ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly passed on Tuesday a resolution which asked the government to “take immediate steps to lift ban on YouTube”.
Before adoption of the resolution about the popular video-sharing website on a private member’s day, the house witnessed a brief verbal clash between its mover, Shazia Marri of the PPP, and Minister of State for Health Services Saira Afzal Tarar, as they held each other’s government responsible for imposing and continuing the ban.
“YouTube was banned when her (Shazia Marri’s) party was ruling. And the party remained in power for quite some time after imposition of this ban. Why did she not make hue and cry at that time?” the minister remarked while responding to a speech by Ms Marri in which the PPP leader had alleged that the PML-N government was not serious in lifting the ban.
What apparently angered the minister was Ms Marri’s remark that “the issue will not merely be resolved by distributing laptops among students as they also need to be connected to the world”.
Ms Tarar was of the view that by mentioning laptops in her speech, the PPP member had actually tried to politicise a matter on which there had been an agreement among all the parties.
“Today the government wants to open YouTube as it realises its importance,” the minister declared. However, instead of giving any timeframe, she suggested that all the political parties should sit together to find a way out and take collective responsibility over the issue.
Ms Tarar said the Supreme Court also seemed reluctant in issuing an order on the matter because of its sensitivity. “The government asked the court to issue an order, but that did not happen.”
Assailing the PPP, the minister alleged that polio cases were now being reported from the areas which were not covered adequately by the previous government during vaccination campaigns.
Earlier, Ms Marri said that despite the ban people were using proxy servers to watch YouTube videos. She advised the government to end “double standards” on the issue.
She said the ban on YouTube was imposed by the PPP government like many other Muslim countries, keeping in view the sentiments of the Muslims worldwide over uploading of blasphemous material on the website. However, she said, all the other Muslim countries, including Bangladesh, had since lifted the ban.
Pakistan officially blocked YouTube in September 2012 over refusal of the website’s administrators to remove a controversial movie that had sparked furious protests across the world.
Ms Marri’s resolution was later backed by members of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muttahida Qaumi Movement as they also asked the government to remove the ban as it was leading the country towards isolation.