Monitoring blasphemy: YouTube, Facebook not being blocked, say officials
A recently released anti-Islam film on YouTube has sparked anti-US protests across the Muslim world. The government claims that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and IT ministry have blocked 122 anti-Islamic websites during the past few days.
This monitoring team will be headed by a legal member of the ministry of information technology and will include officials from PTA and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). The team’s mandate is to closely monitor blasphemous content, anti-Islamic slogans, videos, audio and other offensive material and block it.
The decision was taken on Friday at a meeting attended by Federal Secretary of the Interior, secretary of the minister of information technology, Chairman PTA, Additional Secretary ministry of interior, FIA Director and other senior officers of related ministries.
“The government has very firmly decided that Pakistan will take serious cognisance of any such detrimental material to Islam and obscene material being released on the internet and being replicated in Pakistan. All web designers, web sites, blocked sites and social media are to refrain from planting any such material which may hurt the feelings of Muslims,” an official statement issued after the meeting chaired by Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.
In its statement, the authorities have told the public that any blasphemous material that comes to their attention must be reported immediately to the PTA on 080055055 or emailed to complaint@pta.gov.pk.
The government clarified that it was not blocking popular websites YouTube and Facebook, only anti-Islamic material. It added that obscene material shall be blocked on case to case basis.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 15th, 2012.
COMMENTS (11)
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@muslims People who made these movies are pretty much extremists and lack any intellect. Lets not stoop to their level and start acting like morons that they are depicting us to be. Protesting will not magically bring the people who made the movies at our feet hence no point in going insane.
@non muslims for us Prophet (PBUH) is more important then any one except Allah. You cant just expect us to lie down and not protest while you defile our religious beliefs.
I respect other religions may they be Hindus, Jews etc and I wish them all the happiness and respect to them and their religion. Only fair that i ask the same in return.
@Pakistani102: 90% of those have been killed as a result of infighting and terrorism carried out by your brethren.
@gp65 Why don't you give your lecture to amercans who killed more than one million muslim in iraq and afganistan ? how many of them were involved in 9/11 ? or may be you indians think only the american are human ?
PTA can easily block Youtube, facebook , Twitter etc. It must be done to register Pakistan's official protest
@Pakistani: Nobody forces you to use facebook or youtube. So if you don't agree with it just stop using it!
@gp65: Agreed and there is no second opinion on the fact that peaceful protests should be done against the disrespectful, unethical, immoral, and cheap movie about the Last Prophet of God (may peace and mercy be upon him) and we must also realize that harming and/or killing other innocent people (muslims or non-muslims) is not allowed in our religion either.
@Saif Shamsi: "Please read and share so people know exactly what the film is about. Otherwise our so called intellectuals will start blaming muslims about the protests"
I think people are well aware that the movie disrespects Muslim belief system specifically it represents your prophet in unflattering terms. The issue is not whether you have a right to feel offended and protest. The issue is whether you have a right to express your protest in a violent way and kill unrelated Americans and Westerners.
One more thing that the non-Muslims see as Muslim hypocrisy is this: Muslims want to continue to have the right not just to disrespect other belief systems by calling all others kafir (I am fine with that) but also deny freedom of worship when they are in the majority. At the same time they demand not just freedom of worship where they are in minority (which is reasonable) but also respect of their faith from others (not a reasonable expectation by any means). To put it in more direct terms, Muslims do not respect atheism, they do not respect the Ahmadi belief systems and also do not respect Hinduism which they equate with paganism (this is true for most Muslims - even those who may respect individuals who are atheist, Ahmadis or Hindus). So you should not be so surprised if others do not respect their belief system.
They should block the whole site as YouTube or facebook so that they may be careful next time and it don't happen now and again.
For those who havent watched the video, please read the commentary (link below) which would be helpful to fully understand what the film is all about:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19606155
Please read and share so people know exactly what the film is about. Otherwise our so called intellectuals will start blaming muslims about the protests
@M.Ahmer Ali: ':
let there be ban on all that materials on social networking websites, media (electronic and print and hate speeches) which hurt the feelings of people of all faiths
Banning the official websites in Pakistan and other Islamic countries like Facebook,Youtube and Twitter is only the temporary solution of this problem.There must be some solid practical measures/steps have to be taken by the whole Islamic world's leaders to stop such these types of blasphemous activities against the Islam and sacred Islamic personalities by the caricatures,cartoons and movies permanently by the non-muslims any where in the world on top priority basis as soon as possible.......