Facebook blocks rock band page at Pakistan govt request

Facebook has blocked the popular page of a liberal rock band in Pakistan at the request of the government, angering activists campaigning against censorship in the Islamic country.

Rock band “Laal” (Red) formed in 2007 and are known for their progressive politics.

Their Facebook page has more than 400,000 likes, with users frequently joining debates on issues ranging from feminism to the role of the country’s army in politics.

But it has been inaccessible to users from inside Pakistan since Wednesday.

“Facebook didn’t even inform us, I realized when I noticed no activity on our page,” Taimur Rahman, the band’s lead guitarist said.

Facebook confirmed the move to AFP Friday saying the page had been blocked inside Pakistan at Islamabad's request, under an agreement to limit access to material that violates local laws.

A Facebook spokeswoman said: “While we never remove this type of content from the site entirely, like most Internet services, we may restrict people from accessing it in the countries where it is determined to be illegal.

“Before we restrict the content, we take significant steps to investigate each unique claim, consult with local counsel and other experts in the country, and will only remove content in the most limited way possible,” she added.

Pakistan practices extensive Internet censorship, blocking YouTube in 2012 following the release of a low-budget film that was critical of Islam.

Websites for Baluch separatist movements in the country’s southwest are also banned.

While attempts to access those sites result in a government message informing the user that the content has been blocked for viewership within Pakistan, clicking Laal’s page (http://goo.gl/sTQKKO) instead re-directs a user towards their own home feed.

The page remains accessible outside Pakistan.

Shahzad Ahmad, director of the Bytes For All organization that campaigns for free speech, said that Laal’s page was one of several secular and progressive pages to have been blocked by Facebook at Pakistan’s request.

“The is a mass murder of free speech in Pakistan,” he said.

Pakistan’s agreement with Facebook came to light last year when a senior official from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, an Internet regulatory body, was summoned by the Lahore High Court in a case concerning the YouTube ban, but its terms have not been made public.

But when called for comment on Friday, Khurram Ali Mehran, a spokesman for the regulatory body denied the existence of such an agreement, saying Facebook had acted alone. "We have no agreement with Facebook or whatsoever, it's a pack of lies," he said.

“We have not closed the page of Laal, Facebook has its own terms of reference and it closes pages that seem indecent to them,” he added.