ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA REPORT )
Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, on Thursday, issued notice to the federation and other parties involved in YouTube ban case. A petition was moved by the chief of Watan Party, Barrister Zafarullah Khan, which stated that YouTube is a source of knowledge and information for people and should not be banned, reported Dunya News.
YouTube is a video-sharing website which has been a source of entertainment and knowledge, all over the world, since 2005 when it was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. YouTube was banned in Pakistan in 2010, after a blasphemous film was posted on the website which enraged Muslim world to the extreme. In 5 years of YouTube ban in Pakistan, youth had learned to use it through proxies and other means anyways. Along with a big archive of older videos, including some very rare ones, YouTube is a great source of online learning as well as it contains many channels that teach different skills to people through video tutorials.
SC issued notice to federation of Pakistan, Attorney General and other parties while adjourning the hearing till undefined period.
Plea challenging long-standing ban on YouTube has been filed in the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan on Thursday.
Barrister Zafarullah has moved the petition in the Lahore Registry of the Supreme Court. The plea states that ban is affecting studies and students research. Blasphemous material was removed from the website and it does not bear anything objectionable now.
The plea states that students from different disciplines of research are encountering issues due to the prolonged ban.
The Supreme Court has been requested to lift the ban as it is not ‘required’ now.
World s largest video sharing website was banned in Pakistan in September 2012. It has been more than three years but YouTube still is officially a banned website.
Earlier, the ruling party had opposed a resolution that demanded halt to the ban. In the National Assembly (NA), a resolution was moved by Pakistan People s Party (PPP) Shazia Marri. However, lawmakers belonging to the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim Leaue-Nawaz (PML-N) did not take the demand well.
The resolution moved stated that there is no point of banning the website as it ould be opened anywhere using proxies.
It should be mentioned here Federal Information Minister Pervez Rashid had said in March that the Information Technology (IT) experts have developed a mechanism that would filter the controversial material. Later on, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had cited issues which were were impossible to overcome for online scanning.
A Senior Attorney of the Supreme Court of Pakistan has challenged in Peshawar High Court the ban placed on social media website YouTube, pleading that the site should be unblocked. Case titled as Kakakhel Law Associates Versus Pakistan Telecommunication Authority & anothers.
The petitioner, advocate Mian Mohibullah Kakakhel, on Tuesday requested the PHC to direct the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and ministry of interior to open the website (www.YouTube.com) for the benefit of public at large. The PTA through its chairman and ministry of interior through secretary interior, have been made respondents in the petition. The petitioner has also requested the court to grant interim relief by unblocking the website till final disposal of the petition.
Advocate Kakakhel stated that the interior ministry had banned YouTube last year on the direction of then minister of interior after blasphemous movie “Innocence of Islam” was uploaded.
He stated that banning the whole website was not a solution for stopping the blasphemous videos. He said that the two respondents had promised on several occasions to ban the links of blasphemous videos, but failed to depute a team of expert software engineers to make some effort in this regard.
The petitioner stated that the YouTube contained some valuable videos which were not available in the local market. The videos include those of historical, cultural and religious importance besides music, sports, movies, news, animal planets, cartoons for kids and sermons of Islamic scholars.
He claimed that YouTube was the only website containing education contents, which encouraged students and citizens to learn technical things like making new software, robots, mechanical engineering, software engineering, how to install a hardware, advance cell phone usage and installation of software. He said that most of the software might not be provided here, or if available, a hefty amount of fee was demanded.
The petitioner claimed that the respondents (when in government) banned the YouTube for ulterior motives to stop free election campaigns by their rivals through social media.
He contended that majority of people in the country had access to internet now and YouTube ban was in violation of their right to information. He said that banning such a website for youth was illegal, without lawful authority and jurisdiction.
The writ petition is filed by our Law Firm, Kakakhel Law Associates Managing Partner, Mian Muhibullah Kakakhel Senior Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan and associate Muhammad Farooq Afridi Advocate High Court.