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			<title>Twitter accessible in Turkey after blockage: official</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/924487/twitter-accessible-in-turkey-after-blockage-official</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/924487/twitter-accessible-in-turkey-after-blockage-official#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 15 14:01:57 +0500</pubDate>
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				<![CDATA[afp]]>
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				<![CDATA[An official says we notified Twitter about 107 URL addresses that must be removed in compliance with court order]]>
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				<![CDATA[Twitter users in Turkey could again access their accounts on Wednesday following an hours-long blockage after a court decision banning the publication of images of a deadly suicide bombing in all print, visual and online media, a Turkish official said.

“We notified Twitter about 107 URL addresses that must be removed in compliance with the court order,” the official told AFP, saying that Twitter blocked those addresses after talks with the government.

Turkish users had earlier reported problems in overall access to Twitter after the court order. By 4:00 pm (1300), access had been restored.

The suicide bomb attack in the mainly Kurdish town of Suruc on the border with Syria on Monday killed 32 people — mostly young activists.

Turkish authorities said no formal ban had been placed on the use of Twitter — where many of the images had been posted.

The official said the blockage was a "technical matter", adding that the legal obstacle had been overcome.

Turkish television and newspapers had in recent days published on occasion highly graphic images of the bombing. Footage of the moment of the explosion had also been broadcast.

Under the court order, such images cannot now be broadcast or published.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been repeatedly criticised over curbs on social media.

Turkey's parliament in April approved legislation to tighten control over the Internet by allowing the government to block websites without prior judicial authorisation.

The government blocked Twitter and YouTube in March 2014 after they were used to spread a torrent of audio recordings implicating Erdogan — then premier — and his inner circle in an alleged corruption scandal.

The AKP lost its overall majority for the first time in 13 years in a parliamentary election on June 7, seeking a coalition partner to form a government.]]>
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			<title>Our state’s fetish for censorship</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/382145/our-state%e2%80%99s-fetish-for-censorship</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/382145/our-state%e2%80%99s-fetish-for-censorship#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Mon, 21 May 12 18:36:25 +0500</pubDate>
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				<![CDATA[raza.rumi]]>
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			<category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[When censorship of bygone decades attacks 20 million internet users, we shall resist and fight.]]>
			</description>
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				<![CDATA[The state of Pakistan has never disappointed us when it comes to censorship. This is a country where the Madar-i-Millat (mother of the nation) Fatima Jinnah’s radio broadcast against the political role of the military was censored. A crackdown on independent print media came in the wake of General Ayub Khan’s dictatorship when the so-called anti-state publications were clamped down and ‘banned’ for all practical purposes. The late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was no different, as he was plainly intolerant of dissent. Historian Khursheed Kamal Aziz once told me how Fatima Jinnah’s memoir My Brother was also censored to omit the portion where Ms Jinnah was not too kind about Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan.

General Ziaul Haq took censorship to new heights. Jinnah’s famous speech delivered at the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947 was actually subjected to a blackout. This was a speech not only by a politician but by the governor-general (designate) where Jinnah laid out the contours of the new moderate and inclusive Pakistani state. Newspapers were not allowed to carry the speech and textbooks were purged of references.

Fortunately, times have changed. Globalisation and technological advancement make it virtually impossible to suppress free speech and related freedoms. However, the postcolonial state designed in the 19th century with archaic procedures and outdated world view fails to understand this; for example, General Pervez Musharraf tried to suppress the media for a brief time — though, in the end, had to give up his plans.

The rise of social media in Pakistan, albeit with limited outreach, has posed a new challenge. The boundlessness of the internet and unprecedented freedoms have been threatening. This is why a Lahore High Court judge entertained the possibility of banning Facebook based on a right-wing public interest litigation. For a whole year, the denizens at the Pakistan Telecom Authority kept the Blackberry browsing services down. Some lunatic in another part of the world indulges in a blasphemous act and our authorities want to punish the entire country. Such an insecure interpretation of  ‘religion’ makes us the laughing stock of the world.

The recent attempt to ‘ban’ Twitter — a social networking site used by millions across the world, including Pakistanis — came in the wake of a blasphemous cartoon contest taking place on Facebook. The government has even demanded Twitter to take action, forgetting that it is a global platform and will not accede to the ascendancy of paranoid right-wingers of Pakistan, who have successfully made the PPP and its coalition partners hostage to their demands.

What is most worrisome is that the PPP government earlier mulled over proposals to screen and censor internet content ostensibly in its antiterrorism drive. Such proposals were resisted by internet activists and shelved, at least for now. However, the threat of censorship remains real given the history and conduct of our state.

If Pakistan has to evolve as a mature democracy, then its rulers need to remember that the right to free speech is non-negotiable. It does not behoove a political party claiming to be moderate and liberal and pandering to urges of censorship. Similarly, conservative elements in the judiciary must also be held to account if they pander to censorship petitions. The state of Pakistan will have to deal with the new realities. Censorship of bygone decades is next to impossible, especially when it attacks the 20 million internet users. We shall resist and fight.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2012.]]>
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			<title>Social media censorship: 12-hour ban leaves Twitterati in a quandary</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381885/social-media-censorship-12-hour-ban-leaves-twitterati-in-a-quandary</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381885/social-media-censorship-12-hour-ban-leaves-twitterati-in-a-quandary#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Mon, 21 May 12 02:28:19 +0500</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>
				<![CDATA[Shaheryar Popalzai]]>
			</dc:creator>
			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
			<guid isPermaLink="false">https://tribune.com.pk/?p=381885</guid>
			<description>
				<![CDATA[‘Blasphemous’ content sparks move to block the micro-blogging site.]]>
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				<![CDATA[After a surprise 12-hour countrywide blockade of Twitter due to posts promoting competition of blasphemous drawings, authorities late on Sunday restored services of the micro-blogging website.

“Yes, the website has been unblocked,” Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) spokesperson Muhammad Younis confirmed to The Express Tribune.

Asked whether the site had removed the controversial content, the spokesperson just stated: “We have been given instructions by the ministry of information and technology to restore the website.”

Authorities had blocked Twitter across the country earlier on Sunday, accusing the site of refusing to remove posts promoting a Facebook competition involving caricatures of the Holy Prophet (pbuh). Lawyer and lead researcher on Internet Freedom for human rights organisation Bytes for All, Nighat Daad, revealed that a one-line directive had been issued at 12:35am on Sunday which had ordered the imposition of a ban on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the ban had taken him by surprise and he had spoken to Information and Technology Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on why the ban had been imposed.

“He told me that a competition on drawing blasphemous caricatures was taking place and I told him that a complete ban should not have been imposed,” said the interior minister. Malik had earlier said that the IT minister had assured him that the ban would be lifted once the ‘competition’ ends, but sources later told The Express Tribune that the interior minister had spoken to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani personally and had been assured that the site would be accessible again. The ban was lifted shortly afterwards.

“We blocked the website on the directions of IT ministry due to an ongoing competition of blasphemous drawings,” PTA Chairman Dr Muhammad Yaseen had earlier told The Express Tribune.

The ministry had been in talks, during the last four days, with the micro-blogging site – an online social networking service that enables users to send and receive text-based posts – for the removal of the blasphemous content but there had been no breakthroughs, he had said.

Twitter and Facebook were not immediately reachable for comment. According to reports, the ministry tried getting through to authorities on Twitter and about five faxes were sent to the website’s management. Eventually, in reply, Twitter authorities replied saying that they “cannot stop any individual from doing anything of this nature on the website”.

Earlier in 2010, authorities had banned Facebook after protests erupted in the country over a similar competition of blasphemous drawings.

Reactions

Outrage and defiance were the order of the day with members of civil society, online activists and politicians out in force to protest the ban, using proxy servers and software to access the site while it was blocked.

Online activists were also quick with sending out links and guides on how to access the site using proxy servers, while one organisation had set up a ‘crisis response centre’ to help those unable to access Twitter for the time it was blocked. PPP MNA Farahnaz Ispahani tweeted saying that she condemned the blockade. “Freedom of speech is an inviolable right.” Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Faisal Subzwari also tweeted condemning the ban. He said that all blasphemous material should be removed, but a “ban on youth voice is not an answer.”

Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentarian Khurram Dastgir called the ban “outrageous”.

Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan’s director at the Human Rights Watch, said the ban was “ill-advised, counter-productive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be”.

“The right to free speech is non-negotiable and if Pakistan is the rights-respecting democracy it claims to be, this ban must be lifted forthwith,” he said.

(WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM AFP)

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2012.]]>
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			<title>A pointless ban</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381757/a-pointless-ban</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381757/a-pointless-ban#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 12 21:15:12 +0500</pubDate>
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				<![CDATA[editorial]]>
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			<category><![CDATA[Editorial]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[All the government can achieve is making itself look ridiculous by censoring the internet.]]>
			</description>
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				<![CDATA[Like Lazarus, the Pakistan government’s internet censorship efforts keep rising from the dead. In the name of protecting its citizens from blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the Ministry of Information Technology decided to ban for around a day social media website Twitter, which has hundreds of thousands of users in Pakistan. Clearly, the ministry needs to change its name since it has no clue how the internet works and its action seems to betray a totalitarian streak. Tens of millions of people use Twitter to share links and photos and post updates. Given the freewheeling nature of Web 2.0, a tiny minority of these users will invariably end up posting items that will not be to the liking of Pakistanis - but does that mean the whole website be banned? Going by the same logic, why not just go ahead and ban the whole internet? (Of course, some bright minds in the IT ministry will think that this can be done!)

As we don’t have much of the world already laughing at us or looking at us in disapproval, we now saw this overreaction of monumental proportions from the government. While the site was eventually unblocked, on orders of the prime minister no less, by Sunday night, the fact remains that the restriction shouldn’t have been imposed to begin with. A plan to build a giant all-encompassing firewall along the lines of the one in China was shelved after a public outcry. For some reason, the website of US-based pop-culture magazine Rolling Stone is still banned.

These bans all reveal that the government is fundamentally insecure and unable to trust its citizens to use the internet. Censorship is a tool of the weak, used to deprive people of information because the government is worried what might be done with that information. Blocking access to information used to be easier in the pre-internet days; now it is doomed to failure. All the government can achieve is making itself look ridiculous by censoring the internet. The fact of the matter is that the government has no right to indulge in such censorship in this day and age, lest it wants to appear as a fool in the eyes of not only the outside world but its own citizens as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2012.]]>
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			<title>Twitter alert: 'Tweetshedding' in Pakistan</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381645/twitter-alert-tweetshedding-in-pakistan</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381645/twitter-alert-tweetshedding-in-pakistan#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 12 11:29:00 +0500</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>
				<![CDATA[web.desk]]>
			</dc:creator>
			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[Ironically, #TwitterBan started trending across Pakistan soon after the ban was exposed.]]>
			</description>
			<content:encoded>
				<![CDATA[Twitter has been temporarily banned across Pakistan by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Sunday, after the micro-blogging website refused a request by the local government to stop a discussion on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which was considered derogatory. 

Ironically, #TwitterBan started trending across Pakistan soon after the ban was exposed.

 Top tweets 

Taha Siddiqui @TahaSSiddiqui

#TwitterBan by Info Ministry. We can't even blame the judiciary or the intelligence/military for this - This is our DEMOCRATIC PARLIAMENT!

madeeha syed @madeehasyed

We accessed blogs during blogger ban, Facbeook during Facebook ban, YouTube during YouTube ban... what makes this #TwitterBan so special?

Shoaib Taimur @shobz

I think that the guy behind Millat Facebook will come up with millat twitter: a place for sweet Muslims. #TwitterBan

We live in a nation of hypocrites. acid crime, violence against women, minorities, corruption and yet we only tackle blasphemy. #twitterban

Farieha Aziz @FariehaAziz

Same arguments being rehashed by government officials as at the time of the Facebook ban in 2010 #TwitterBan

Hina @hinstance

Tweets from a country where the government bans Twitter are engrossing. I find the defiance absolutely delightful! #Pakistan #TwitterBan

Kashif Aziz @kashaziz

Dear PTA, please ban Facebook too or we will accuse you of taking bribes from Mr. Zuckerberg. #Twitterban #Pakistan

Mirza Waheed @MirzaWaheed

In other news, Pakistan authorities have so far ruled out banning fax machines. #TwitterBan

Azeem Dada @azeemdada

#twitterban okay these guys need to go. How i dont know and dont care but enough and enough

sid @sidrah_a

Well done Pakistan, continue to piss off the awaam. #twitterban

Rai M. Azlan Shahid @Rai_Azlan

What will I tell to the people at work the reason of #TwitterBan when many of them unable to understand. Thank you PTA!

S® @Sab33na

RT @FaisalRahat: The irony of twitter being banned in Pakistan and Pak's number 1 trend is #TwitterBan. Thumbs up to the Paki twitterati! :)

Ali Shah @duplexraid

The revolution will not be Tweeted!! TweetShedding is here boys!!#TwitterBan #Pakistan]]>
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			<title>Twitter unblocked across Pakistan</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381639/twitter-blocked-across-pakistan-over-blasphemous-drawings</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/381639/twitter-blocked-across-pakistan-over-blasphemous-drawings#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Sun, 20 May 12 09:54:17 +0500</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>
				<![CDATA[Shaheryar Popalzai]]>
			</dc:creator>
			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[Rehman Malik had spoken to the prime minister, who ordered for the site to be unblocked.]]>
			</description>
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				<![CDATA[Micro-blogging website Twitter has been restored in Pakistan on Sunday night, after an almost day long ban.

Sources have confirmed that Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik has spoken to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who ordered concerned authorities to unblock the site.

Micro-blogging website Twitter had been temporarily banned across Pakistan on Sunday by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Express News correspondent Suhail Chaudhry had reported that the access to Twitter was blocked due to an ongoing “competition” of Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) caricatures.

This move was made, keeping in mind the “emotions of the masses” reported Chaudhry.

Earlier, PTA Chairman Dr Mohammad Yaseen said the regulator was asked by the Ministry of Information and Technology to block the website in the country.

“We just passed on the directives to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs),” he told The Express Tribune. “I can’t say for how long the website will remain blocked.”

Pakistan’s government had asked Twitter to stop a discussion on Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), which was considered derogatory, Yaseen said, adding that “Twitter refused our request.”

Government and the website officials were in negotiations.

The PTA had blocked access to Twitter directly from the upstream links without notifying the ISPs, according to Wahajuz Siraj, convener for Internet Services Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK).

Express News had reported that the Ministry of Information and Technology tried getting through to authorities on Twitter throughout the night and that about five faxes were sent to the micro-blogging website.

Eventually, in reply to PTA’s e-mail, Twitter authorities replied saying that they “cannot stop any individual doing anything of this nature on the website”.

Google Pakistan Country Consultant Badar Khushnood had confirmed the blockage on his Twitter account.

One ISP, on condition of anonymity had advised callers registering complaints to use Vtunnel and proxies as an alternate to access Twitter.

While the micro-blogging website was blocked, it was accessible by means of mobile phones and secure browsers such as Opera Mini.]]>
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