The Pulse | Society | South Asia
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority says it blocked Wikipedia as a result of a 48-hour deadline to take away content material it mentioned was blasphemous was ignored.
Pakistan’s media regulator mentioned Monday it blocked Wikipedia companies within the nation for hurting Muslim sentiment by not eradicating purportedly blasphemous content material from the positioning. Critics denounced Islamabad’s motion, saying it was a blow to digital rights.
Underneath Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy legal guidelines, anybody discovered responsible of insulting Islam or its figures may be sentenced to demise. Though the nation has but to hold out capital punishment for blasphemy, vigilante mob assaults in opposition to these accused have resulted in dozens of murders.
Even allegations of the offense are sometimes sufficient to impress mob violence and even lethal assaults. Worldwide and home rights teams say that accusations of blasphemy have usually been used to intimidate non secular minorities and settle private scores.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority says it blocked Wikipedia as a result of a 48-hour deadline to take away the content material was ignored, in line with a spokesperson. “Such things hurt the sentiments of Muslims,” mentioned Malahat Obaid, from the regulator.
She mentioned Pakistani authorities are in talks with Wikipedia officers and the ban could possibly be lifted if the platform fully removes anti-Islam content material.
The Wikimedia Basis on Saturday confirmed the ban, saying: “We hope that the Pakistan government joins us in a commitment to knowledge as a human right and restores access to @Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects promptly, so that the people of Pakistan can continue to receive and share knowledge with the world.”
Mohsin Raza Khan, a Pakistani social media professional, mentioned it’s straightforward to replace or substitute Wikipedia materials deemed sacrilegious or offensive for Muslims — so blocking the positioning isn’t the reply.
“Pakistan’s media regulator and other authorities should try to find some viable technical solution to such problems as blasphemous content is available everywhere,” he mentioned. “It is equal to a drop in the ocean of knowledge.”
The Lahore-based Digital Rights Basis earlier referred to as the Wikipedia ban an affront to Pakistanis’ proper to entry data and a mockery of the nation’s dedication to uphold its human rights obligations.
Prior to now, Pakistan briefly banned TikTok twice for allegedly importing “immoral, obscene and vulgar” content material.
However the ban was later lifted after TikTok assured Pakistan it could take away immoral content material and in addition block customers who add “unlawful content.” The app was downloaded thousands and thousands of occasions in Pakistan when the ban was imposed in 2020 and 2021.
Additionally, in 2008, Pakistan banned YouTube over movies depicting Prophet Muhammad. Muslims typically consider any bodily depiction of Islam’s prophet is blasphemous.
Additionally on Monday, Amir Mahmood, spokesman for Pakistan’s Ahmadi group, sought safety from the federal government, saying unidentified Islamists in a number of separate assaults have broken Ahmadi locations of worship in southern Sindh province and elsewhere within the nation.
“The freedom of worship given to us by the constitution is shrinking,” he advised The Related Press.
The assaults, which befell over a number of days, triggered no casualties, Mahmood mentioned.
The Ahmadi religion was established on the Indian subcontinent within the nineteenth century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whose followers consider he was the messiah that was promised by the Prophet Muhammad.
Pakistan’s parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Since then, they’ve repeatedly been focused by Islamic extremists within the Muslim-majority nation, drawing worldwide condemnation.
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