Micro-blogging website Twitter has been blocked across country by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) today. But it can be accessed through cell phone at the moment. According to official statement Twitter is blocked due to some caricature competition of Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh). Back in May 2010, PTA blocked the access to Facebook for the very reason. Twitter remained untouched during that ban as tweeting at that time hasn’t picked up to a level that can cause concern.
As a reaction, a fraction of Ghariat Brigade took the streets and vented their anger on caricature competition which was conveniently linked to Jewish & Amreekan conspiracy against Muslims and Pakistanis. Not to mention, after the end of each successful demonstration at Karachi Press Club, that often resulted in traffic jams across city, all righteous clan disperse to Burns Road vicinity for scrumptious Biryani to commemorate their religious duty.
But these bans, which are apparently imposed due to Prophet’s (pbuh) caricature competition, are nothing but mere tests conducted by government to assess the public reaction and uproar in event of any curb on information. Long before the Arab spring, lawyer’s movement in Pakistan has effectively used social media to express their anger on media restrictions through Facebook and blogging sites during Musharraf regime. Recent years have witness a rapid growth of Twitter in Pakistan. In addition to ordinary folks, more journalist, politicians, lawyers and celebrities are hooking to the micro-blogging site.
And this time again, disguise of “protecting the emotions of the masses” is nothing but a sham rhetoric devised to conceal the real reason of the ban. In case you forgot, we are still living in Zia era, where government will do anything to restrain the information flow when the going gets tough. The present democratically elected government is no different to Musharraf regime who pulled the plug out on news channels in masquerade of emergency imposed in 2007. Welcome back to Zia era, in case you forgot.. Block, Censor, Ban!!
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