In early 2014, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication introduced a draft cybercrime ordinance, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act. At the time, human rights advocates, including the Centre for Law and Democracy, criticised the draft as a threat to Pakistan’s burgeoning online community and cautioned that its broad language threatened to turn millions […]

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Pakistan is becoming more Orwellian by the week. The ban on YouTube has now been announced as “indefinite” as the government has been unable to find a way to block blasphemous content. For me the ban was inconvenient for around 10 minutes — the time it took to find a free Virtual Private Network (VPN) […]

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ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Wednesday that the ongoing ban on video-sharing website YouTube could not be lifted without seeking directives from the Supreme Court. Answering to question of Shazia Marri during the question hour, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shaikh Aftab Ahmed said the government had imposed ban on YouTube on the directives […]

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ISLAMABAD: Following the interior minister’s directives, the capital city’s police have begun equipping key installations and important buildings – including media houses – with a ‘panic button’, which can be activated in the case of any emergency to summon a quick response from rescue and law enforcement personnel. A total of 78 important installations in […]

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Not only is freedom of religion guaranteed in the west but also freedom from religion. Nobody is obliged to believe in a religion and therefore sceptics, agnostics and atheists are free to follow their own moral codes Freedom of speech is a core liberal human right, one that western democracies put on the highest pedestal. […]

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THE outrage is over, the perceived hurt has healed and the piece of mischief that caused the furore in the first place has taken its place in the dustbin of history. The world has moved on — except for Pakistan, which stubbornly refuses to come to terms with the realities of the age of information, […]

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CHAKWAL: Chief Information Commissioner Justice (retd) Mazhar Hussain Minhas has said that the Right to Information Act Punjab will be implemented in its true spirit. He said this while addressing the Right to Information Act Punjab seminar arranged by the Chakwal Press Club here on Sunday. Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists leader CR Shamsi presided […]

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