Participants of the meeting at Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday turned violent and started abusing the authority on the issue of blasphemous material on internet.
The meeting was chaired by Waseem Tauqeer, DG Strategy and Development at PTA and attended by the stakeholders of the case that is being heard at Lahore High Court (LHC) on the issue of blocking the blasphemous material on internet and eventually opening the YouTube for educational purposes.Representative of ‘Bytes For All’, an NGO and the petitioner of the case ‘Pakistan Internet Freedom’ called Waseem Tauqeer ‘Liar’ on the grounds that PTA was not interested to act upon the directions of LHC for figuring out a way to block blasphemous content on the internet.
Representative of Byte for All not only called Waseem Tauqeer ‘Liar’ in a derogatory manner but also threatened to expose him on relevant forums reported by the news.
On its last hearing, LHC had directed all the stake holders to sit together and come up with a solution to block blasphemous content on internet. Bytes for All had claimed that PTA had the technical capability to block the content but it was misleading the court.
“No one is ready to take responsibility for opening up of YouTube as the PTA is just executing the orders of the Inter-Ministerial Committee and orders of other top officials” newspaper quoted a PTA official.
PTA has thrown the issue to the government asking to pass a law in the parliament and make a special forum with a mandate and authority to recognize the blasphemous content and take the necessary measures to block it.
PTA is scheduled to submit a report today at LHC with reference to the outcome of the meeting.
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