Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that if Google and Youtube do not help the Pakistan government, then Pakistan reserves the right to block these services to prevent terrorists from using it.
He was talking to the media men (16 Sep, 2011). He said "we are fighting a war against terrorism. The world super powers are helping us. So social media websites should also help us against extremists. He warned Google, Youtube, Facebook and other social media sites that if they don't help us, we will bane and bloc them in Pakistan. He said that a number of Taliban coordinate using gmail and other social media.
Rahman Malik is the Interior Minister of Pakistan who can't read even Quran. On a occasion in a conference while PM Gelani was chairing he was said to start with the name of Allah and recite Surah Ikhlas. When he started reciting he did wrong every thing while in presence of PM and other high profile officials of Pakistan.
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| Pakistan Interior Minister Rahman Malik |
Now once again Rahman Malik is exposing his "ability" and cutting off our nose. Sham Raman Malik.
Lahore High Court order directing that access to Google, Youtube and Facebook be blocked. The recent order by the High Court to deny access to Facebook is ostensibly based on the fact that certain pages on Facebook were being used to spread religious hatred. Even if that were true, I still do not see how a few pages on Facebook or even a few websites on the internet interfere with any Pakistani’s freedom to profess, propagate and propagate his religion under Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Also worrying about the latest order blocking Facebook is that it is clear that the Honourable Court did not grasp how Facebook works. It is not as if when you sign onto Facebook a page is thrust into your face. You have to click on things to access them; in effect you have to go looking for them. If someone does not want to access a particular page he should simply not search for/click on it! Exercising that ‘freedom’ of not clicking would save everyone’s liberty.
Blocking access to Facebook and Google firstly will not solve anything and it will also interfere with the fundamental right of speech and expression of many Pakistanis (a large number of whom are Muslims). Not only can people protest against alleged religious hatred and/or offensive material on Facebook (by creating their own pages/petitions) but think about disadvantaged social and political groups that can use the internet to effectively communicate their point of view. The cost is simply too great.
The internet allows you to simply ignore it without the need to block it. If there are ten signs on a street and one of them offends you, it does not make sense to block access to the street — simply do not make the turn that leads to that allegedly offensive sign and you have that choice. The internet gives you that power. It would be sad and dangerous if our courts made us powerless and took away our most basic freedoms.
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