Summary YouTube is source of knowledge, should not be banned: Zafarullah Khan
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, on Thursday, issued notice to the federation and other parties involved in YouTube ban case. A petition was moved by the chief of Watan Party, Barrister Zafarullah Khan, which stated that YouTube is a source of knowledge and information for people and should not be banned, reported Dunya News.
YouTube is a video-sharing website which has been a source of entertainment and knowledge, all over the world, since 2005 when it was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. YouTube was banned in Pakistan in 2010, after a blasphemous film was posted on the website which enraged Muslim world to the extreme. In 5 years of YouTube ban in Pakistan, youth had learned to use it through proxies and other means anyways. Along with a big archive of older videos, including some very rare ones, YouTube is a great source of online learning as well as it contains many channels that teach different skills to people through video tutorials.
SC issued notice to federation of Pakistan, Attorney General and other parties while adjourning the hearing till undefined period.
Also read: Plea seeking YouTube ban lift filed in SC Lahore Registry
Plea challenging long-standing ban on YouTube has been filed in the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan on Thursday.
Barrister Zafarullah has moved the petition in the Lahore Registry of the Supreme Court. The plea states that ban is affecting studies and students research. Blasphemous material was removed from the website and it does not bear anything objectionable now.
The plea states that students from different disciplines of research are encountering issues due to the prolonged ban.
The Supreme Court has been requested to lift the ban as it is not ‘required’ now.
World s largest video sharing website was banned in Pakistan in September 2012. It has been more than three years but YouTube still is officially a banned website.
Earlier, the ruling party had opposed a resolution that demanded halt to the ban. In the National Assembly (NA), a resolution was moved by Pakistan People s Party (PPP) Shazia Marri. However, lawmakers belonging to the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim Leaue-Nawaz (PML-N) did not take the demand well.
The resolution moved stated that there is no point of banning the website as it ould be opened anywhere using proxies.
It should be mentioned here Federal Information Minister Pervez Rashid had said in March that the Information Technology (IT) experts have developed a mechanism that would filter the controversial material. Later on, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had cited issues which were were impossible to overcome for online scanning.
