Telecom News Bulletin

The Ministry for Information Technology and Telecom has lifted a ban on Youtube. However, social networking website Facebook will remain blocked in line with the order of Lahore High Court. The LHC had directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block the site till May 31 over blasphemous content.

Federal Secretary Najeebullah Malik told Geo that PTA was asked to ensure the blockage of links carrying sacrilegious drawings.  He said that the government would implement any order given by the court about Facebook in future too.  PTA chairman Dr Yasin said that Youtube would also be restored immediately after receiving orders from the information ministry.

Rehman Malik on Its Twitter Account also certify that :

Pakistan is to lift a ban on Facebook and YouTube in the next few days, after blocking the websites over “sacrilegious” content, the country’s interior minister said Wednesday.  The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) banned access to Facebook and YouTube and other links, and restricted access to Wikipedia, last week in view of what it called “growing sacrilegious content”. Interior minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday that pages containing blasphemous material would remain blocked, but the ban on popular sites including Facebook and YouTube would be lifted in the next few days.

“We discussed this matter in the cabinet meeting today. I told my colleagues that blocking the websites was not the right thing,” Malik told AFP. “I said that only particular pages that contain blasphemous material should be blocked, not the entire website,” said Malik, adding that in next few days both Facebook and YouTube would be unblocked.

“The two websites would be open in next few days.” When a Facebook user decided to organise an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” competition to promote “freedom of expression”, it sparked a major backlash among Islamic activists in the South Asian country of 170 million. Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the row sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.

Several thousand Pakistanis took to the streets at the behest of religious groups to protest. A court in the eastern city of Lahore ordered the block on Facebook until at least May 31, when it is scheduled to hear a petition from Islamic lawyers. Pakistan also briefly banned YouTube in February 2008 in a similar protest against “blasphemous” cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Via AFP and Dawn