Social media team to visit Islamabad next month

ISLAMABAD – Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousuf said that a team comprising representatives of social media websites including Facebook and Twitter will visit Islamabad next month to discuss issues relating to blasphemous contents.

Addressing a Press conference flanked by Minister of State for Religious Affairs Peer Amin ul Hassanat, here, he said that the government had contacted the administration of these social media sites and raised the issue with them.

The administration of the media sites had responded positively and ensured for sending a team to Pakistan for discussing the matter and addressing our concerns in this regard, he added.

Besides this, a special cell comprising 30 people was already working in the Ministry of Religious Affairs for identifying the sites causing unrest and circulating blasphemous contents and hateful materials in social media, he remarked.

Sardar Yousuf said that although this exercise was a time consuming job but the government was determined to stop circulation of such contents in social media sites.

The Minister said that in 2016, the Ministry had received about 8,760 links from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), which were examined and details about these links were provided to PTA and was suggested to block all the links having the blasphemous contents.

Moreover, he said that the Ministry had started e-portal service for identifying the blasphemous contents and registered complaints against such material, adding, that so far 670 portals were completed.

In this regard a meeting of Ministries of Interior,Information and Broadcasting, Information Technology and PTA was convened in the Religious Affairs Ministry held here on Thursday.

The meeting, he said, had suggested for providing clearance to PTA for blocking the sites having blasphemous contents as soon as possible.

It also suggested to include the Ministry of Religious Affairs in the joint investigation team in order to make coordinated efforts to tackle the issue.

Sardar Yousuf said that in order to increase the pressure on the service providers to stop the circulation of such contents, Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affaird Sartaj Aziz had also written a letter to Secretary General Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and asked him to use his influence in this regard too.

Replying to a question, the Minister said that Religious Affairs Ministry would soon convened a meeting of the Ulema in which the representatives of other religion would also be invited to promote inter faith harmony and peace in the society.

As well as a letter was also sent to Secretary General of Arab League to enhance the pressure on those service providers regarding blasaphemous contents, he added.

Speaking on the occasion Peer Amin ul Hassanat said that dignity and respect of Last Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) was the integral part of the faith of every Muslim.

He called upon the media to play its due role to create awareness in this regard and never compromise on dignity and honour of the last Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Source: he News