Say no to online censorship

Letter March 13, 2012
This will only help to turn our country more insular and will, in turn, create more Mumtaz Qadris.

KARACHI: This is with reference to Jahanzaib Haque’s article “How to say yes to online censorship” (March 13). I believe that no system that gives power to the state to censor content on the internet should be allowed to be called ‘developed’. Any such system or firewall will only be used by the government to block anything that religious extremists deem offensive and any opinion not shared by the majority of the population would also be in danger of being censored by the state. This will only help to turn our country more insular and will, in turn, create more Mumtaz Qadris. The government’s plan to block online content will be the first step that would take us back to the Dark Ages.

Arsalan Majeed

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2012.