THIS refers to your editorial ‘YouTube blockade’ (Jan 29). The continuous ban on YouTube serves no purpose when the whole world has an access to it. I believe that we must register our protest now. It is time to move ahead.
For how long will we be having no access to various materials on the Internet in its different forms? The best way to promote our cause is to present more and more material based on our convictions and on logical arguments on such mediums as YouTube, Facebook and other sites.
With this ban, we cannot even respond from Pakistan. We should face these new channels of information rather than hiding ourselves from them.
We should keep in mind that YouTube also has millions of video clips that are directly related to the teachings of Islamic thoughts. In fact, we have also banned those Islamic channels, depriving the people of Pakistan to benefit from them.
Moreover, there are thousands of YouTube clips that deal with Pakistan -- music, history, culture, politics, economics, and many more related subjects. We have blocked all that from the eyes of those who live in Pakistan, while the world goes on as usual. We have also blocked a modern source of education for the people of Pakistan. As a professor, where should I post my lectures so that my students can access them and we have a discussion seminar on the given topic?
Civil society must demand that YouTube be immediately allowed to be seen in Pakistan and that any more ‘banning’ of means of communication will not be tolerated by a bunch of people who have no sense to administrate this country in an era of education and knowledge.
DR FAROOQ HASNAT Lahore
