The ban was imposed on September 17, 2012. PHOTO: FILE
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Mansoor Ali Shah while hearing a petition challenging the ban on YouTube on Thursday, adjourned hearings till June 6 on the request of the Ministry of Information Technology.
The court was informed by the law officer representing the ministry that Google‘s administration, parent company of YouTube, is still considering if it should appear before the Pakistani court therefore the proceeding should be adjourned.
YouTube was blocked across Pakistan on September 17, 2012 following orders by then-prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf after the video sharing website refused to honour requests of the Pakistan government to block or remove clips from a sacrilegious film from the website.
The court on previous hearing had sought assistance of the ministry on the matter and had also directed it to approach the Google administration and seek their point of view.
The deputy attorney general had previously told the court that the federal government was willing to lift the ban, but could not till the offending clips could still be accessed on the website.
In the petition on behalf of the NGO ‘Bytes for All’, Advocate Yasser Latif Hamdani submitted that all internet curbs are counterproductive and deprive Pakistanis of their right to access of information as well as the right to counter any propaganda against the country or against what they believe in strongly.
In the petition, Hamdani said that taking away YouTube’s access is the modern equivalent of taking away the scholar’s pen. He argued that ultimately all curbs would hurt Pakistan more than it will hurt those who are engaging in scurrilous and offensive rhetoric. On the other hand, Pakistani students, teachers and researchers have been deprived of a great resource of knowledge and information.
COMMENTS (10)
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Day-by-day the Pakistani politician are moving into a cave and so does the religious fanatics. How would you block the moon, if someone sets up a giant TV?
@Samir Iqbal: You get what you search for. Funny you demand its ban over being 'semi pornographic' and not 'anti non-muslim'
They said Google will lose some 100 billion dollar per day (something like that) if only Pakistan dare to shutdown the YouTube. Nothing happened now open it.
I fail to understand as to why they have blocked YouTube. Honestly speaking, I did not even care about any 'anti-religious' video before they actually blocked YouTube; reason: These kinds of videos have been made in the past and will keep popping-up even in the future-there is nothing we can really do about it, except keep away(by making a conscious effort of-course). Obviously by people can use proxies to access YouTube and actually go on to see these videos; just because they have drawn so much attention. They say: forbidden fruit tastes sweetest.
Why does Pakistan still block the most information website in existence? Google is the owner of the website, not the content provider. If you hate a video, don't watch it. Why would you block the whole domain? This is utterly idiotic. No will invest in Pakistan with such idiotic laws.
just go to www.eppase.com.....youtube is opened there
govt should somehow tax google ad income before opening else ban google and fb- both waste of time
For God sake! Open youtube now. Enough is enough, I've facved heavy losses in my studies just because youtube is banned! A level lectures of London school of economics were freely available on youtube.
@Samir Iqbal: Excuse me! Don't be so conservative, girls and boys have other ways of accessing the youtube, what about facebook? Ban that too, ban every social networking website, make Pakistan a prison.
Unless there is no filtring please dont allow youtube. It has become semi pronographic website now. If you want to corrupt your girls or kids then its your oen choice.