Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday faced another snub from Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf within a month’s time, as the PM took notice of “unpleasant intervention” by Malik into the affairs of the IT Ministry and directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to shut down YouTube after a brief restoration on Saturday.
The controversial site was blocked within two hours of its reopening by the IT Ministry, which is directly under the prime minister’s control.
Earlier within moments of the reopening of YouTube, the popular video-sharing website, a TV channel reported that the blasphemous material had not been blocked and almost all links could be opened easily.
Within no time, the prime minister took notice of the development and his Press Secretary Shafqat Jalil called the news channel to inform that the website had been blocked again. Malik had earlier been snubbed by the PM when Ashraf annulled the announcement by the interior minister to ban sale of cellular SIMs at shops.
Only a fortnight ago, the entry of Malik was also recently banned in the Presidency after President Asif Ali Zardari was approached by real estate tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain, who complained against Malik’s move of filing an investigation report against him with a court of law. However, Malik remained successful in persuading Riaz to withdraw his complaint with the president.
Well-placed sources in the government informed Pakistan Today that YouTube had been opened after the PM was informed through a summary by the ministry. The source added that Malik, who heads the ministerial committee tasked with looking after the affairs of auction of 3-G licences, had played a key role in forwarding the summary to the prime minister for unblocking YouTube.
“The prime minister was informed that the PTA had made necessary arrangements to reopen the website to win the confidence of the people at large, especially the youth that was unhappy with the blockade,” the source said, adding that Malik had also claimed that the reopening of Youtube might help the PPP government regain support of the youth, who were leaning towards Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
A source in the ministry of IT said Malik had ordered the PTA chief to restore the website. He said Malik had tweeted on Friday night following repeated requests by his followers to reopen the site that the YouTube would be reopened soon.
“YouTube would be restored within 24 hours. There was a great demand to unblock YouTube,” Malik tweeted.
A PTA official said talks were underway with the administration of Google to remove blasphemous content from Youtube. He said once the matter was resolved and an agreement was reached, the matter would be resolved once and for all.
The video-sharing website had been blocked after violent protests over the posting of an anti-Islam film on YouTube. Prior to this blockade, YouTube had also been blocked after similar incidents in 2008 and 2010.
Rehman snubbed by PM as Youtube blocked again
