide what is best for them.
Porn sites must be blocked so that browsers spend their internet time on creativity and development
Now i know why the search for 'porn' and 'sex' is so high in pakistan. There is this specific group trying to gather the list of 170000 websites. Afterwards they claim that Pakistan is all searching for it. The pot is calling the kettle black.
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our ISPs but in ourselves, that we like porn!" A loose translation from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" but it gets the point across admirably.
As for as my area is concerned, I have directed all SHOs to take grave action against the Mobile shop owners who download such material. In all areas, specially rural, it's need of the hour to teach the public and create awareness about it.
Do they not know that once they block these sites, others will emerge and the cycle will continue. It will just eat away the internet speed for all the consumers by filtering the sites. Grow up and do something productive.
The only sane thing in this entire petition is banning the child porn sites.
so there was no porn audience in pakistan before the internet? rapes and paedophilia were as common before as they are now.no one becomes a rapist by watching porn.there are areas up north in our country where paedophile rapists use the term ''bachabaazi'' to carry on their rape of children as a cultural thing.stop living in denial,porn doesn't create rapists,telling men from birth that women not wearing burkas or those wearing jeans are loose charactered women deserving of rape justifies and excuses rape in our society. those mothers who scream that it was the girls' fault when their sons rape are the ones responsible for justifying rape in our society. stop blaming the victims and start hanging the rapists.blocking internet won't make a difference,ppl will start buying cd's .
Does that mean Veena Malik will be banned too?
Uzair, couldn't agree more. Morality is an entirely subjective matter, where any compulsion in following it would lead to increased resistance.
Importantly, porn websites had almost rendered Rainbow Centre business in Karachi and *Hall Road * business in Lahore null. Where was the police when porn Cds used to cell at as high as Rs 70/-? Now with increased bandwidth it has driven their business out of the equation.
I am not a pro-porn, however, one must realize that morality starts from within and not from compulsion.
Yes, absolutely ban child porn please. But leave censorship of "morals" as far as adult porn is concerned out of it. Our nation is frustrated enough already, with false notions of morality and what's right and what's wrong (glaring example: ok for 60 year old man to marry 12 year young girl, but two single adults having consensual sex = big no-no and punishable by death). Banning porn will only lead to an increase in the frustration and God knows there is enough sexual harassment and abuse ongoing already.