Pak puts Google, Yahoo, MSN under observation for blasphemous content
By ANISaturday, June 26, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has put sites such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Hot Mail and You Tube under observation for displaying blasphemous content besides banning 17 other websites deemed offensive to Muslims.
Acting on the Lahore High Court’s order, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has asked all the Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country to follow the court’s direction and block the 17 listed websites.
Earlier this week, the Bahawalpur Bench of the Lahore High Court had directed the government to block YouTube and eight other sites.
A PTA official said that the authority would take strict action against the sites under observation if Muslim sentiments were infringed.
He added that out of the 17 blocked websites, links of four of the websites had been blocked without disrupting the main sites.
However, a Ministry of Information Technology official conceded that it was impossible to monitor search engines like Google.
“There is no way to check which links and sites are accessed by users. Nonetheless, we are doing our best. Blocking search engines may be disastrous and will draw a lot of criticism,” The Dawn quoted the official, as saying. (ANI)
