Pakistan PM Sharif orders authorities to unblock Wikipedia
Islamabad, February 7: On Tuesday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered authorities to unblock Wikipedia with immediate effect. This order was given days after Pakistan's watchdog telecommunication banned the online encyclopedia failed to remove the offensive and blasphemous content.
"The Prime Minister is pleased to direct that the website (Wikipedia) may be restored with immediate effect," Pakistan's Minister of Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb posted the Prime Minister's order to her Twitter account.
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"The Prime Minister has also constituted a Cabinet Committee on matters related to Wikipedia and other online content," she added.
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia is created and it also can be edited by volunteers around the world and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. On Tuesday, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said that it blocked Wikipedia because after 48-hour deadline it failed to remove the blasphemy content, and it has also ignored the deadline, according to a spokesperson.
"Such things hurt the sentiments of Muslims," said Malahat Obaid, a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson further said that Wikipedia neither complied by removing the blasphemous content nor appeared before the authority. An hearing was also provided. There was an intentional failure on part of the platform to comply with the directions of PTA. The services of Wikipedia was stopped after 48 hours with the direction to block the reported contents.
The Wikimedia Foundation said on last Friday, "it does not make decisions around what content is included on Wikipedia or how that content is maintained".
It added that this is "by design to ensure that articles are the result of many people coming together to determine what information should be presented on the site, resulting in richer, more neutral articles".
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- With inputs from agencies
