My Journey

I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest -(Napoleon)

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Blogger blocked in Pakistan


I was surprised when I got to know from Koi this morning that she was not able to access blogger in Pakistan. It was working fine in India and Finland. Two mails later, and it was proved that ISPs in Pakistan have blocked blogger. I guess this is the first time this has happened in Pakistan. Blogger has been blocked permanently in China and though Google acceding to Chinese restrictions they are not bringing blogger in China.

What could be the reasons for Pakistan blocking blogger? Well, no one doubts that reach and spread of information through blogs has reached phenomenal level. Hence blogs have started to bear brunt of repressive governments. I think visit of George Bush, President of United States may be one of the reasons for blocking blogger there. He is on five days visit to India and Pakistan. I don’t know how much controversial his visit to Pakistan is, apart from the usual controversy, which regularly brews in Pakistan over its support to United States. This makes the sudden blockage all the more confusing.

There has been no word in any of main stream media of Pakistan about this blockage. It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary step or blogger is going to be banished from Pakistan forever. Till then, there isn’t much one can do except to use some proxy servers.

posted by greensatya @ 11:56 PM  

22 Comments:

  • At 6:33 AM, Blogger Abhinav said…

    i just do not understand some ppl have way too much freedom of expression and some have way too much restrictions

     

  • At 8:00 AM, Blogger Raj said…

    Are you sure about this?

    I'm not so sure. Maybe it was a temporary outage.

     

  • At 9:05 AM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Abhinav World is full of such dichotomy

    Raj - Yeah I am sure, it has been blocked in all cities and by all ISPs. I have known it from several people of Pakistan.

     

  • At 11:45 AM, Blogger XVSA013 said…

    why are u linking it to Bush's visit?

    It most likely to be a decision based what is being written on it ...

    not sure though.

    power of the net man ...

     

  • At 11:49 AM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Mowgli In the last six months the number of bloggers in Pakistan have increased beyond proportion. May be this is pre-emptive step of the Government there to ward off any controversy due to visit of that certain George Bush.

    me also not sure of the actual reason.

     

  • At 1:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    A friend in Pakistan is able to access blogger. So dont know if it is in fact blocked or is it specific ISPs which have blocked it.

     

  • At 2:06 PM, Blogger neha vish said…

    All ISPs seem to have blocked access to blogspot blogs.

    Though access through proxy servers works so far. Additionally bloggers can use "mail to blog" option.

     

  • At 2:34 PM, Blogger Y said…

    R u sure Satya?,

    dont call me in case ISI calls you up.

     

  • At 3:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm writing in from Karachi, and I've been having all sorts of problems excessing blogger here from about 7 pm last evening. I can now tell you that even though I'm still encountering a whole lot annoying "page not available now" error messages, the odd page, like this one, does open up if you keep on refreshing like mad.

     

  • At 3:30 PM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Pratyush Your friend is able to access, so it seems blogger is back on track. But I am sure it was blogged, it can't be some co-incidence.

    Neha - Yeah thankfully they can post on their blogs. But I wonder is there any confirmation from ISPs and if so what is the reason for this.

    Sher - How are you sure ISI is going to bust me ? Do I smell rat here :d

    Zainub - So it is up in Karachi ? but why it is taking so much time to come up or many attempts to reload? please keep us updated on the situation. You can post on your blog and we will see it from there.

     

  • At 4:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    She accessed in the afternoon.

    Is it a conspiracy by the government and/or mass ISP blockage or a network problem?

    We shouldn't jump the gun IMO.

     

  • At 5:23 PM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Pratyush I am not hinting at any conspiracy theories but I still don't believe that just like that blogger will not come up or all the ISPs faced the problem at the same time.

    But the best part is that it has come back as you say.

     

  • At 5:26 PM, Blogger XVSA013 said…

    >>ward off any controversy due to visit of that certain George Bush.


    what kind of controversy? what can be more controversial than demonstrating against Bush etc ... what more do u think blogging can do?

     

  • At 5:33 PM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Mowgli - There are many other controversies and blogging can fan these demonstrations (thats what government thinks).

    For eg in Afghanistan, Bush accused Pakistan of not doing enough to contain Taliban and allowing them to create terror in Aghanistan. He said that he is going to talk to Pak President General Musharraf. Opinions and views on this could be controversy.

    Now for example about India, in their wednesday late night news NBC said Bush is in India to eliminate India's nuclear weapon. Other media said Bush is in India to " Cap, control and contain" India's nuclear capability.

    These news are not carried by main stream media of India, but can be carried by bloggers.

    There can be many controversies, but as Pratyush above pointed out it seems blogger is back there.

     

  • At 5:35 PM, Blogger XVSA013 said…

    agreed ... i am disputing what power of blog/information on net.

    i still think, demonstrations, effigy burnings cause more disturbance/security problems than peaceful writings ...

    anycase one can never be sure. close.

     

  • At 5:37 PM, Blogger XVSA013 said…

    sorry i meant

    I am not disputing

     

  • At 5:38 PM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Mowgli - Yeah demonstrations and effigy burnings are more forceful and at times can be violent forms of deomonstrations. But we all know that people form opinion after reading in media, blogs or even discussions. And how powerful blogs have become today we all know.

     

  • At 11:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Pakistan is blocking blogs because some of the whole cartoon issue.. i think they probably just took out *.blogspot.com instead of going through and blocking individual blogs, which they should have done.. here's a BBC article about it:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4771846.stm

     

  • At 11:13 PM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Anonymous - Thanks for pointing out the BBC article. So we have some sort of confirmation four days after the blockage. Yeah they could have blocked specific sites as pointed out by BBC.

     

  • At 2:34 PM, Blogger Hira said…

    Yeah ... thanks for linking to the BBC article. I can't still access my blog here in Lahore ... initially the Blogger site itself was coming but now that isn't available anymore(at least at the moment) ... it couldn't have been my connection as when I access Blogger through vtunnel(an anonymizer as BBC refers to it) it comes out all right ... I don't really have cartoons actually published in my blog except a link to an article that shows them.
    Anyway ...
    Hope it gets to normal soon ... its terribly frustrating seeing sites through vtunnel.

     

  • At 12:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    This isn't nice. They should've at least used better regexps.

     

  • At 8:20 AM, Blogger greensatya said…

    Hira - Yeah good that someone put up that BBC article. Though a bit late but finally confirmation of this ban and possible reasons thereof.

    DrPak - I am all with you all in supporting freedom of expression. I will be joining the group.

    Anon - Yep, this isn't nice. No government should ban freedom of expression in whatever form.

     

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