Background Press freedom in Pakistan is restricted by the military-run government, headed by General Pervez Musharraf since 1999. In addition to applying military control over the judiciary and the ruling party in Parliament, print and electronic media have been censored where the content...

In 2008, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority blocked YouTube in what was said to be a reaction to a trailer of Geert Wilder's film "Fitna" hosted on the video-sharing site. The ban was reversed soon afterward, and Pakistani netizens have enjoyed unfettered...

Many a DVD collector over the years has been disappointed upon learning that their rare DVD from Taiwan or France can't be played on their American DVD player. Just as DVD region codes limit viewing to a geographic area, the geofiltering...

The Pakistan Communication Authority has issued directives to ISPs to block six web sites. According to The International News: "The directive came on the orders of the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) for the Evaluation of Websites. The IMC constitutes representatives of...

This was a dark weekend for the Internet community in Pakistan. A series of unfortunate events started with an order for ISPs to block YouTube in Pakistan, which naturally riled citizens and advocates of free speech. Making things worse, the implementation...

Pakistan's new cyber crime bill went into effect on 31 December 2007. Over the past few weeks, individuals and organizations have condemned the toughness of the bill, which limits online expression and communication that uses the Internet. This...

In May of this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decided not to renew TV station RCTV's license, and troops seized the station's equipment. In Pakistan, President Musharraf ordered some TV stations to be shut down in June, and an apparent...

Correction: Two inaccessible sites, jihadwatch.org and sindhtoday.net were initially reported here as jihadwatch.com and sindhtoday.com. The correct sites end with .org and .net. The media climate in Pakistan has become significantly more restricted in the past few weeks, with government forcing many...

When Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution on November 3 in Pakistan, the blogosphere and traditional media were quick to call it implementation of martial law. It has been widely reported (see a news round-up here...

Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the blocking of Web sites containing blasphemous content, Pakistan's The News reported. To comply with the order, Pakistan Telecommunication has blocked access to thousands of vital websites and email servers unrelated to the order. Local bloggers provide...