After blocking Facebook, YouTube and Flickr, Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) has temporarily banned BlackBerry services in the country. All telecom companies in the Pakistan have been asked to stop all the BlackBerry services.
It seems that the controversy over the caricature of Prophet Mohammad is not going to stop anytime soon. Netizens in Pakistan have been suffering due to this blocking decision, but most of the Muslim followers are supporting the government’s stand.
On the other side, some Pakistani ISPs have also blocked popular social networking and microblogging site, Twitter. Whenever users try to access Twitter in blocked areas, they receive “This site has been restricted” message in the browser.
These services are banned until May 31st. The higher authorities should resolve this issue as quickly as possible, or else it will become more difficult for users to surf freely on the internet.
[via – Daily Times]
Banning the entire infrastructure because an application was offensive does not seem very rational.I am not sure whether the authorities asked Facebook to remove the particular page.Then the government banned YouTube followed by Twitter .The Witch Hunt seems to be going to ridiculous lengths with the ban on Blackberry.The way they are going they might ban communications in the entire country. A lot of closed societies in the Middle East ,China and other places place restrictions on the Internet but never go as far as to ban an entire Service.