PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday summoned the federal secretary for information technology in a case against the prolonged government ban on YouTube, a social media website.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Qaiser Rasheed observed that if the secretary didn’t appear on the next hearing on Aug 1, it would order attachment of his salary.
The secretary was asked to guide the bench on how blasphemous and objectionable contents could be filtered on YouTube and if such material could be automatically blocked after being uploaded by anyone.
Deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority assistant director (legal) Jawad Akhtar requested the bench to give time for filing written comments on the petition.
Mr Akhtar said the government had formally requested the Google Company to open its sub-office in Pakistan but the request was turned down over certain reservations.
He said had the company opened its office in the country, it would have helped the government strictly enforce its IT-related laws and the company would have been brought under purview of Pakistani laws.
He said if the court issued any order in that respect, the government would follow it.
The bench observed that Google was an international company and therefore, it couldn’t be forced to open sub-office here.
Petitioner Mian Muhibullah Kakakhel, a senior lawyer, said the ban on YouTube was depriving the people of knowledge and therefore, access to YouTube should be restored.
He said blasphemous and objectionable contents should be banned on the website so that the people could use it for positive activities.
His assistant, Saifullah Muhib, gained access to the ‘YouTube.Com’ website on his smart phone through a proxy software and showed it to the bench, saying the website could still be used by the public.
The lawyer said the videos with blasphemous or objectionable contents should be banned and not the whole website.
He alleged that the government agencies were using spy software ‘FinFisher’ and thus, breaching the people’s privacy.
The lawyer claimed that the computers and smart phones were easily accessible and the agencies could download their entire data.
During previous hearing, an official of PTA had informed the court that they had blocked a large number of objectionable pages on the web, but the miscreants had uploaded more such like contents on the web.
During course of proceedings, the chief justice observed that how the government could not develop technology for blocking objectionable contents as such like technologies were available in other countries, including the US, Iran and China.
He added that the government should hire services of international IT experts for tackling the issue.
The respondents in the petition are PTA through its chairman and the interior ministry through its secretary.
The petitioner said on the direction of the former minister, the interior ministry had last year banned YouTube after blasphemous film, ‘Innocence of Islam,’ was uploaded on it.