April 20, 2014
It is unfortunate that the media lens has reduced the Internet Freedom and fundamental rights petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) to just the case for reopening Youtube. Therefore, it is important for the public to know that the petition has challenged not just the blocking of Youtube, but also other websites and URLs in their tens of thousands which are currently being blocked by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), with the list of blocked sites increasing every day. Even more important is the fact that there is no published list of sites or URLs that have been blocked, with the citizenry and human rights activists ‘discovering’ by chance when trying to access innocuous material that innumerable sites are blocked.
Indeed, the petition has challenged arbitrary and non-transparent, across the board censorship on the basis of the fundamental right to access information guaranteed by the constitution of Pakistan. The petition further prays the court to direct the Federation of Pakistan, through the Ministry of Interior (government) and PTA to not only publish this list of blocked sites, but to also provide the rationale and the legal basis for doing so. Indeed, the petition argues that both justification and legal basis for the action are non-existent. Indeed, since the implementation of this censorship is in the hands of the PTA, the petition asserts that the question of what may or may not be accessed by the 200 million citizens of Pakistan has been left in the ‘expert’ hands of a small cabal of junior civil servants. Clearly, the citizens of democratic Pakistan have never voted to permit such infringement and interpretation of their rights to the judgment of (non) civil servants of this country, or to anyone else for that matter.
Blockage of the popular video sharing site Youtube, troublesome and worrisome as it is, is only one example in a far wider issue of mass censorship of the cyber space by the government of Pakistan. And whilst vague notions such as ‘obscenity’, ‘glory of Islam’ and ‘national security’ are cited to prevent citizens from accessing information, it remains a fact that most censorship is being conducted for political reasons or to avoid embarrassment to powerful stakeholders. Blockage of Baloch and Shia websites, together with material critical of the armed forces being blocked, to name but a few blocks, is clear illustration of my assertion. Indeed, the case of Twitter being blocked by President Erdogan in Turkey after embarrassing allegations against his government surfaced on the platform, is very similar to what is happening in Pakistan. The Turkish courts, however, overturned the ban/block within a matter of weeks.
In one way, it is lucky that the Pakistani government made the mistake of blocking all of Youtube, as it is helping to highlight rampant but insidious censorship of the internet in general in Pakistan.
Further, the petition popularly known as the ‘Youtube petition’ has also challenged the use of the ‘kill switch’ to cease all mobile phone services in Pakistan at the flick of a switch as a measure ‘to combat terrorism.’ Whilst on the one hand this tactic has not ‘combated’ terrorism an iota, it has certainly curtailed the freedoms of association, movement and speech of the citizens. This practice also compromises the safety of those in vulnerable situations who then cannot communicate and are made more vulnerable as a result. Indeed, given that the majority of cell phone owners are not privileged to have landlines, they are completely cut off.
The ‘Youtube petition’ in the LHC has also challenged mass surveillance of internet based communications by the government of Pakistan. This is another curtailment of the fundamental right to privacy of the citizens of Pakistan. It is useful to quote from the petition here, “That the Respondents have empowered and equipped lower level functionaries of their organizations with technology and latest spy software to keep tabs on the people of Pakistan including the power to hack on to and fish into personal email accounts, computers, smart phone devices, hand held devices of various kinds and every conceivable and possible private data that is held by a user. By doing this Respondents have not just violated the privacy rights of the people of Pakistan but have also abused this power to manipulate and blackmail people, creating dossiers and using sensitive information about these people by threatening them. It is submitted that these operatives have now been armed with the latest and most sophisticated in surveillance technology which they utilize to keep tabs on thought.” The ‘Youtube case’ thus, has challenged the Orwellian Big Brother approach of government towards the hapless citizens of Pakistan.
Indeed, there is a separate petition focused on surveillance alone, also filed in the LHC, based on evidence of Finfisher (powerful spyware and malware) command and control servers having been detected in Pakistan.
As an aside, in the last hearing of the case in the LHC, the dishonesty of those supporting the ban on Youtube was hilariously exposed when it transpired that one Mr. Azhar Siddique, who has applied to become party to the case in support of the govt. ban, was himself watching Youtube immediately before the start of the hearing. The comical turning bizzare, he argued that asking for the ban to be removed was akin to blasphemy. Whilst I certainly do not think that Mr. Siddique was committing blasphemy, or was part of the Zionist protocols that he insists on accusing the petitioners of, I wonder if he himself is aware at all of the irony of his allegations, given that he was sitting in the courtroom viewing Youtube using a proxy server.
The writer is a human rights worker and freelance columnist.
Indeed, the petition has challenged arbitrary and non-transparent, across the board censorship on the basis of the fundamental right to access information guaranteed by the constitution of Pakistan. The petition further prays the court to direct the Federation of Pakistan, through the Ministry of Interior (government) and PTA to not only publish this list of blocked sites, but to also provide the rationale and the legal basis for doing so. Indeed, the petition argues that both justification and legal basis for the action are non-existent. Indeed, since the implementation of this censorship is in the hands of the PTA, the petition asserts that the question of what may or may not be accessed by the 200 million citizens of Pakistan has been left in the ‘expert’ hands of a small cabal of junior civil servants. Clearly, the citizens of democratic Pakistan have never voted to permit such infringement and interpretation of their rights to the judgment of (non) civil servants of this country, or to anyone else for that matter.
Blockage of the popular video sharing site Youtube, troublesome and worrisome as it is, is only one example in a far wider issue of mass censorship of the cyber space by the government of Pakistan. And whilst vague notions such as ‘obscenity’, ‘glory of Islam’ and ‘national security’ are cited to prevent citizens from accessing information, it remains a fact that most censorship is being conducted for political reasons or to avoid embarrassment to powerful stakeholders. Blockage of Baloch and Shia websites, together with material critical of the armed forces being blocked, to name but a few blocks, is clear illustration of my assertion. Indeed, the case of Twitter being blocked by President Erdogan in Turkey after embarrassing allegations against his government surfaced on the platform, is very similar to what is happening in Pakistan. The Turkish courts, however, overturned the ban/block within a matter of weeks.
In one way, it is lucky that the Pakistani government made the mistake of blocking all of Youtube, as it is helping to highlight rampant but insidious censorship of the internet in general in Pakistan.
Further, the petition popularly known as the ‘Youtube petition’ has also challenged the use of the ‘kill switch’ to cease all mobile phone services in Pakistan at the flick of a switch as a measure ‘to combat terrorism.’ Whilst on the one hand this tactic has not ‘combated’ terrorism an iota, it has certainly curtailed the freedoms of association, movement and speech of the citizens. This practice also compromises the safety of those in vulnerable situations who then cannot communicate and are made more vulnerable as a result. Indeed, given that the majority of cell phone owners are not privileged to have landlines, they are completely cut off.
The ‘Youtube petition’ in the LHC has also challenged mass surveillance of internet based communications by the government of Pakistan. This is another curtailment of the fundamental right to privacy of the citizens of Pakistan. It is useful to quote from the petition here, “That the Respondents have empowered and equipped lower level functionaries of their organizations with technology and latest spy software to keep tabs on the people of Pakistan including the power to hack on to and fish into personal email accounts, computers, smart phone devices, hand held devices of various kinds and every conceivable and possible private data that is held by a user. By doing this Respondents have not just violated the privacy rights of the people of Pakistan but have also abused this power to manipulate and blackmail people, creating dossiers and using sensitive information about these people by threatening them. It is submitted that these operatives have now been armed with the latest and most sophisticated in surveillance technology which they utilize to keep tabs on thought.” The ‘Youtube case’ thus, has challenged the Orwellian Big Brother approach of government towards the hapless citizens of Pakistan.
Indeed, there is a separate petition focused on surveillance alone, also filed in the LHC, based on evidence of Finfisher (powerful spyware and malware) command and control servers having been detected in Pakistan.
As an aside, in the last hearing of the case in the LHC, the dishonesty of those supporting the ban on Youtube was hilariously exposed when it transpired that one Mr. Azhar Siddique, who has applied to become party to the case in support of the govt. ban, was himself watching Youtube immediately before the start of the hearing. The comical turning bizzare, he argued that asking for the ban to be removed was akin to blasphemy. Whilst I certainly do not think that Mr. Siddique was committing blasphemy, or was part of the Zionist protocols that he insists on accusing the petitioners of, I wonder if he himself is aware at all of the irony of his allegations, given that he was sitting in the courtroom viewing Youtube using a proxy server.
The writer is a human rights worker and freelance columnist.
Email:gulnbukhari@gmail.com
Tweets at:@gulbukhari
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