A petition has been filed to block Facebook in Pakistan

Civil Society has filed a petition in Islamabad High Court to shut down Facebook temporarily in Pakistan. The petitioner says that social media website should be banned until the government has permanently removed all the blasphemous content from the website as reported by The Nation.

For the petition, Secretary Ministry of Interior, Secretary Ministry of Information and Technology, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) through its Chairman, Federal Investigation Authority through its Director General, Inspector General of Islamabad police and Pakistan Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA) have been cited as respondents.

The petitioner has said to start a nationwide movement if the blasphemous content is not removed from the platform. The petition also mentioned that as opposed to PTA chairman claiming that the controversial content is removed from the platform, the platform still contains such content in the form of drawings, writings and videos.

It should be noted here that in May 2010, all the internet service providers in Pakistan were ordered to block Facebook in response to a widely promoted blasphemous event. In September 2012, controversial content on YouTube appeared too, owing to which YouTube was blocked in Pakistan.

Just last week Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan threatened to block all social media website that have blasphemous content.