10/14/2011 11:29:00 pm
Let's Wage a War Against Pornography in Pakistan
ATTENTION PLEASE FRIENDS
PARA WISE COMMENTS FROM THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN SUBMITTED IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT IN OUR WRIT PETITION FILED ON THE SUBJECT:
THEY ARE REPRODUCED BELOW FOR THE PERUSAL OF THE MEMBERS OF
THIS GROUP
"""Government of Pakistan
Ministry of Information Technology
(IT & Telecom Division)
No. 5-1/2005-DFU Islamabad July 16,2011
The Deputy Registrar
Lahore High Court ,
Lahore.
SUBJECT: WRIT PETITION NO. 1373/2011 TITLED ASIF ALI VS GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN, ETC IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT, LAHORE
Reference Deputy Registrar Judl. Letter No. 21339(g) dated 24 june, 2011, soliciting the comments / report as per the directions of the Honourable Lahore High Court, Lahore in the subject petition.
2. The Contents of the petition have been analyzed and views/ comments of the Ministry of IT as Respondent No.2 are as follows:
a). Government of Pakistan ( GOP) realizes that the appearance and distribution of content affront to the religious and moral values of the Pakistani Citizens, particularly blasphemous and sacrilegious content, at mass level over internet is creating immense discomfort and dismay among the Government and people of Pakistan. A formal mechanism has therefore been established to review request(s) for blocking of undesirable website (s) that propagate propaganda and unscrupulous agendas of inter faith hate, communal disharmony , propagation of discord, blasphemy and anti state content etc. an inter Ministerial Committee ( “The Committee”) was constituted by the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2006 for formally processing and dealing with the issues / requests for evaluation and blocking of websites ( URLs) meeting specific criteria . the Committee has representation of various agencies and departments including , Ministry of IT, Ministry of Religious Affairs , Ministry of Interior , Ministry of Information * Broadcasting , National Telecommunication & Information Technology Security Board (NTISB) security agencies and Pakistan telecommunication Authority (PTA) etc. all such requests are referred to the Ministry of Information & Technology for placing before the Committee , directives are issued to PTA Accordingly for appropriate blocking through operators. The committee further authorized the Chairman of the Committee to evaluate and decide the …..
Blocking of the cases of urgent nature (i.e blasphemous and ani-state content) and to bring the same in subsequent meeting for codal procedures.
b} The inter-ministerial committee undertakes all efforts to block display of such content in Pakistan as well as engage owners of such websites address the issue of alleged display in Pakistan/withdrawal of such sacrilegious material through alleged mutually agreed arrangement. The summary of the measures taken so far is as under:
- Currently, an approach of vigilant monitoring of internet in general and Facebook, Youtube in particular is being followed in the spirit of the courts, decisions and Cabinet’s directions to be vigilant and immediately block only the offending sites without disrupting the flow of information, genuinely needed for the students/researchers.
- The MoIT has convened 20 meetings of the Inter-Ministerial Committee till date.
- A Special crisis cell has been created at PTA, supported by toll free call in numbers and dedicated email addresses for reporting of objectionable websites.
- Cases of urgent nature (Blasphemous and Anti-State are being decided on immediate basis by the Secretary IT and subsequently endorsed by the committee in the subsequent meeting.
- Withdrawal of official material relating to the most condemnable “Burn Quran Day” by the Facebook administration with the engagement of MoIT.
-Until now more than 12500 websites have been blocked from access through the directives of the committee after deliberation. With regard to the blasphemous caricatures competition on social networking website Facebook, the committee blocked the particular links on Facebook having objectionable material even before the Courts took cognizance of the case.
c} Various write petitions versus federation of Pakistan etc. came up for hearing before the honourable Sindh and Lahore High Courts regarding the
blocking of blasphemous and pornographic material over interne, hurting the religious/moral feeling of any member of Pakistani Society. Report on measures taken by GOP was also submitted especially to LHC at various times to apprise the Court about the situation and quantum of job in hand. The efficient measures taken through this committee for blocking the objectionable contents have been praised and appreciated by the Honourable Lahore High Court while issuing certain guidelines to address the issues related to web-content in alleged large policy context.
3. The Government of Pakistan has undertaken various to handle the situation without deviating from the basic policy of free flow of useful information. However, during the process of blocking objectionable content, it was observed that the dissemination of such content is extremely fast and such material produced on single website is replicated on thousands of other allied websites within no time. Also, the technical innovation and development in the filed of computer networking has made it possible to access any content with different applications. Keeping in view the time and resources required for developing an efficient technical solution that can proactively block the black-listed Websites/URLs, the public support is imperative to overcome the intrinsic limitations of existing and future systems.
4. The treat several collective issues relating to internet e.g “securing intellectual property rights’, “ protecting national security”, preserving religious, cultural and moral values “ and “shielding children from pornography and exploitation”; the Inter-Ministerial Committee has constituted alleged sub-committee for over arching review of the content regulation mechanism for content filtering, internet café and personal requests. After detailed analysis in the light of international best practices, the report of the sub-committee will soon be presented to Inter-Ministerial Committee for final recommendations for the perusal/treatment at the relevant fora.
5. As the deployment of alleged technical solution would take time and immense human and financial resources/ the Ministry of Information Technology, in compliance of the Court directive/guidelines, is creating awareness and requesting the General Public at large to intimate any websites (s)/URL,s which contains such blasphemous, pornographic and objectionable material for necessary action. It this regard, alleged special crisis cell has already been created in PTa, supported by toll free call-in number (0800-
55055) and dedicated email addresses (complainat@pta.gov.pk) for reporting of websites with objectionable (blasphemous) content.
6. In view of the foregoing and the factual position established at various legal for a that MoIT is taking all possible steps in cognizance of the criticality of the subject matter; the position/report is submitted for kind perusal of the honourable Lahore High Court with the plea for appropriate disposal accordingly. This report is being issued with the approval of the competent authority please.""
Sd/-
(Mudassar Hussain)
Director Telecom (Wireless)
051-9221048
CC : The Deputy Attorney General for Pakistan, Lahore High Court Lahore, Lahore Bench Lahore.
I WISH IF MY KIND MEMBERS COULD SUGGEST ME AS TO HOW TO REPLY THESE COMMENTS, LETS DO SOME THING PRACTICAL!!!
PARA WISE COMMENTS FROM THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN SUBMITTED IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT IN OUR WRIT PETITION FILED ON THE SUBJECT:
THEY ARE REPRODUCED BELOW FOR THE PERUSAL OF THE MEMBERS OF
THIS GROUP
"""Government of Pakistan
Ministry of Information Technology
(IT & Telecom Division)
No. 5-1/2005-DFU Islamabad July 16,2011
The Deputy Registrar
Lahore High Court ,
Lahore.
SUBJECT: WRIT PETITION NO. 1373/2011 TITLED ASIF ALI VS GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN, ETC IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT, LAHORE
Reference Deputy Registrar Judl. Letter No. 21339(g) dated 24 june, 2011, soliciting the comments / report as per the directions of the Honourable Lahore High Court, Lahore in the subject petition.
2. The Contents of the petition have been analyzed and views/ comments of the Ministry of IT as Respondent No.2 are as follows:
a). Government of Pakistan ( GOP) realizes that the appearance and distribution of content affront to the religious and moral values of the Pakistani Citizens, particularly blasphemous and sacrilegious content, at mass level over internet is creating immense discomfort and dismay among the Government and people of Pakistan. A formal mechanism has therefore been established to review request(s) for blocking of undesirable website (s) that propagate propaganda and unscrupulous agendas of inter faith hate, communal disharmony , propagation of discord, blasphemy and anti state content etc. an inter Ministerial Committee ( “The Committee”) was constituted by the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2006 for formally processing and dealing with the issues / requests for evaluation and blocking of websites ( URLs) meeting specific criteria . the Committee has representation of various agencies and departments including , Ministry of IT, Ministry of Religious Affairs , Ministry of Interior , Ministry of Information * Broadcasting , National Telecommunication & Information Technology Security Board (NTISB) security agencies and Pakistan telecommunication Authority (PTA) etc. all such requests are referred to the Ministry of Information & Technology for placing before the Committee , directives are issued to PTA Accordingly for appropriate blocking through operators. The committee further authorized the Chairman of the Committee to evaluate and decide the …..
Blocking of the cases of urgent nature (i.e blasphemous and ani-state content) and to bring the same in subsequent meeting for codal procedures.
b} The inter-ministerial committee undertakes all efforts to block display of such content in Pakistan as well as engage owners of such websites address the issue of alleged display in Pakistan/withdrawal of such sacrilegious material through alleged mutually agreed arrangement. The summary of the measures taken so far is as under:
- Currently, an approach of vigilant monitoring of internet in general and Facebook, Youtube in particular is being followed in the spirit of the courts, decisions and Cabinet’s directions to be vigilant and immediately block only the offending sites without disrupting the flow of information, genuinely needed for the students/researchers.
- The MoIT has convened 20 meetings of the Inter-Ministerial Committee till date.
- A Special crisis cell has been created at PTA, supported by toll free call in numbers and dedicated email addresses for reporting of objectionable websites.
- Cases of urgent nature (Blasphemous and Anti-State are being decided on immediate basis by the Secretary IT and subsequently endorsed by the committee in the subsequent meeting.
- Withdrawal of official material relating to the most condemnable “Burn Quran Day” by the Facebook administration with the engagement of MoIT.
-Until now more than 12500 websites have been blocked from access through the directives of the committee after deliberation. With regard to the blasphemous caricatures competition on social networking website Facebook, the committee blocked the particular links on Facebook having objectionable material even before the Courts took cognizance of the case.
c} Various write petitions versus federation of Pakistan etc. came up for hearing before the honourable Sindh and Lahore High Courts regarding the
blocking of blasphemous and pornographic material over interne, hurting the religious/moral feeling of any member of Pakistani Society. Report on measures taken by GOP was also submitted especially to LHC at various times to apprise the Court about the situation and quantum of job in hand. The efficient measures taken through this committee for blocking the objectionable contents have been praised and appreciated by the Honourable Lahore High Court while issuing certain guidelines to address the issues related to web-content in alleged large policy context.
3. The Government of Pakistan has undertaken various to handle the situation without deviating from the basic policy of free flow of useful information. However, during the process of blocking objectionable content, it was observed that the dissemination of such content is extremely fast and such material produced on single website is replicated on thousands of other allied websites within no time. Also, the technical innovation and development in the filed of computer networking has made it possible to access any content with different applications. Keeping in view the time and resources required for developing an efficient technical solution that can proactively block the black-listed Websites/URLs, the public support is imperative to overcome the intrinsic limitations of existing and future systems.
4. The treat several collective issues relating to internet e.g “securing intellectual property rights’, “ protecting national security”, preserving religious, cultural and moral values “ and “shielding children from pornography and exploitation”; the Inter-Ministerial Committee has constituted alleged sub-committee for over arching review of the content regulation mechanism for content filtering, internet café and personal requests. After detailed analysis in the light of international best practices, the report of the sub-committee will soon be presented to Inter-Ministerial Committee for final recommendations for the perusal/treatment at the relevant fora.
5. As the deployment of alleged technical solution would take time and immense human and financial resources/ the Ministry of Information Technology, in compliance of the Court directive/guidelines, is creating awareness and requesting the General Public at large to intimate any websites (s)/URL,s which contains such blasphemous, pornographic and objectionable material for necessary action. It this regard, alleged special crisis cell has already been created in PTa, supported by toll free call-in number (0800-
55055) and dedicated email addresses (complainat@pta.gov.pk) for reporting of websites with objectionable (blasphemous) content.
6. In view of the foregoing and the factual position established at various legal for a that MoIT is taking all possible steps in cognizance of the criticality of the subject matter; the position/report is submitted for kind perusal of the honourable Lahore High Court with the plea for appropriate disposal accordingly. This report is being issued with the approval of the competent authority please.""
Sd/-
(Mudassar Hussain)
Director Telecom (Wireless)
051-9221048
CC : The Deputy Attorney General for Pakistan, Lahore High Court Lahore, Lahore Bench Lahore.
I WISH IF MY KIND MEMBERS COULD SUGGEST ME AS TO HOW TO REPLY THESE COMMENTS, LETS DO SOME THING PRACTICAL!!!
Posted in: Government of Pakistan,NTISB,ParaWise Comments
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