Stories about Pakistan
GV Face: Advox at #IGF2013
Live from Bali, Indonesia, watch Advoxers Hisham Almiraat, Ellery Biddle, Sana Saleem, Nighat Dad, and other friends of GV talk about what's at stake for user rights at this year's event.
Queer Pakistan is Blocked: Double-Edged Sword of Media Coverage?
A newly launched website to support Pakistan's LGBT youth has been banned by the authorities. Was Queer Pakistan a victim of its own successful publicity?
Advocates Condemn New Filtering System in Pakistan
IT Minister Anusha Rehman says the new system will allow the government to lift its nearly year-old ban on YouTube, leaving only “objectionable” videos blocked on the site. Meanwhile, many other sites will remain blocked.
The Religious Right Rises! Advocates Face High Stakes in Pakistan
State institutions create new lists of URLs each day and block them routinely. Advocates who challenge state censorship and surveillance practice face increasingly grave threats from both the government and the religious right.
Advocates Challenge Use of FinFisher Surveillance Software in Pakistan
The Pakistani human rights organisation Bytes for All is challenging the use of invasive surveillance software by the government of Pakistan. FinFisher, produced by Gamma International, a UK-based company named by Reporters Without Borders as one of five "corporate enemies of the internet" and "digital era mercenaries," is notorious for its advanced spying and surveillance capabilities which are used to target human rights movements all over the world.
Cyber Attack on Pakistan's Electoral Commission Website
The Electoral Commission of Pakistan, an independent body tasked with supervising the upcoming general election, had its website attacked on Friday, March 29, 2013. According to local media, an "[Indian hacker] defaced the home page" and may have "compromised its availability to visitors.”
On Eve of Elections, Advocates Challenge YouTube Blocking in Pakistan
With general elections fast approaching in Pakistan, advocates are urging the government to cease blocking sites like YouTube which have become vital platforms for the circulation of news and information. YouTube has been blocked in Pakistan nearly continuously since September 2012. In partnership with the Media Legal Defence Initiative, Pakistani NGO Bytes for All is challenging the blocking in court.
Pakistan: The “Access Is My Right” Campaign
Pakistani Internet rights NGO Bytesforall has started an online campaign about internet filtering and online censorship. Using storytelling, infographics, and more, the "Access Is My Right" campaign aims to raise Internet users' awareness about policies and practices that limit the right to free expression online.
Pakistan's Fight for Net Freedom
It’s been an active year for digital activism on Internet freedom in Pakistan. The fact that the United Nations deemed it a basic universal human right has not stopped authorities in Pakistan from clamping down on the world wide web in many different ways and by various means.
Global Voices Where Every Voice Counts
The idea that every voice counts is one that is very close to the notion of Global Voices as a platform and as a community. As netizens unite to have their voices heard when the world's authorities argue on who should run the internet, we decided to ask our diverse community to participate and speak out on issues that matter to them and look back at issues we have covered over the year bearing in mind that every voice counts.
Open Letter: To the Netizens of China, From a Netizen of Pakistan
In an effort to build solidarity between people who suffer similar restrictions online, Pakistani activists are launching a campaign to reach out to their Chinese counterparts. As the Pakistani government tries to emulate China's policies to control the internet, Sana Saleem, a Pakistani netizen and Global Voices contributor, sends an open letter to Chinese netizens.
Pakistan: Twitter has been Blocked
Twitter has been blocked in Pakistan on Sunday. The country's top telecommunications officials said that it was blocked because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam. The tweets were promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan...
Pakistan: Unpacking an Anti-Censorship Campaign
When Pakistan's government called for proposals for a new URL filtering and blocking system earlier this year, local and global civil society coordinated their campaigns to focus on the strategies most likely to elicit a response from the authorities.
New Book on Global Struggle for Internet Freedom
How do we ensure the Internet develops compatibly with democracy? And how do we become active “netizens” who take responsibility for our digital future? This is the subject of Rebecca McKinnon's new book: "Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom."
Pakistan: PTA Blocks President's “Shut-Up” Video
Sunday evening [7th February 2010] Youtube.com started facing intermittent reports of irregular inaccessibility across various ISP's in Pakistan. It initially started off with a simple white page displaying the word “This Site is Restricted” throughout the Youtube domain which were reported widely on Herdict Web, roughly displaying that the site-wide...
Pakistan: Army Human Rights Video being censored
A certain video showing images of Pakistan Army's military brutality during its offensive in Swat has surfaced across the web. BBC: The video shows of an officer in Pakistani army battle uniform interrogating several suspects, some of whom are quite elderly and are presumably relatives of men being sought. When...
Pakistan: Funny SMS's may land Pakistanis in for a fourteen year prison sentence
Pakistans' Minister of Interior Rehman Malik recently announced a 14 year prison sentence for anyone found propagating SMS and emails ridiculing or making fun of the present Pakistani leadership and its elected government officials. The statement issued by the Ministry of Interior actually referenced the Cyber Crime Act of 2009 which apparently may subject the violators to at least 14 years behind bars.
OpenNet Initiative Releases Results on Filtering in Asia
From the Great Firewall to the Myanmar Wide Web, Asia is well-known for its practices in Internet filtering. China has long taken the lead in blocking Web sites, filtering sites across the spectrum – from social to political content, pornography to Internet tools. The OpenNet Initiative (full disclosure: I'm involved)...
Pakistan Censors Pictures of Governor – Harmful for the Integrity of Pakistan
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the internet monitoring body in Pakistan has issued directives to all its ISP providers to block a list of six webpages on the grounds that they were “harmful for the integrity of the country.”
Pakistan: Partial Block of Youtube
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed (see above) the country's ISPs to block access to the videos sharing website YouTube for allegedly featuring a blasphemous video.
