Is Pakistan Run By A Moronocracy?
Please go over to this entry on the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) website and read about what the Government of Pakistan secretly has in store for netizens in the country. APC has managed to get its hands on a confidential document submitted by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to the Lahore High Court (LHC), detailing how it plans to monitor and censor the internet in the future. The document was submitted after the Facebook ban, and before the current bout of moronic behaviour banning seven websites including search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing from the Bahawalpur bench of the LHC (PTA said subsequently it would only "monitor" some of the sites including email provider Hotmail).
According to the document (the following has not been edited to correct any of the usual illiteracy of bureaucracy, all mistakes are in the original):
"On the recommendation of the [inter-ministerial] committee [whose existence is not public knowledge], Federal Government shall issue directive to PTA for blocking of website(s) either at IP level or URL [within 24 hours] which contain the following:
a. All information pertaining to any objectionable content
b.Undermine Islam or ridicule, disparage or attack any religion, ethnic group, region or any group's reverend practices.
c. Brings contempt to the country or its people so as to undermine integrity and solidarity of the state / country.
d. Violates any provision of the constitution of Pakistan or law of the land.
e. Promotes or supports sedition, terrorism, anarchy or violence in the country;
f. Brings contempt of the Defense Forces, Police, Air Force or any other institution of Government of Pakistan or to divulge any secret information relating to Defense and other services.
g.Contains propaganda in favor of any foreign state having bearing on any points of disputes or against any friendly foreign state;
h.Hurts national sentiments"
So basically, here's a draft for another one of those stupid laws / plans that can mean just about anything and probably will. Some other specific points about the above-mentioned clauses:
a - takes care of all search engines
b - interestingly, would it mean banning the websites of Jang and Nawai Waqt et al that have columnists spouting hatred against Ahmadis, Christians and Jews?
c - this would ban even the New York Times e.g.
d - banishes most bloggers or anyone questioning anything
e - as if such sites were allowed in the first place, ask the Baloch nationalists
f - I have no idea why the Air Force is singled out in this (are they not part of the Defence forces?) but basically anyone criticizing corruption even in the Seed Corportion of Pakistan also stands to be blocked. Geo would be blocked for running stories about the Pakistan Steel Mill. And that story on Express Tribune about policemen taking bribes - you're out too ET.
g - so you cannot say, e.g. that India may have a legitimate point when it protests Pakistanis like Ajmal Kasab coming over and killing 200 people in Bombay or that it was American CIA and Saudi money that fueled our jihadis
h - if anything was left, here's the catchall phrase that encompasses it.
You can try all you want but you ain't going to find a more absurdist bunch of nincompoops running a state on the face of this earth.
