By Eric Pfannier for The New York Times

Many countries censor the Internet, but few spell out their intentions as explicitly as Pakistan.

In an effort to tighten its control over the Internet, the government recently published a public tender for the “development, deployment and operation of a national-level URL filtering and blocking system.”

Technology companies, academic institutions and other interested parties have until March 16 to submit proposals for the $10 million project, but anger about it has been growing both inside and outside Pakistan.

Censorship of the Web is nothing new in Pakistan, which, like other countries in the region, says it wants to uphold public morality, protect national security or prevent blasphemy. The government has blocked access to pornographic sites, as well as, from time to time, mainstream services like Facebook and YouTube.

Until now, however, Pakistan has done so in a makeshift way, demanding that Internet service providers cut off access to specific sites upon request. With Internet use growing rapidly, the censors are struggling to keep up, so the government wants to build an automatic blocking and filtering system, like the so-called Great Firewall of China.

While China and other governments that sanitize the Internet generally do so with little public disclosure, Pakistan is being surprisingly forthcoming about its censorship needs. It published its request for proposals on the Web site of the Information and Communications Technology Ministry’s Research and Development Fund and even took out newspaper advertisements to publicize the project.

“The system would have a central database of undesirable URL’s that would be loaded on the distributed hardware boxes at each POP and updated on daily basis,” the request for proposals says, referring to uniform resource locators, the unique addresses for specific Web pages, and points of presence, or access points.

“The database would be regularly updated through subscription to an international reputed company maintaining and updating such databases,” according to the request, which was published last month.

The tender details a number of technical specifications, including the fact that the technology “should be able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URL’s (concurrent unidirectional filtering capacity) with processing delay of not more than 1 milliseconds.”

Following the Arab Spring, which demonstrated the power of the Internet to help spread political and social change, Pakistan’s move to clamp down has set off a storm of protest among free-speech groups in the country and beyond.

Opponents of censorship say they are doubly appalled because they associated this kind of heavy-handed approach more with the previous regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf than with the current government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

“The authorities here are big fans of China and how it filters the Internet,” said Sana Saleem, chief executive of Bolo Bhi, a group that campaigns against restrictions on the Internet. “They overlook the fact that China is an autocratic regime and we are a democracy.”

“What makes this kind of censorship so insidious is that they always use national security, pornography or blasphemy as an explanation for blocking other kinds of speech,” Ms. Saleem said, adding that her site had been blocked for several months in 2010 when it made reference to a ban on Facebook. Access to the social networking service had been restricted because of a page featuring a competition to draw the prophet Mohammed — something that is considered blasphemous by Muslims.

The Technology Ministry’s Research and Development Fund says in its tender that the Internet filtering and blocking system will be “indigenously developed,” but campaigners like Ms. Saleem say they think it is likely the agency will try to adapt Western technology for the purpose.

To try to prevent this from happening, Ms. Saleem wrote to the chief executives of eight international companies that make Net filtering technology, asking them to make a public commitment not to apply for the Pakistani grant.

On Friday, one of them, Websense, which is based in San Diego, responded, declaring in a statement on its Web site that it would not seek the contract.

“Broad government censorship of citizen access to the Internet is morally wrong,” Websense said. “We further believe that any company whose products are currently being used for government-imposed censorship should remove their technology so that it is not used in this way by oppressive governments.”

Websense had previously withdrawn the use of its technology from Yemen after facing accusations from the OpenNet Initiative, a U.S.-Canadian academic group, and other organizations that it had been used by the government of that country to stifle political expression on the Internet.

Governments around the world buy filtering and blocking technology to root out illegal content like child pornography. Some private companies employ it to restrict access to social networks and other distractions on company computers.

But the use of Western technology to rein in political speech in countries with repressive regimes has come under increasing scrutiny since the Arab Spring. The OpenNet Initiative said in a report last year that at least nine governments in the Middle East or North Africa had used such products, with the Western companies maintaining lists of sites to be blocked, including sites featuring skeptical views of Islam and even dating services.

Even before implementing its new system, Pakistan has been an active censor. The country was 151st, out of 179, on a ranking of media freedom by the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders in 2011.

“Reporters Without Borders urges you to abandon this project, which would reinforce the arsenal of measures for communications surveillance and Internet censorship that have already been put in place by your government,” the group wrote in a letter Friday to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

To free-speech advocates in Pakistan, the government’s seeming insouciance about censorship is a particular cause for alarm.

“This is a case study,” said Ms. Saleem of Bolo Bhi, which is based in Karachi and whose name means “speak up.” “No government has ever done this so publicly.”

Filed under: Arab, blasphemy laws, China, Freedoms, Islam, Pakistan, Pakistanis Tagged: Arab Spring, blasphemy, Censoring in Pakistan, Censors, Censorship, China, Facebook, Great Firewall of China, Internet, Middle East, national-level URL filtering and blocking system, North Korea, Pakistan, Pakistan Censors, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Reporters Without Borders, URL, URL Blocking, Web Pages, World Wide Web, WWW

By Huma Yusuf for The New York Times

On Monday morning, Pakistanis awoke to news that their country had just won its first Oscar. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and her co-director Daniel Junge received the award for best documentary in the short-subject category for “Saving Face.” The film chronicles the work of the British-Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad, who performs reconstructive surgery on women who were attacked with acid.

The media in Pakistan couldn’t get enough of the story. Television channels repeatedly broadcast footage of Obaid-Chinoy receiving her award. Fans posted on their Facebook pages pictures of the filmmaker on the red carpet. Her acceptance speech was tweeted and retweeted: “To all the women in Pakistan who are working for change, don’t give up on your dreams — this is for you.”

Politicians tried to share the limelight. Altaf Hussain, the head of the Karachi-based M.Q.M. party, congratulated Obaid-Chinoy publicly. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced that she would be given a civilian award for making Pakistan proud and catalyzing social change.

The chain restaurant Nando’s, which specializes in grilled chicken, even designed an advertising campaign riffing on the documentary’s name: “From one hot chick to another: Thanks for Saving our Face.”

But Obaid-Chinoy’s triumph, a rare piece of good news out of Pakistan, also reveals the extent to which Pakistanis have become accustomed to feeling dejected.

For once, Pakistan is making headlines for a positive achievement, not another terrorist attack, political squabble or natural disaster. For Pakistanis who have been struggling to restore their country’s flailing image, it’s a relief to see a talented, young Pakistani woman receiving a coveted international award — and hobnobbing with George Clooney. As the cultural critic Nadeem F. Paracha put it in a tweet, “Viva la @sharmeenochiony! The pride of Pakistan is in their artistes & intellectuals. Not in bombs and bans!”

But what does it say about a country that it would rejoice at attracting global attention for rampant violations of women’s rights?

Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women. Over 150 Pakistani women are the victims of acid attacks each year. Activists for women’s rights claim that only 30 percent of acid cases are reported and that this form of violence is extremely widespread because acid is easily available and inexpensive. Last year, the government passed the Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill, which imposes on attackers prison terms from 14 years to life and fines of up to one million rupees (about $11,000). But the new law has yet to be rigorously implemented, and attitudes toward women’s rights are far from reformed.

Obaid-Chinoy’s film highlights these problems — hardly a point of pride for Pakistanis.

Once the Oscar high subsides, Pakistanis will have to contend with the fact that their nation remains notorious for its challenges, violence against women included. Then the question will be, can the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who rooted for Obaid-Chinoy at the Academy Awards muster the same enthusiasm to tackle the problems that her work exposes?

Huma Yusuf is a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and was the 2010-11 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Filed under: blasphemy laws, British Muslims, Freedoms, Pakistan, Pakistani Britons, Pakistanis Tagged: Academy Award, Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill, Altaf Hussain, Dr Mohammad Jawad, George Clooney, Huma Yusuf, Karachi, MQM, Oscar, Pakistan, PPP, Saving Face, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Zakia & Rukhsana

My recent article for Viewpoint Online, published Jan 7, 2012:

Salmaan Taseer: The political context of a ‘religious’ assassination

Enforce rule of law, expose hypocrisy of the Taliban mentality

Just over a year ago, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated in the most cowardly manner by a government-assigned security guard. Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the Punjab Elite Force assigned to protect the Governor, pumped 27 bullets into his victim’s back as he headed to his car on the afternoon of January 4, 2011.

The sensational murder was no spontaneous act by an enraged fanatic. It was a well-thought out, cold-blooded plan. Was the executor acting alone, motivated only by ‘religious fervour’ as projected, or is there more to the issue than meets the eye? And even if his act was purely altruistic, should the law of the land not be applied to punish him?

The Governor was already a target of the ‘hate-filled organisations’ as he termed them, well before they saw an opportunity to (ab)use the ‘blasphemy law’ to unite their own until then divided ranks. For this, they needed a target. The opportunity arrived when a trial court sentenced a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, to death on Nov 8, 2010, for ‘blasphemy’.

A few facts to put this situation in context:

• The ‘religious parties’, historically divided amongst themselves, have never made any significant headway in electoral politics in Pakistan. A democratic dispensation does not suit them.
• Although Pakistan under Gen. Musharraf officially cut ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after 9/11 (reluctantly, the last country to do), it continued to allow the ‘home grown jihadis’ to operate, seeing them as useful to keep the fire smouldering in Indian administered Kashmir.
• In Feb 2008, a democratically elected government replaced Gen. Musharraf’s military regime. The new government eschewed the earlier policy of using non-state actors to achieve its foreign policy objectives – but the security establishment remained wedded to the outdated paradigm of ‘strategic’ depth (i.e. Pakistan’s continued influence in Afghanistan because of a perceived threat from India).

What does all this have to do with Salmaan Taseer and the politics behind his assassination?

Everything. The mindset and political ideology disguised in the rhetoric of religion is furthered by a security establishment that sees its duty as being to protect not just Pakistan’s physical frontiers but also its ‘ideology’, developed along conservative religious lines since the 1965 war with India. This ideology was strengthened during the Afghan war of the 1980s, when a national war of liberation was converted into a ‘holy war’ (as Dr. Eqbal Ahmad pointed out in his talk on ‘Terrorism, theirs and ours’, 1998).

Pakistan’s ‘religious’ organisations flourished and gained strength with Saudi and American backing during the Zia years (1977-1988). They were allowed to function freely during the military-dominated ‘musical chairs’ years in which no government could complete its tenure (1988-1999). As mentioned above, they also had a free rein during the Musharraf years (1999-2008) even after 9/11.

Since the end of the first Afghan war, these organisations have been targeting and killing religious minorities and progressive minded people in Pakistan. The genie released during the Zia years and nurtured under Musharraf was not going to go tamely back into the bottle.

Governor Taseer was already in their sights for his outspoken and rational views on religion and human rights. He had no qualms naming the organisations he suspected to be behind the May 2010 massacre of worshippers in an Ahmedi mosque in Lahore, where over 80 people were killed and scores of others injured.

“These hate-filled organisations – Sipah-e-Sahaba, (Lashkar-e-) Jhangvi — they all have same ideology – Taliban, Al Qaeda…,” he said during his condolence visit.

“They should be prosecuted in the courts,” he said. “Don’t let them off. There should be zero tolerance towards them. No political alliance is possible with these organisations, you can’t go around having them at your political meetings, the Punjab government should prosecute them”.

Five months later the religious parties found a way to unite their ranks by conflating the ‘blasphemy’ issue with the issue of the ‘honour of the Prophet’ (peace be upon Him), when there were protests against the death sentence of Aasia Bibi. The ‘religious’ organisations came out in full force calling for her death because she had allegedly said something derogatory against the Prophet (peace be upon Him).

For some years the ‘blasphemy’ issue had lain somewhat dormant. Now, after many years, a court handed down a death sentence for such a case. Protests against the sentence by human rights and Christian organisations led to counter protests by ‘Islamic’ groups that used the issue to build up their political strength.

The situation was reminiscent of the early 1990s when there was a surge of ‘blasphemy’ cases, and the first ‘blasphemy murder’ was committed. Between 1986, when the law came into effect, and 2010, 1,081 people were charged under it, including 138 Christians, 468 Muslims and 454 Ahmadis, according to the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP). In all cases investigated by human rights groups, motivations for these cases have been invariably rooted in rivalries or disputes related to money, property or other jealousies.

The High Courts and the Supreme Court have so far not upheld any death sentence passed by a lower court, although several defendants have been extra-judicially killed after being accused of ‘blasphemy’. In the early 1990s this was the scenario:

The frenzy had been building up. Masked gunmen had opened fire after a court hearing in April 1994, wounding Salamat and killing Manzoor Masih, one of the co-accused in the blasphemy case. Glossy, full-colour stickers and posters cropped up all over Lahore, calling for “believers” to find and kill (Asma) Jahangir. In July, a mob outside the Lahore High Court attacked her car. Luckily, she was not in the vehicle but her driver was assaulted and the car smashed. It was a few days later that the letter vowing to hunt down and kill Jahangir was delivered to her office. (Zarteef Khan Afridi: The tribesman who showed the way)

There was no case registered against Governor Salmaan Taseer but the propaganda against him was amplified by the proliferation of the 24/7 television channels and social media. Taseer was publicly projected as a blasphemer. The aggression of one particularly vitriolic television talk show host led the Governor to rebuke her: “You are acting as I am guilty of blasphemy” (watch the programme here and here).

Sunni Tehrik and other extremist organisations held rallies and demonstrations against clemency for Aasia Bibi and against proposed procedural amendments to the ‘blasphemy laws’ that PPP MNA Sherry Rehman sought to table. Put on the defensive, the government as well as opposition figures who had agreed to support the amendments, backtracked, leaving Rehman high and dry, her life under threat.

Zaid Hamid, Hanif Qureshi and others: preachers of hate misleading youth

Mumtaz Qadri was a known figure at such rallies where emotions were being whipped up. He even recited ‘naat’ at some of them – like at this one, just three days before he killed the man he was supposed to be protecting.

These questions arise:

• How was a man who attended such gatherings, who was already known for his extremist views (he had been earlier removed from the Special Branch because he was perceived as a security threat) inducted into the Elite Force in the first place?
• How was such a man assigned guard duty to a high profile target like the Governor Punjab?
• Why did the other guards not expose Qadri or get him arrested when he told them what he was going to do and asked them not to open fire, as he would surrender (as he said in his confession after his arrest)?
• Given that the other guards did not open fire, according to standard operating procedures in VIP guard duty, why were they not charged as accomplices to the murder, even though Qadri said he was acting alone?

Citizens for Democracy (CFD), an umbrella group of several professional and activist organisations formed on Dec 19, 2010 in Karachi, raised such questions in its statement of January 7, 2011. “We reiterate our stand that no one has the right to take the law into their own hands and kill anyone, regardless of whether they are accused of blasphemy or any other crime,” said the statement, endorsed by nearly 70 organisations.

But such voices were drowned in the din of ‘religious’ righteousness.

Qadri’s fellow guards who were detained after Governor Taseer’s assassination were released without being charged, as was the cleric whose inflammatory sermon convinced Qadri to pull the trigger.

Salmaan Taseer’s murder was followed just two months later by the murder of the Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian by faith, who had also been outspoken about the blasphemy issue. No one has been arrested for that murder. The trial court judge who sentenced Mumtaz Qadri to death has fled Pakistan for his own safety. Qadri’s supporters are calling for the death sentence to be commuted, which is somewhat puzzling given that Qadri has stated he is willing to die for his faith and he believes he has done right.

Pakistan has many pressing problems – including the perennial ones of clean drinking water, healthcare, education, shelter and so on that directly impact the people. But on a larger level, there is also clearly an urgent need to enforce the rule of law — charge, try and prosecute the guilty without fear or favour — and to expose the hypocrisy of the Taliban mentality that is tearing the country apart.

Salmaan Taseer: The man who shook a nation awake. Pakistan is awake again. And we have only one man to thank for this. One man who woke us all up in his life and in his death.  Lovely post by Anthony Permal.

Aasia Bibi: Praying for relief but in good spirits

“Prison staff is very good and kind to her and they are very much concerned about Aasia’s health and security as well, but due to the wrong news broadcasting the prison staff and prison authorities are feeling hurt,” says an update about Aasia Bibi from Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) Pakistan. (Note: I know several  CLAAS members personally, and have worked with them on blasphemy case fact-findings for the HRCP). Reproduced below, their email of Dec 29, 2011:

As we have reported on 24th December that CLAAS team headed by Mr. M.A. Joseph Francis MBE (National Director CLAAS) including Ms. Katherine Sapna (Program Officer CLAAS) and Mr. Nadeem Anthony Advocate (Research Officer CLAAS) visited Aasia Bibi in the District Jail, Sheikhupura and shared with her the joy of the birth of Jesus Christ and Christmas blessings as well. CLAAS found her safe and sound. She was in good health and good mental condition and told to CLAAS team that prison staff is very caring and kind to her. She was very happy and told to CLAAS that she is only Christian female accused in the prison but the female prison staffs (wardens) celebrated Christmas with her by cutting the Christmas cake to wish her.

Aasia informed CLAAS that it’s about three years; no one comes to visit her except her husband and children. It is surprising that how people (organizations) can give wrong statements when they did not visited Aasia Bibi even they did not see her in the prison. CLAAS team visited her many times in prison but never found her sick. Massehi Foundation a Pakistani organization based in UK is spreading wrong news about Aasia Bibi, on 21st and 22nd December in the daily Nawa-i-e-Waqat and daily Khabrain Urdu newspapers of Lahore; they released news from Vatican City through staff reporter and said that Aasia Bibi has become physically weak she is unable to walk and hardly can stand on her feet. While Aasia told CLAAS that Jail staff is very much concerned about her security therefore they provide her uncooked material and she cooks food daily three times for herself.

CLAAS just want to request please avoid news broadcasting about Aasia Bibi and suggests to understand the sensitivity of the issue; it is dangerous not only for Aasia but also for the others who are facing the same charges of blasphemy or suffering from the unfair & prejudice practices of the judicial system as well as the grossly unsatisfactory prison system in the country.

Prison staff is very good and kind to her and they are very much concerned about Aasia’s health and security as well but due to the wrong news broadcasting the prison staff and prison authorities are feeling hurt.

It is worth mentioning here that Massehi Foundation never visited Aasia Bibi in the prison and they are not pursuing her case in the court.

We request you please keep quiet about Aasia case and do not highlight her and mention her in the Pakistan newspapers.

In Solidarity,

CLAAS Team

If a poor Christian woman can be convicted of blasphemy for saying her filthy Christian hands are clean enough to give someone else water, or a doctor can be arrested for blasphemy for throwing a business card with the name “Mohammed” in the trash, or an imam and his son can be arrested for blasphemy for pulling down posters with Quranic verses on them, then why, pray tell, can’t Shahid Afridi be arrested and convicted for calling poor Mohammed Hafiz a “chutiya” and a “gaandu”?

The facts are the facts: Mohammed Hafeez has the name “Mohammed” as part of his name. Afridi abused him, which means he was indirectly disrespecting the prophet. That, in turn, means he should be arrested and tried for blasphemy.

What, does this sound too stupid for you? Why?

In all seriousness, I think one way of shining a light on how absurd these laws are is really turning them on their head. No one in Pakistan cares about someone like Asia Bibi. Why would they? She’s poor! And rural! And Christian! And a WOMAN! Jeez, how inconsequential can you get?

But people do care about Afridi. At least one entire province will rise in revolt if anything happens to Sahibzada Lala. It’s worth a shot, no?

Ten years ago Pakistan was a different place. The country had many problems, and has had since its very inception, but it was not somewhere a man would fire forty bullets into an unarmed man’s back and be lauded as a hero. In the Pakistan of today there are rows of security checkpoints at every [...]