[liberationtech] Call for Joint Statement- NGOS: Pakistan Internet Censorship Campaign Update

[Sana Saleem]

Hi all,

 I am writing about the campaign against internet censorship in Pakistan.
 We want your help in building pressure on the authorities and support
internet freedom in Pakistan. We have been actively campaigning against
Pakistan government's plan to censor the internet. There has been
significant media coverage on the issue, and we were able to partner with
GNI, EFF, Access Now, Reporters without borders and Business Human Rights
Resource centre to pressure international surveillance companies to not
sell equipment to Pakistan's government, five  major companies responded
and the authorities in Pakistan gave in to public pressure and have shelved
the initiative for now
(see:here<http://bolobhi.org/press-release-public-statements/press-releases/cautious-celebration-report-suggests-pakistan-it-ministry-withdraw-internet-censorship-plans/>)


However, we fear that the authorities will continue to censor the internet
covertly. Building pressure is crucial. Therefore, we are working on
issuing a joint statement in order to get the authorities to publicly
commit they will not make any attempts at censoring the internet. Something
that they have been avoiding. I wanted to ask if your organization will be
interested in signing the joint statement. Thus far, Access Now, Article
19,CDT, index on censorship & EFF have signed the statement [this is open
to final edits] and we are working towards getting more organizations to
sign it. The more of us, the better.

I am attaching a draft of the statement. Please let me know if you have any
queries. If you are unable to sign the statement but would like to speak
out against this publicly, we are also collecting video statement on  the
campaign for our webshow, Business Human Rights Centre sent us one this
 week
 ( see: here<http://bolobhi.org/press-release-public-statements/video-gallery/>
)

 Looking forward to your support,

Best,
Sana

-- 

Ceo, Bolo Bhi, Advocay-Policy-Research [http://bolobhi.org]
Blogger: Dawn.com [http://blog.dawn.com/author/sana-saleem/]
Global Voices: [http://globalvoicesonline.org/author/sana-saleem/]
The Guardian:[ www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sana-saleem]
Blog: http://sanasaleem.com] Twitter: @sanasaleem<http://twitter.com/sanasaleem>
 @bolobhi  <http://bolobhi.org/>
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