Pakistan Blocked 13,000 Adult Websites

Pakistan Blocked 13,000 Adult Websites: Official
By GETbyU · Friday, Feb 10, 2012

Government of Pakistan has blocked the access to around or over 13,000 websites in the country which were of obscene or adult in nature, reported Express Tribune citing parliamentary Secretary for Information Technology, Nawab Liaqat Ali Khan.

Paper said that parliamentary secretary said this while responding to a calling attention notice in National Assembly.

It merits mentioning here that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had ordered Pakistani internet service providers to block a list of websites – without revealing the total count of to be blocked websites – which it thought were of obscene in nature.

This order is largely considered as a result of hacking attempts on PTA and supreme court of Pakistan websites, just a week before PTA’s determination; hacker had demanded ban on adult sites in Pakistan.

Calling attention notice asked government about the obscene websites and how it is going to tackle such material which is easily available on the internet.

“It is a serious issue and we are trying to address it,” said the IT parliamentary secretary, adding that the government was mindful of the situation.

Expressing concern over the rapid increase in obscene websites, IT parliamentary secretary proposed the formation of a Ministerial Committee and a sub-committee to look into the matter.

“At present the government has no mechanism to block all of these websites and are trying to devise a mechanism, however, we take action on complaints”, secretary noted.

He quoted the example of China and India who have installed a costly Automated Filtration System, which could also block anti-government websites, but clarified that that this system, if installed, would still be unable to block all obscene websites.

Via Express Tribune