Blocking the Blog: Pakistani Government Gone Wild.
I was going to go to bed. Close the lid on my iBook, knit a few rows on my alpaca lace shawl, set my Mickey Mouse alarm, and snuggle deep under my blankets to drift into sweet dreams. Well, after I gave a last glance at my RSS feeds. Hrm. Snarkmarket has a reference to BoingBoing. I should check BoingBoing to see if this link from Snarkmarket is up yet. Scroll, scroll, scroll. Nope. No link…but huh?
5 days ago, on March 1, the government in Pakistan blocked access to thousands of Blogspot blogs. Not just for writers, but for readers. Sucks to be them, I guess is what most people seem to be thinking about right now. The whole deal doesn’t sound too unusual, all things considered, based on what we’ve been hearing on the news lately about China and government censorship…but Pakistan pretends to be a democracy. China is quite proudly not a democracy, but (let me repeat) the government in Pakistan pretends to be a democracy.
So why are they blocking their citizens from Blogspot?
Shall I catch you up on what’s been going down in Karachi lately?
Bombings at a hotel and the US consulate. Car bombs killing diplomats. Faux pas’ by our President.
Not to mention the strikes and chaos that’s fairly standard in Pakistan.
So we’re here. The government thinks they’ll be made to look BAD or at least NOT IN CONTROL! ::gasp:: What’s the easiest way to make sure none of this news gets out? What’s the easiest way to do long-term damage control and make sure the Western sugar daddies (Hi! That’s us!) think they look happy and stable? Block the words of the people, that’s what! Granted the current blocks have nothing to do with the chaos of the last 5 days, but it is fairly standard for life to be chaotic in the Muslim world and long-term damage control seems to be high on the Pakistani government’s priority list. Everything SHOULD look rosy to the outside world after all!
So now, the Pakistani people are without a voice on ye olde WWW. You know, the World Wide Web. That thing. Their freedom has been taken away, by a militarily dictator who is coddled by the US government and was praised not two days ago for being “a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world” (Forbes via the AP). If Pakistan is such a force for freedom and moderation, why oh why are they blocking their citizens from Blogspot?
Exactly.
@Suzanne, calm down lady and stop exaggerating,i am ONE of karachi met blog reader and also a karachiite,Govt cleared the reason of banniing blogspot that is cartoons and its not only cartoons,all sites who display cartoons will be banned,fair enough,nobdy raise issue on that cartoons should be published and none of blogger would say that they wana publish cartoons or they are not in favor to ban sites which display cartoons.
So now, the Pakistani people are without a voice on ye olde WWW
funny ,i assume you are not blogspot.com member,let me tell you that blogspot.com is hosted on different server than blogger.com(which is used for blogspot members to make post)
Yes,blogger.com is NOT banned in pakistan and people can still make posts,if they were against freedom of speech then they would have banned it first,I as a blogger/blogspot member can still make posts,they just banned blogspot for sake of cartoons and i am happy with that.
it sounds so funny when an american talks about freedom mwho is being screwed by his own president and being spied by local agencies,hypocricy is not good you know,your govt tries hard to hide iraqi casualties
Suzanne, Thanks for taking the time to write this post. I can see the thanks you got from the Pakistani blogger (and yes, I am of Pakistani origin). I don’t know what the Pakistani gov’t was thinking (if they are indeed capable of thought) but people are really not left without a voice completely, they can still post to their blogs and have to go through proxy servers to read other blogs.
Adnan, thanks for pointing out the hypocricies in America (yes, I am being sarcastic here) but somehow living in the USA I feel more accepted and have more rights than I ever had in Pakistan.
@TS: MY bro/sister whoever you are,i thank you to demonstrate your ignorance about US internal issues,you claim to live in US but you have no idea about US anyway?Are you really in US or living in some remote village where you have no access to Internet and other communication medium?i feel sorry for you,if you have doubt i said 1% wrong about US,go and make an infinite search about the points i raised.
Regarding your acceptance,You are one of those many youngsters from Pakistan,INdia or any other developing countries who dream to go US anyway even to drive cabs on road,you opted to be called a 3rd class citizen,you were not accepted,your fault but I and many like me dont feel same,once again,i feel sorry for you.