LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed on Friday dismissed a petition seeking ban on access to Wikileaks’ website in Pakistan. Justice Saeed declared it a non-maintainable petition, against the people’s fundamental right to access information.
The petitioner, Arif Gondal, pleaded that Wikileaks, through the leakage of sensitive secrets, was conspiring to create conflicts among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim and western countries of the world and aimed at destroying peace in Pakistan and defaming important personalities and national institutions including the Pakistan Army.
The petition, which was dismissed in the first hearing, submitted that Pakistan had good bilateral relations with a number of countries of the world and secrets’ leakage by Wikileaks will disturb these relations, particularly with Saudi Arabia. Thus, he prayed to the court to issue orders for imposing ban on the Wikileaks’ website.
Justice Saeed rejected the petition observing the documents leaked by Wikileaks, being accessed in over 170 countries of the world, and said that it should not be blocked in Pakistan either.
“The secret information may cause trouble for some personalities in Pakistan but it will be good for growth of the nation in the long run. We, as a nation, should have courage to tolerate and digest criticism and live with it,” the judge said.
