ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman Ismail Shah on Tuesday informed Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the authority has blocked around 64,000 websites containing pornographic and blasphemous material.
The official submitted the information to court during the hearing of a petition filed a local rights organization, which advocates digital security and privacy, challenging the constitutional status of Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Evaluation of Websites (IMCEW) and mechanism of its functioning.
A single-member bench comprised of Justice Athar Minallah had summoned the PTA chairman last week to clarify that under which law the authority blocked certain websites.
He remarked that the public’s fundamental rights are being violated due to the blockade of online content and its court’s duty to protect them.
PTA chairman informed court that several websites were blocked on Supreme Court of Pakistan’s order, some on the individual complaints and several others identified by security agencies, including those operated by banned organizations.
The authority had blocked subscribers’ access to several websites on the direction of IMCEW, which was constituted under an ordinance in 2006 and operates under Ministry of Information Technology, he explained.
Justice Minallah ordered PTA to consider the complaints regarding blockage of websites and ordered it and IT ministry to submit a comprehensive report on the matter on next hearing.
