[liberationtech] Pakistan's Firewall: Need your help and support

[Sana Saleem]

Hi all,

There's been significant media coverage of the impending internet
censorship plans by Pakistan's Government. The anti-censorship campaign has
been able to garner support from national and international organizations.
The positive news is that, we were able to push the government to extend
the tender closing date, for URL filtering and blocking system, from 1st of
March to the 16th of March. Our partners in the campaign, Business Human
Rights Resource Centre, were able to forward our petition and letter to
company CEO's  and we received commitments form:

-Websense
- Cisco
-Verizon
-Sandvine

They have committed not to bid for the URL filtering system. However,
Mcafee,ZTE , Huawei, Bluecoat has not responded. We are now getting very
close to the tender closing date and have entered a crucial phase in the
campaign. We believe at this point it would be most beneficial to keep
building pressure.

- Getting businesses with investments in Pakistan to speak up and write to
the Ministry of IT
- Getting media to focus on various aspects of the issues, including how
this could effectively turn online spaces as tools for surveillance, how
this would hurt the economy, academic paralysis and halt innovation.

We have put together a Press Kit, it is comprehensive and has basic info
that most of you might already be aware of, to inform journalists within
and outside of Pakistan about the situation and it's repercussions. Please
feel free to share, amongst your contacts:
http://bolobhi.org/press-release-public-statements/press-kit/national-url-filtering-blocking-system/


Here is a timeline for the campaign so far:
http://bolobhi.org/timeline-campaign-against-internet-censorship-in-pakistan/


Thank you and I would really appreciate your suggestions, feedback and
help,
Best,
Sana

-- 
Chief Operating Officer
Bolo Bhi
Privacy-Advocacy-Research
http://bolobhi.org
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