02 Dec 13 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Pakistan, Politics and Society
Urooj M, a former DJ on a Pakistani FM radio channel, also a film aficionado, was incredulous when she found the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had blocked the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
She tweeted: “SERIOUSLY #PAKISTAN, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU BAN #IMDB!!! COME ON, SERIOUSLY!!!???!!!! #FirstYoutubeNowIMDB #WTF.”
This widely used online entertainment news portal, a prominent source of reliable news and box office reports regarding films, television programmes and video games from all over the world, was blocked on 19 November, but the ban was lifted by 22 November.
Pakistan is notorious for blocking websites. It has banned more than 4,000 websites for what it considers objectionable material, including YouTube, in 2012 for a film that was deemed blasphemous by Muslims around the world. In 2011, in a particularly ill-thought-out move it announced censoring text messages containing swear words. In 2010, after a decision by the Lahore High Court, Facebook was blocked as a reaction to the ‘Everybody Draw Muhammad’ page that was seen as offensive to the prophet.
Users were given no reason for this sudden and selective ban. However, Omar R. Quraishi, a journalist had tweeted: “PTA official declined to give specific reason for ban on IMDB – said is placed for 3 reasons: “anti-state”, “anti-religion”, “anti-social”.
While these “targeted bans” are small irritants in his life, as he can easily by pass them, Ali Tufail, 26, a Karachi-based lawyer, finds them wrong on principle as he sees them infringing upon the fundamental rights of the citizen as given in Article 19 and 19 A of Pakistan’s Constitution.
He said the government must give users sound “reasons” why they block a certain website and “what benchmarks or what standards are used to come to the decision to enforce these sudden bans” and if there is a committee that takes these decisions, “we must be told who these people are.”
The same was endorsed by Nighat Dad of Digital Rights Foundation (DRF). “We strongly oppose any form of censorship employed on citizens, curbing their basic right to information.”
However, netizens believe the ban was enforced to block the movie trailer for The Line of Freedom, a film that highlights the issue of the crises in Balochistan province showing Baloch separatists abducted by Pakistani security agencies without charges in a bid to stamp out rebellion.
“Our team did a quick survey with the help of tweeters around the country,” said Dad. “We checked various other movie titles but only Line of Freedom seemed to be blocked on IMDb and several other websites were accessible otherwise.” The DRF termed it an “unprecedented event” because the government had “used all sorts of means to curb the dissidents’ views” from Balochistan.
“I didn’t even know there was a movie by this title which was giving the government so much heartburn and so I just had to see what was so unsavoury that the government had to block the entire website,” said Dad who watched the whole 30 minutes or so of it by circumventing the various firewalls. “This is what happens, when you forcibly close the internet, word gets around and people get curious!”
Malik Siraj Akbar, editor of the online Baloch Hal, who sought asylum in the United States, is not surprised at the ban. His own newspaper was blocked in November 2010 and even now the ban has not been completely lifted, he says. “Since 2010, it has been available in some parts of the country and not others and access has not been very consistent,” he said adding there were hundreds of other Baloch websites, “mostly those supportive of the nationalists that have been blocked”.
But Tufail added: “This is one battle which the government would find difficult to win as newer, maybe more objectionable [to Pakistani state] websites, will keep popping up which they would never be able to keep pace with,” terming such bans an “exercise in futility”.
There could be some truth in the story of the ban on the Baloch film. Because their voices remain unheard, several family members made a 700km journey on foot from Quetta to Karachi to see if that would make a difference.
Naziha Syed Ali, a journalist at English-language daily Dawn, had recently visited Awaran, a stronghold of the separatists in Balochistan, which had been badly affected by the earthquake on September 24. She said she got a sense of “hostility expressed mainly towards the army and paramilitary rather than Pakistan per se. Then again, the army is seen as a symbol of the country, so it’s pretty much the same thing.”
Ali said “More than fear, they don’t want to take help from what they see as an occupation force.”
According to her the “feelings of alienation have been greatly exacerbated by the issue of the missing people and the kill-and-dump tactics”.
In addition, while Ali found there to be “sufficient food for now”, there was dire need for health services and proper shelter “as the tents that have been distributed are not warm enough for winter”.
The problem is the army is not allowing international and local non-governmental organisations to carry out any relief work there. Instead, the charities run by religio-political organisations and even banned outfits are seen freely roaming about. For years, the state has kept a stony silence over the issue of the disappearances of the Baloch nationalists. Rights group say if the state lets the various organisations into the region, their dark secrets about grave human rights abuses, for now a national shame, may become a problem for it on the international front.
This article was published on 2 Dec 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
23 Oct 13 | News and features, Pakistan, Religion and Culture
It’s been over two weeks now that Rana Tanveer, a reporter in Lahore at the English daily, Express Tribune, has not gone to work.
Early this month, he received a one-page letter, in the Urdu language, terming him an apostate and accusing him of writing in favour of Ahmadis and Christians.
“It warned me to stop writing ‘against’ Islam and seek ‘forgiveness’ from God,” he said over the phone from his home in the Punjab province.
It further warned him that if he did not desist, he would be killed — since that is the punishment of a person declared an apostate.
“I can’t work like this; no reporter can, if he cannot roam about freely,” said Tanveer.
Initially, he did not take the letter too seriously, but a week after he received the letter, he felt he was being followed on a motorbike. “It’s a scary experience,” he conceded, adding: “I made a few turns just to be sure that this was not a figment of my imagination, but the man on the motorbike persisted. I knew then that this was no joke and I had to do something.”
His seniors at work advised him to at least file a complaint with the police, which he did, but he did not name anyone “due to security reasons”.
“My editor told me to keep a low profile and not to report on minority issues for a while, and if I had to, it would go without by byline,” said the journalist.
Farahnaz Zahidi, features editor in the same paper as Tanveer’s feels very strongly about one’s byline being taken away. “As a journalist, perhaps the biggest satisfaction in this otherwise perilous and often under-paid profession is one’s by-line; it also lends credibility.”
However, she added, by shooting the messenger, society loses out. “The right to information is threatened when media persons threatened.”
Tanveer finds a plethora of minority rights abuses strewn around his city but says few journalists feel inclined to take up these issues.
“Mine seems to be a lone battle,” he said. “I am often scorned by my colleagues for reporting ‘chooras’ (derogatory term used for Christians, also among the poorest sections of society and consigned to menial janitorial jobs) and ‘Qadianis’ (also a derogatory name for those belonging to the Ahmadi faith, declared non-Muslims by state in 1974),” he said.
But it’s not indifference to these rights issue alone that keeps journalists from reporting on them. Senior journalist and communication expert, Babar Ayaz, says it is also quite dangerous to write about “the victimisation of Ahmadis, Christians or Hindus”.
Nevertheless, he added: “Journalists have to write what is right. Threats and killings are hazards of this job living in an increasingly intolerant society.”
He remembered when he wrote a piece on the attack on the massacre of Ahmadis in Lahore [in May 2010], he received a couple “abusive phone calls”. He also received some angry messages on a chapter in his book titled: What’s Wrong With Pakistan? The book, which was published in August criticises Islamic laws in Pakistan.
“But we are small fry,” said Ayaz. “When Nawaz Sharif expressed condolence on the killings of ‘our Ahmadis bhais [brothers]’ some mullahs said that by calling them ‘bhai’ he had committed a sin. The extremists have no logic but they have muscle power,” he added.
According to Aamer Mahmood, who heads the press section of the Ahmadiyya Jammat, and is in regular touch with several journalists: “The fear among them is palpable. While many empathise with us for the way our rights are trampled, they say their hands are tied. Some are scared of the wrath of the extremists; others fear they will lose their jobs.”
“It is indeed becoming more dangerous to write on these issues, in any language,” agreed Kamila Hyat, a rights activist and former editor of English daily The News. “I believe that while sections of the English language press remain relatively liberal, more and more are succumbing to the bias and intolerance we see everywhere,” she pointed out.
“The manner in which the ‘agenda’ for news is set, notably by the electronic media, also shoves minority issues to the sidelines, and intolerant mindsets exist everywhere — even among the educated,” she said.
With seven journalists having lost their lives since January this year, according to the 2013 Impunity Index report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP), just last year, Pakistan which was ranked tenth, has moved two spots up at eighth position for the worst place for the press. Further, it has been declared more dangerous than Russia, Brazil, Nigeria and India.
According to the CJP, 28 Pakistani journalists have been murdered since 1992 in connection with their work, 27 of whom were killed with impunity. The deaths of 24 additional killed during the same period cannot be confirmed as “targeted.”
“Doing journalism in Pakistan is not easy, which is ranked the third most dangerous country for reporting after Syria and Egypt,” observes Mazhar Abbas, former secretary general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, a formidable voice fighting for the rights of journalists. While journalists continue reporting despite threats particularly those working in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), Balochistan and even in the southern port city of Karachi, Abbas said, reporters from the Punjab province seemed comparatively safer.
But not anymore, it seems.
Abbas said every threat should be taken seriously. “The letter to Tanveer could be an individual act or from a group. The government and administration need to probe this matter and find out about the person who sent this letter in the first place. Journalists reporting on sensitive issues should do so responsibly; their reports should be factually correct with minimum expression that can lead to stoking up controversy.”
This article was originally posted on 23 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
15 Oct 13 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Pakistan
Pakistan’s move to ban access to a gay website reflects the conservative society’s inability to accept a “larger world view”, activists say.
“Freedom of speech remains in peril and online privacy and security is almost nonexistent in the country making dissidents worry for their and their families’ safety”, Nighat Dad, a lawyer working with the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, said.
Dad was referring to last month’s blocking of a gay website www.queerpk.com by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for being “against Islam”.
But for others belonging to the LGBTQ community, the ban has not come as a big surprise.
“They banned YouTube, you think Queerpk would count at all?” said banker Imran, requesting only his first name to be used.
“It was quite expected and shows how immature this society is and how our government is keen on pandering to the idiocies of the worst among us”, said Ali (also preferring to use just his first name).
Kashif Khan, a gay university teacher, considers the website ban “just the tip of the iceberg” of a certain “mindset” that holds sway within the Pakistani society.
“We, as minorities, are not the only one affected by this heightened sense of self righteousness and religiosity which stems from this complete inability to entertain and appreciate any world view other than our own,” he said.
Further, he points out: “The closing of the mind and quashing of this spirit of inquiry is probably because a lot of beliefs that we have held sacred might not stand the test of rationality and empirical evidence.”
But Ali, for one, does not think it was a great idea for a group of LGBTQ community to try and create a space a space for themselves in public domain.
“Gay people here do not want a gay rights movement because this society isn’t the kind of society in which a gay rights movement can take place,” he said.
For too long, the LGBTQ community has remained invisible. They continue to enjoy both peace and relative freedom, but many fear that the moment they try to rock the boat and start demanding their rights, they may invite the attention of the religious extremist elements within society -much to their detriment.
Even the Pakistani law refuses to take a tolerant view of their existence. Article 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code prescribes up to 10 years in jail and a fine for those caught engaged in homosexual activity. Consenting sex between a man and a woman outside of marriage is criminalised and punishment awarded.
On the other hand, safeguarding citizens’ privacy is enshrined in Pakistan’s constitution, which calls “privacy rights” inviolable.
It is for that very reason Shahzad Ahmad, country director of Bytes For All, Pakistan, says that the Pakistani society “first acknowledge and recognise that the LGBTQ community exists”. It is also important, he said, to give more space to such portals where the gay community can discuss their issues in a “mature, understandable and engaging way”.
Even for Queerpk team the ban was not unexpected “given the backlash the website had received online and ‘reporting’ to PTA”. The team was prepared with a Plan B. “We mirrored the website onto a new domain, routing all traffic to the new website,” the website’s spokesperson (who didn’t want his name to be made public) wrote in an email exchange.
In addition, the website ban has not affected the netizens visiting the website in any way: “It hasn’t! If anything, it has brought together several thousand more users, hundreds of whom have written to us in appreciation and support, many of whom were not connected to any support online or offline. So for all reasons, the blockade has worked in our favour,” the spokesperson added.
When it comes to freedom of expression, Pakistan is not the most generous of countries. Freedom House’s annual report Freedom on the Net 2013 put Pakistan among the top ten countries where internet and digital media freedom is curbed.
“The recent ban of Pakistani gay websites is a clear sign that the new government is following what the past governments have been doing in Pakistan,” Dad said.
According to Ahmad the government’s “moral policing policy” curbs alternate and progressive discourse was the reason behind the blockade of Queerpk. This is not the first time that gay websites have been targeted, he explains: “I remember, another LGBTQ social networking website ManJam was banned in Pakistan and that ban still exists for Pakistani users.”
Currently there are over a dozen dating and social networking websites aimed at the Pakistani LGBTQ community. But the case of QueerpK is different, say experts, because it was more than a networking website. “Many important and relevant issues were being discussed on the website and an alternate discourse on sexual minorities’ rights was, for the first time, discussed in a very mature manner in a conservative society like Pakistan,” said Ahmad.
“With the government’s internet censorship policies over last few years it is quite evident that this new medium for communication for LGBTQ community won’t last long,” he added.
For that reason, BFA feels compelled to work with different international organisations in support of Queerpk to voice its concern against the ban. “We have also raised this issue at different forums and are also planning to raise it at the Internet Governance Forum,” Shahzad told Index.
This article was originally posted on 15 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
