Although some BlackBerry services were subsequently restored, the rest remain blocked to this day.
RAWALPINDI: On May 20, 2010, the most Honourable Lahore High Court ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to place a ban for an indefinite period of time on the social networking website Facebook, following the publication of blasphemous cartoons on the internet. The ban further extended to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) on all BlackBerry devices on the grounds that mobile phone operators were unable to restrict access to web pages containing the blasphemous content.
Although some BlackBerry services, including access to email and chat, were subsequently restored, the rest remain blocked to this day. According to a customer support officer, the PTA has said that the ban will be in place till such time that a filtering system is put in place for BlackBerry users for blocking specific websites containing blasphemous content. It is pertinent to mention here that no such ban was ever placed by any other Islamic country like Saudi Arabia or Malaysia. Furthermore, Facebook was unblocked for internet users of Pakistan. So why is the ban still in place for BlackBerry users? It should also be noted that all this time, BlackBerry users are being billed the same amount as before though they cannot access such websites. Upon questioning, I was told that the charges would not be reduced because they were for emails and not internet browsing as such. Clearly, the last claim can be contested since browsing is an integral part of any internet experience and to say that it applies only to accessing one’s email runs contrary to common sense.
Farrukh Muhammad Taufiq
Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2011.
