Karachi, July 07: Number of blasphemy incidents and ban on many internet based organisations such as YouTube, Facebook etc, opened a new debate in Pakistan that whether to restrict such organisation to open their offices in Pakistan, holding them accountable under Pakistani laws?

A new petition has been filed in Sindh High Court by advocate Shua'a Ul Nabi. The petitioner, advocate Shua'a Ul Nabi, requested the Sindh High Court to restrict all such internet based organisation, who provide different services to their visitors, such as social networking, uploading and sharing of videos etc, to open their offices in Pakistan. Mr. Shua'a opined that such organisations are repeatedly found involved in illegal and un-Islamic activities, such as Cartoon Contest of Hazrat Mohammad (SAWW), and our government can do nothing in order to stop them from doing so. Mr. Shua'a illustrated that if they will have offices in Pakistan then they will have to follow the national laws and this way, we will be able to drag them in the court of Law, if there is any such illegal and un-Islamic activity found on their websites.

China and Australia and many other countries have passed the laws to force such Internet based, mainly American, organisations to open their offices within the country for this purpose.

The court issued notices to central government, ministry of communication and PTA and adjourned till the next hearing date.

In past few months, number of blasphemy cases arose over Internet. Which mounted grievances against these Internet based organisations amongst Pakistani. The government of Pakistan, on orders of Lahore High Court, banned number of such organisations such as YouTube, Facebook and many services by Goggle, Yahoo, MSN etc, in the recent past. However, these temporary steps yielded no solid and long lasting solution for the problem.