By Haider Ali
In a move that sparked a quiet outrage amongst many of the youth in Pakistan, the Pakistani government, which isn’t exactly flavour of the month with the core of the countries voters, had managed to ostracise youngsters across the country by blocking access to the popular social networking site Twitter.
Pakistan which has stringent blasphemy laws pertaining to insults to god or any of the prophets of the Islamic religion clearly outline a boundary that cannot be crossed. What forced the government to act was a competition that had started on rival service Facebook, encouraging pictures of the holy Prophet Mohammed to be displayed on the sites. Commonly known is the fact that images of one the religion’s most sacrosanct prophets is strictly forbidden.
Mohammed Yaseen, the chairmen of the Pakistan telecommunication authority retorted to heavy condemnation by saying “people should be aware of the laws of this country; if they’re broken we must be forced to act”. According to Mohammed Yaseen, Facebook administrators acted swiftly to the governments request to take the pictures down, hence why the popular internet attraction was immediately available to users. Twitter on the other hand either refused to cooperate or did not receive the message, which Mr. Yaseen states was sent to them at least five times via fax.
Twitter users managed to find private networks from which they accessed their accounts. This was done promptly and within minutes thousands of Pakistani users descended upon the popular networking site pouring scorn over the government’s decision to block access to Twitter. The vociferous outrage was not confined to the cusp of the youth, but even government ministers expressed indignation over the decision.
Mosharraf Zaidi, an adviser to the country’s foreign minister, tweeted: “Stunning. Unbelievable. And yet seems almost routine. Another of the thousands of self-inflicted cuts.” The ban seemed to fly by members of Asif Zardari’s own administration when Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister and an ardent user of Twitter, had earlier posted assurances that no such ban was on its way.
Many feel the temporary ban on Twitter is indicative of this countries covert attack on the freedoms of the population. This civilian government which has been in charge less than five years and has struggled to suppress dissension and failed to get to grips with electronic media and social networking sites, actively used by masses of protesters to coordinate marches against the corrupt government.
Zardari’s government have already mooted the possibility of censoring words such as “Jesus Christ” because of the weight of blasphemy it supposedly carries. A more ambitious project that was mooted was the introduction of a national firewall, which would have given the government far more pertinent power and control over material that could be seen on the internet. In the end it was abandoned after public outcry caused the government to back off from its pursuit.
