A parliamentary committee on human rights sought correspondence of PTA with the government over the restoration of YouTube in the country. DESIGN: ANUSHAY FURQAN
A parliamentary committee on human rights sought on Friday correspondence of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) with the government over the restoration of YouTube in the country.
PTA officials told the standing committee, headed by Senator Afrasiab Khattak, that the authority has written to the prime minister about the restoration of YouTube services.
“We have taken all possible measures to ensure blockage of objectionable links and we are also negotiating with the administration of YouTube regarding a local version of the YouTube service similar to Saudi Arabia module,” said Tariq Sultan, a PTA official who was briefing the committee on behalf of PTA chairman.
YouTube was blocked across Pakistan on September 17, 2012 following the directions of inter-ministerial committee after the website did not remove the trailer of Sam Bacile’s Innocence of Muslims.
Sultan told the parliamentary panel that the government had directed PTA on October 24, 2012 to actively pursue the blockage of objectionable contents on internet mainly the movie ‘Innocence of Muslim’. “Service was then temporarily restored on December 24, 2012 but on the same day we received another executive order for the permanent closure of YouTube,” the official said, adding that, “Since then, 14,000 URLs containing objectionable material have been blocked.”
Sultan said that owing to its limitations it was impossible for the authority to guarantee that all the objectionable content on YouTube was blocked. “We cannot block a secure link,” the office said.
In response to a query, the PTA official informed the committee that 14 Muslim countries had imposed a ban on YouTube links. However, nowhere had the services been entirely banned including Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Senator Mushahid said we are an independent democratic country and Pakistan cannot be linked with any other country. The government should immediately restore YouTube services, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 18th, 2014.
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