The protests that followed the posting on YouTube of a blasphemous video were violent and destructive — and carefully coordinated and orchestrated. The silent evasion of the ban by millions, far more numerically than ever participated in any demonstration, is entirely spontaneous, and in that sense may be taken as ‘the will of the people’. No matter that a resolution is passed and that millions of internet users have made their wishes known, a resolution is not binding on the government and there is no indication that the government is likely to respond to popular sentiment.

The minister of state for health services (whose remit ironically doesn’t include website bans) made this clear to the House, saying that the government was interested to find a solution to the problem but that it was ‘sensitive’ — a statement that comes across as a delaying tactic and indicates that the government does not want to be responsible for unblocking the site. The ban has now been in place for 588 days and it must also be noted that YouTube is not blocked even in Saudi Arabia. The website has many advantages including being useful for educational purposes as well as media and music, which the ban is depriving people of. It is high time that the government responded to the will of the people and unblocked this website. There is simply no sense to the ban any more.

Express Tribune

During today’s National Assembly session, chaired by Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi, MNA Shazia Marri belonging to the Pakistan People Party (PPP) submitted a resolution demanding the lifting of the ban on YouTube which was unanimously accepted by the lower house of parliament.

Ms Marri had said that the government should lift ban on YouTube as soon as possible.

She added that people were using proxy servers to watch YouTube while the government should not adopt any double standards in this regard.

In response to the resolution, Minister of State for Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, Saira Afzal Tarar, assured the house that the government would lift the ban on YouTube soon.

Tarar said that it was the collective responsibility of all the parties to discuss the matter in detail and requested that the leaders of the parliamentary parties should suggest the names of the members from their parties to take part in the discussions in this regard.

The video-sharing website has been blocked in Pakistan since September 2012 when the then prime minister belonging to the PPP ordered its shutdown over its failure to take down the “Innocence of Muslims” movie that sparked furious protests around the world.

Despite the removal of the contentious video and claims by the government, the video-sharing remains banned in the country.

DAWN

A resolution, which was passed unanimously, said the ban be overturned as no such provision was in place in any other Muslim country.

Committee chairman Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party, while reading the resolution, pointed out: “There is no ban on YouTube in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”

Members of the human rights committee expressed concern over the long-running ban and maintained that YouTube could still be accessed through proxies and other means.

“The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority chairman has already told (us) that there is no advantage of the ban,” Khattak said. Committee members noted that Internet users could still access restricted videos, making the ban irrelevant. They also resolved to raise the issue on the floor of the Senate.

YouTube has been blocked since September 2012, when it refused to take down a film that was offensive to Muslims and had sparked protests around the world.

The committee was also told by the Sindh home secretary that the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance had been implemented in Sindh, angering some senators.

The MQM’s Nasreen Jalil said that more than 45 workers of her party had gone missing in recent days, while 20 had been killed ‘extra-judicially.’

Her statement was seconded by the PPP’s Farhatullah Babar, who said that following the implementation of the PPO, there had been increasing reports of extrajudicial killings in Karachi.

Committee members also condemned the attack on journalist Hamid Mir, calling it ‘an attack on freedom of expression’. The senators called on the government to take stringent action against those responsible. “The government should act to stem the rising tide of violence against journalists in the country,” PPP Senator Sehar Kamran said, adding that “media houses should also avoid levelling allegations against security agencies before an inquiry is conducted”.

The committee reacted sharply to reports of cannibalism in Bhakkar. “The government should either amend existing laws or introduce legislation against cannibalism,” the committee chairman said. The committee unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Punjab government to act swiftly against the two brothers accused of eating human flesh.

DAWN

There are two sides to every picture: the sentence is simple, declarative and apparently does not seem to have hidden meanings. The problem is that the devil is in the details. An examination of the affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan leads us to two possibilities: either we have started believing that the practice of using religion for personal, financial and political gains is in fact the most sacred religious duty conferred upon us, or we believe that we are the only Islamic state in the world. People living in other Islamic states are just pretending. Though the government of Turkey, our brother Islamic country, seems to follow in our footsteps, it is miles away from being a ‘pure’ Islamic nation, like us. Since 2012, the government of a nuclear Islamic nation is afraid of a website. Official reasons in Pakistan, we all know, are never the actual reasons. Our previous government told the nation that Youtube hosts blasphemous videos and proudly announced that the site is restricted in our pure country. Indeed, the government thought it was not the video rather Youtube itself that hurt the sacred feelings of pure Muslims. So it kicked the hornet’s nest and the PPP government became certain of its place in the VIP quarters of paradise. Once in opposition, however, it found another way to serve the nation as a humble student of reality. Shazia Marri, PPP parliamentarian, submitted a resolution to lift the ban on Youtube immediately saying that since the people were using the website through proxies there is no point in a ban. Here we see that her demand to remove the ban on Youtube was not based on principle, rather on the absurdity of the ban itself. Proxy websites are not an invention of today and information technology is developing at a faster rate than that of our politicians’ capacity to process the ongoing changes in internet life.

Had the PPP government realised this fact, it would not have banned the video sharing website but would have tried to find another solution to block access to the blasphemous video. Even if a ban was necessary, it should have been temporary, to cool down flared sentiments. The current government indeed could find other solutions to block access to the allegedly ‘blasphemous’ movie, but since taking power it has been operating on punishment mode. To make people believe that the government exists, something needed to be done, so it decided to continue the ban and establish its writ. The Taliban might issue a certificate saying that the PML-N leadership shall get the same VIP treatment in paradise as the PPP. Maybe the Sharif-led government thought that lifting the ban would make religious extremists furious and bring them out on the streets. They may have forgotten that once our pure Muslims brothers are on the roads and streets, they consider it their religious duty to loot shops. Any property that cannot be looted, they set on fire. It should have refused to be blackmailed and talked directly to their mysterious masters.

Banning Youtube in the name of Islam is no different from the practices of the Taliban, who mask their criminal activities with sharia. The ban on Youtube is, in fact, only to deprive people of their constitutional right to access information and express their opinion freely and independently. Mr Sharif has a proven tendency towards civil dictatorship and wishes to keep media and state institutions under his thumb. In his last tenure he unsuccessfully tried to crush a media group and the Supreme Court (SC) was attacked by his party’s hoodlums. After passing the so-called Protection of Pakistan bill in the National Assembly, he once again proves that everything changes except the nature of man. To keep the media on his side, he continues to reward journalists with offices and ambassadorships.

YouTube, on the other hand, is difficult to control but easy to block. Even if we believe just for a moment that the site is restricted due to a specific blasphemous video, if it was not in the interest of the government to chain Youtube, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) could block the video links. Now, assume again that the PTA technicians were not able to block the links and to completely chain the site was the only option. Even in this case, the government should have lifted the ban when Google removed the video under the orders of a US court. Or, at least when Shazia Marri submitted the resolution to lift the ban, the matter should not have been delayed. So we are left with nothing else to believe except that for some unknown reason our democratic governments feel threatened by the exercise of free expression in the country, as it is by the establishment of local government institutions. The local government system plays a vital role in strengthening democratic norms among people. It allows people to set their agenda and decide how to distribute economic resources. It empowers the masses. However, it also means that in the presence of local government institutions, politicians in Lahore and Islamabad will not receive development funds and new leadership will emerge from these institutions. Hence there are unlimited hurdles in the way of local government.

The internet has given people a new level of freedom and a higher degree of access to information. YouTube is not just a video sharing website, it is a platform. In addition to entertainment, it also offers a great deal of knowledge. If you wish to enhance your computer knowledge, it is there to help. If you wish to listen to Islamic scholars, you can do so. It is not just a website but a multimedia library. It has a great number of videos about computer programming, software development, current affairs, technology and other topics. Therefore, the ban is as illogical as Ishaq Dar’s statement that the mysterious arrival of $ 1.5 billion in the national treasury was a gift with no strings attached.

Realistically speaking, it is nonsense to ban any website. There are proxy websites that are specially developed for people living in countries where the internet is censored. Smartphones are full of free applications that help unblock sites. Some are specially programmed for YouTube. Our government can learn from the example of Turkey where the government blocked Twitter and by the evening of the same day people found ways to continue tweeting. If a government cannot implement a decision, there is no point issuing the orders and becoming a laughing stock. However, even if our politicians and religious scholars are really concerned about the presence of blasphemous material in cyberspace, banning the sites and chaining the internet is illogical. Instead, with logic and argument, our scholars should talk and convince the global community, representatives of our government should raise the issue at the international forums like the United Nations and work with the world to discourage and control blasphemous material. However, since that requires lots of hard work and does not offer material gain neither our government nor our scholars will do anything in this regard. Let us hope that soon the day will come when the internet will truly be free and YouTube unchained.

Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The government has admitted that there is no technical way to block all objectionable content on the internet.

In a written reply to a lawmaker’s query, the National Assembly was informed on Monday that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had carried out a search for objectionable material on the internet and blocked 31,819 such websites. But, the authority said, it was impossible to filter out all sites offering offensive material.

Begum Tahira Bukhari of the PML-N had submitted the query, seeking an answer from the PTA if any proposal was being considered to unblock YouTube. The video sharing website was banned in September 2012.

The minister in charge of the cabinet division recalled that after the blasphemous movie “Innocence of Muslims” was uploaded in September 2012, the then government had to block the site because Google, the owner of YouTube, refused to remove the film.

In background interviews, PTA officials said the authority had repeatedly told the government that technically it was not possible to block offensive movies even if multi-million dollar filters were used.

A PTA official recalled how the PPP government in December 2012 restored YouTube after taking precautionary measures but had to block it again within 24 hours because of media reports about the presence of the film on the website.

The best possible solution which other Muslim countries had put in place was an automatic warning which informed a viewer trying to watch such material about the nature of the content, he said. Pakistan has also placed the warning on the internet.

“Although the PTA has banned YouTube, computer users can access it through unsecured sites,” he admitted.

DAWN

There are at least 35 million individual internet subscribers in Pakistan, the majority of who stay online through mobile devices such as phones or tablets. It’s a crucial tool for even more given how it is used as a business and learning resource nationally while also essential for banking and online trading of commodities. However, since the 2012 ban on YouTube, digital media activists and free speech advocates have raised concern over the nature of the prolonged restriction claiming that it hinges more on censoring social media voices and activism and less on indignation felt due to a ridiculous and ignorant film.

The issue was raised recently by a technology think-tank, Bytes For All, when a US court ordered Google, which owns YouTube, to remove the anti-Islam film after a lawsuit brought on by an actress who claims she was tricked into appearing in it. We had our fair share of predictable rage, too. Around 20 people were killed in the riots that occurred after the airing of the film. Now that 16 months have passed and the dust has settled (for most), focus needs to be brought to how the government has used the ban on YouTube for other nefarious reasons such as imposing censorship, filtering content and moral policing.

Curtailing access to content helps little. People use virtual proxies and other software to navigate around imposed restrictions but more importantly, users have been deprived of vast educational and entertainment material, including college lectures, tutorials and other resources, freely available on YouTube. The amount of money PTA has spent on sourcing software to block gigantic portals could have been better spent on projects such as, say, improving our oft-neglected IT field. Needless to say, it is obvious our priorities are a little more than just out of order.

The Nation

The decision by a US appeals court on Wednesday ordering Google to remove the controversial film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ from the video-sharing website YouTube is welcome news for people in Pakistan. The film triggered mass outrage and violent protests around the country, far in excess of its aesthetic value or content. The Pakistani government now has no legitimate excuse to continue the ban, which is extremely unpopular with the public and with activists wary of the state’s penchant for censorship. Not having legitimate reasons has never stood in the way of governments, but people working to overturn the ban can use this case to highlight two facts. The first is that banning YouTube was an unnecessary measure that violated constitutional rights to free information and speech, while empowering extremists to promote their violent narrative. The second is that bans and outrage don’t work — rational argument does.

The judges hearing the case rejected Google’s assertion that removing the film amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violates the US Constitution, on the ground that one of the actors involved in the production was misled about the portrayal and credit she would receive for participating. The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, objected to the film after learning it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie. How much simpler would Pakistan’s case have been if, instead of hyperbolic, unconstitutional, and ultimately uninformed outrage and bans, the government had found legal grounds to challenge Google’s constitutional objections. In the case of Ms Garcia and YouTube, releasing the film without her knowledge or consent amounted to a violation of her rights, which the appeals court recognised. Moreover, Pakistani authorities could have negotiated an agreement with Google, as other countries have done, to limit certain content in Pakistan in case it inflames religious sentiments.

The previous and current governments’ hypocrisy with regard to the ban is clear. If either government felt so strongly about the film, they could have spent the last two years investigating the film’s legality and its release, citing statutes including incitement to violence, hate speech, or in this case illegal appropriation of another person’s creative property. Instead they chose to declare a day of protest, which caused millions in property damage, and ban a popular website, causing a great deal of resentment among the internet using public. If the government insists on acting as a ‘defender’ of Islam, it should also take that job seriously and effectively pursue its objectives, instead of making the public victims of its shortsightedness. It is better left to the public to defend their own faith as they see fit, since clearly the government cannot do so.

Daily Times

WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Wednesday ordered Google to remove from its YouTube video-sharing website an anti-Islam film that had sparked protests across the Muslim world.

By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Google’s assertion that the removal of the film “Innocence of Muslims,” amounted to a prior restraint of speech that violated the US Constitution.

The plaintiff, Cindy Lee Garcia, had objected to the film after learning that it incorporated a clip she had made for a different movie.Representatives for Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia had proved the need to remove the video from YouTube, the appeals court concluded, in part because of ongoing death threats since it sparked violent protests after being first aired by Egyptian television in 2012.

“This is a troubling case,” Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote. “Garcia was duped into providing an artistic performance that was used in a way she never could have foreseen.”Garcia sued after she discovered she was in the video, after efforts to persuade Google to take it down from YouTube were repeatedly rebuffed.

The actress had been cast in a minor role in a film called “Desert Warrior,” and paid $500 by director Mark Basseley Youssef, but the movie never materialised, according to court papers.

The actress discovered her scene had instead been used in the anti-Muslim film, which generated worldwide attention and was at first cited as a cause of the fatal attacks on the Libyan embassy in Benghazi.

In her suit, Garcia maintained that YouTube’s unrivaled popularity gave the film a broad audience, and that she had a right to get it removed because she had been misled by the director and retained copyright protections to her artistic work.

Google argued that taking the video down from YouTube would be futile because it is now in widespread circulation, but the 9th Circuit disagreed.

Judge N. Randy Smith dissented, finding that Garcia did not have a clear protection against the use of her work and that an injunction against Google goes too far. Google can ask the 9th Circuit to rehear the case with an 11-judge panel.

Cris Armenta, a lawyer for Garcia, said she is delighted with the decision.“Ordering YouTube and Google to take down the film was the right thing to do,” Armenta said in an email. “The propaganda film differs so radically from anything that Ms Garcia could have imagined when the director told her that she was being cast in the innocent adventure film.”

The News

For an entire year now we have had to make do without one of modern civilisation’s most comforting creations – YouTube – just because some loser who is now languishing in jail put up a trailer for a movie that was never even made. We ended up punishing the estimated seven million Pakistanis who use YouTube just to ‘protect’ them from something they either would never have heard about or shown no interest in perusing. And we have continued doing so for 365 days! At this point our nose is so disfigured only rhinoplasty will restore it.

Nothing is more annoying than the smug self-satisfactory ignorance of those who support the ban. There are many, who obviously understand nothing of how YouTube, or indeed the internet, works who have gleefully explained how the ban in Pakistan is costing Google so much lost revenue. Such inconvenient facts, like YouTube not making any money from the country because it doesn’t have a country-specific site here or that it loses nearly half a billion dollars a year, do not matter to a mind that closes itself off to reason.

A recent online poll conducted about YouTube in Pakistan found that over 60 percent of people claim to use the video-sharing site for educational purposes. In an equally unscientific assertion, I would venture that more than 50 percent of those people were lying, unless education is defined as learning about the art of reverse swing from old clips of Wasim and Waqar. Those who want YouTube unblocked are already ceding a lot of ground when they try to defend the site as a tool for learning rather than what it really is: lots and lots of fun.

The one thing this country could use is people who stand up for having a good time. There are a lot of things that can’t be defended on the grounds of utility but still provide much joy to the world. Failing to acknowledge the pleasure principle is what has led to all those fun things still being illegal which were outlawed more than three decades ago in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s last-gasp attempt to save his rule.

Since ZAB’s time there has unfortunately been a surge in the kind of people who HL Mencken described as harbouring the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” Fighting back against that mindset on all fronts is mandatory if we don’t want censorship and a loss of liberty to continue for another three decades.

The YouTube ban, powerful though it is as a symbol of censorship since it most affects the wealthy who are only used to the freedoms of others being taken away, is only one example of the killjoys encroaching on our right to seek what the US Declaration of Independence called the “pursuit of happiness.”

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the MMA government became notorious for defacing and tearing down billboards and giving a good go at destroying Pakhtun cinema. Self-righteous thugs and charlatans have attacked theatres, enacted the harassment of innocent teen couples for the enjoyment of the moral police watching along on their TV screens and cast judgement on anyone who does not live their life the exact way they want them to. And all of us have been too scared to speak out for fear of being cast as irreligious or, horror of horrors, secular.

Pakistan has become a country where we are no longer to pursue what makes us happy, even if isn’t hurting anyone else. The professional scolds in society are no longer content to mind their own business despite being under no compunction to alter their lifestyle from the evil secularists. This is why those who denounce extremists on both sides are being so disingenuous. There is only one side that is giving the other marching orders and shoving their virtues down our throats. The other side would just like to be left alone and for everyone to be free to choose which lifestyle they prefer.

The debate – to the small extent that it exists – has been framed as one between virtue and sin rather than freedom and censorship. This is why nothing remotely positive will be written about anything that has been denounced by a small but extremely vocal minority. Everyone is simply too cowered by them, and the threat of violence implicit in their moral denunciations, to mount a challenge. The ban on YouTube was meant to stave off any potential violence that may have been caused by the offending trailer. Yet, we still had violence just a few days after the site was blocked. Now a year later the ban has become the norm and, in an inversion of the way things should be, we have to argue that the ban is illogical rather than forcing proponents of the ban to explain why it still continues.

Freedom in this country is nothing but a poetic truth trotted out around election time so that we can be proud of being a democracy. For true freedom to prevail – the kind where preening moralists and fearful governments cannot simply snatch away anything they don’t want us to enjoy – the ballot box is only the first rest stop in a long journey.

The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. Email: nadir.hassan@gmail.com

The News