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In the last two years, The Pakistani government has forced Google and Apple to remove apps created in the country created by developers from other nations who are part of the repressed religious minority.
The movement is part of a repression the country’s telecommunications regulator is aimed at the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The followers, called Ahmadis, number about 4 million in Pakistan. Although Ahmadis identify as Muslims, the Pakistani government considers them heretics and the 1984 ordinance prohibits them from “playing” as Muslims, adopting Islamic religious practices, and referring to their places of worship as mosques. Pakistan is the only country that has claimed that Ahmadis are not Muslims.
Ahmadis have suffered persecution for decades, among others The bombing killed 93 people in 2010. But the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) is pointing to the pressure the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) is putting on multinational technology companies new will to focus on religious minorities outside its borders. It is also one of the first examples of governments using anti-blasphemy rules to force international technology companies to censor content.
There are seven religious applications created by the Ahmadi community in the United States, published under the name “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community”.
All three apps are “identical” [Arabic] Text found in all versions of the Holy Qur’an, “as well as comments from Ahmadi’s point of view, according to their descriptions. They are still available in app stores in other countries. All of them have been taken by Google in Pakistan. In addition, there are four other apps, including Islamari the most frequently asked questions about them and a weekly Urdu news magazine to get rid of what the PTA is pressuring Google to do, but they haven’t removed it.
Asked for comments, a PTA spokesperson addressed the BuzzFeed News website.
“Our services make search results, videos, apps and other content available in accordance with local laws in accordance with human rights standards,” a Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “We challenge government orders when appropriate, and when we are asked to remove applications and other types of content that do not violate our policies, we try to do so in the most restrictive way possible.”
Apple has not responded to requests for comment, but a release from Apple’s app developers on May 17, 2019, said one of their apps was being taken out of the Pakistan store because it “contains illegal content.”
Pakistan recently posted notices of Ahmadi content to Google and Wikipedia on December 25, 2020, according to PTA Press release. Two days later, Google removed one of the Koran’s applications, said Harris Zafar, a spokesman for the U.S. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. (There is no indication that Wikipedia removed Ahmadi’s content in response to the request, but the Wikimedia Foundation has not returned any comment requests.)
A few weeks later, a group of Ahmadi community leaders spoke with Google executives.
“[Google] he said they had raised human rights concerns with the PTA but told them that if they do not remove the Ahmadi content they would have to stop Pakistan’s business, ”Zafar said. “
The PTA also ordered the closure of an Ahmadi site in the US. TrueIslam.com, threatening its administrators with $ 3 million in criminal charges. The decision will not be enforceable as the people who run the site, including Zafar, do not live in Pakistan. This means that if they travel there they may have complaints, which means that Zafar cannot visit his extended family.
“This is a worrying development and not just an effort to arm blasphemy laws against Pakistani U.S. citizens,” a lawyer representing the site’s administrator wrote in a letter to Pakistani authorities.
It is a Pakistan from various countries, among others China, Vietnam, Germany, Nigeria, and Russia, with data localization rules for greater control of technology platforms. When technology companies store data or have offices in a country, they must comply with local laws.
PTA has given new rules which at the end of last year gave them broader powers to block online content. These rules will allow online content that he believes could harm the government or threaten the security of Pakistan.
The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry group that includes Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, spoke out against the decision, and wrote in a letter to the regulator on Dec. 5 that the rules would “prevent Pakistani citizens from accessing the internet for free.” “.
Zafar said the PTA has been putting pressure on Google and Apple since 2019. Ahmadi developers have made other versions of the Qur’an app over the years, with each company removing them following PTA orders.
Google removed the Ahmadiyya community’s first Koran app in September 2018. Following the objections, Google reopened the app and held a meeting between the company and the developers the following March.
According to meeting notes, a Google executive asked if they would think of removing the word “Muslim” from their name so as not to insult the Pakistani government.
“No,” replied a colleague of Zafar, Ahmadi’s lawyer. “This decision will have a major impact, which will provide a precedent for Pakistan to continue with this, due to the validation of one of the world’s leading corporations.”
Zafar said the meeting ended without a resolution, and in October 2019 Google removed the app again. Apple removed the same app from its store in May.
Zafar said he was disappointed.
“What Google has done is capitulate to the PTA and censor our community,” Zafar said. “This exacerbates the human rights violations against us as it validates the basis of the persecution in Pakistan. If there are alternative solutions, we would like to hear them, but so far Google has not offered any alternative.” ●
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