Bytes for All Pakistan - ICT Policy Monitors Network

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has served legal directives to all internet service providers in the country requiring that they implement an earlier regulation banning in the name of anti-terrorism all internet encryption. ARTICLE 19 and Bytes for All regard the regulation, and related provisions in the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organization) Act of 1996, to be in violation of international legal standards on the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, and call on the government to amend the laws and retract the notices served.

In the media and in public policy debates fingers were quick to point at the use of social media and mobile phones in spurring on the riots that overwhelmed several English cities last week and in helping looters evade the police.

On Thursday 11 August, Prime Minister David Cameron issued a statement condemning social networking sites, claiming that the riots were "organised via social media".

The Lahore High Court have issued a detailed judgment regarding Facebook Ban Petition of May 2010. This order by the Chief Justice of Lahore High Court was issued on February 28, 2011 and was reserved to go public till 13th May 2011. The judgment is accessible at the link attached with this post.

Bytes for All proudly support the newest action by APC-Women Networking Support Programme and Take Back The Tech: I DON´T FORWARD VIOLENCE. This action has been launched on 25th February 2011 at the CSW Meeting in New York. More details accessible here: http://www.takebackthetech.net/take-action/2011/02/25

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) joins the global solidarity and social justice movement in affirming our support to and solidarity with the Egyptian people as they take to the streets in the struggle for democratic reform and human rights.

ISLAMABAD 21 December 2010 (TakeBackTheTech Pakistan): One women was raped and another beaten in Pakistan. Both electronic media and law enforcing agencies, rather than respecting the survivors’ privacy, publicly identified them by their names and gave irrelevant information about them (that they were returning from a ‘dance party’ at 2:00 am), reinforcing the ‘she asked for it’ mindset. The rape survivor withdrew her case. Read the open letter that Take Back the Tech Pakistan wrote to Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sindh, one of the authorities harmed the survivor’s reputation.

A multistakeholder national ICT Policy Consultation was jointly organized by Bytes for All and Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT & ITES (P@SHA) on November 13, 2010 in Karachi.