Reporters Sans Frontiers RSF (Reporters Without Borders), a Paris-based international organisation of journalists, has criticised the decision of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on July 26 to add 34 new web addresses to the list of sites to which it blocks access.
For the most part, they were Baloch nationalist sites, online radio stations and sites relating to the Sindhis, RSF release said.
"We deplore these latest filtering measures and we insist, yet again, that it is not the PTA's job to decide whether websites should be blocked," the press freedom organisation said. "We believe that such decisions should be taken by a judge, after equitable legal proceedings, and definitely not by an entity under government control."
Do not Block the Blog, a collective of Pakistani bloggers that combats censorship, told Reporters Without Borders there was little point to these blocking measures as information always found a way of getting out on the internet. They just hurt the government's image while giving the targeted website's content a credibility it did not always deserve, the group said.
The collective stressed that it favoured online free expression. "Pakistani voices, be they supportive of the government or dissenting rants, should all be given a chance to be heard," one of its founders said.
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