PTA official summoned in Youtube case

E-Paper | April 29, 2026

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Wednesday summoned a “responsible” senior official of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to answer several queries arising during hearing of petitions against ban on Youtube, a popular video sharing website.

Bytes for All, a non-government organisation (NGO), and others had filed petitions demanding the court to lift the ban imposed by the federal government after a blasphemous movie clip was uploaded on the Youtube.

In this case, the government took a plea that the website was blocked in Pakistan on a direction issued by the Supreme Court.

The petitioners pleaded that the ban amounted to infringement on fundamental rights to knowledge. They said a large number of people had been effected by the ban. The bench will resume hearing on Thursday (today).

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2014

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ishq

Nov 20, 2014 10:53am

Pakistani should buy & read books, join library for pure knowledge

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Zafar

Nov 20, 2014 12:08pm

@ishq I am a regular student of several online educational websites using youtube for lectures. Lickily I am not in Pakistan to be deprived of a great source of information as people in Pakistan can only see youtube and likes as sources of evil. Interestingly there is much filth in the print media as well which is being professed here. Most people in Pakistan can't read books so it seems unfair to them for being deprived of alternate mediums like youtube. Moreover, propagators of bans must also go through much less regulated websites like dailymotion that gained popularity due to ban.

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sadia

Nov 20, 2014 02:58pm

Well media should also promote uplifting of bans from internet sources particularly you tube where u can find very cheap and efficient access for huge variety of things. Geography, ecology, news, drama, cooking, language classes, tourism, bundles and bundles of info common man in pak is deprived from because of dumb silly n selfish goverments

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Fasadi

Nov 20, 2014 05:39pm

Youtube ban shows poor state of mind of Pakistani politicians and society. Don't forget to give credit to former CJ to ban Youtube.

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Jibran

Nov 20, 2014 05:41pm

@ishq "pure" knowledge? as opposed to the corrupted, impure, dirty knowledge available on YouTube? What do most libraries in Pakistan contain? how many libraries do we have in pakistan and how many people have access to them ?

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