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<p>Hello Oonitarians,</p>
<p>Today, in collaboration with Bytes for All Pakistan, the Open
Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) published a research
report examining internet censorship in Pakistan over the the last
three years.</p>
<p>The report, titled "<b>Internet Censorship in Pakistan: Findings
from 2014-2017</b>", is available here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ooni.torproject.org/post/pakistan-internet-censorship/">https://ooni.torproject.org/post/pakistan-internet-censorship/</a></p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/920588717508751360">https://twitter.com/OpenObservatory/status/920588717508751360</a><br>
</p>
<p>This study includes an analysis of thousands of network
measurements collected (through the use of OONI Probe) from 22
local vantage points in Pakistan over the last three years.</p>
<p>We <b>confirm the blocking of 210 URLs in Pakistan</b>. Explicit
blockpages were served for many of those URLs, while others were
blocked by means of DNS tampering.</p>
<p>In many cases, Pakistani ISPs appear to be applying "smart
filters", selectively blocking access to specific webpages hosted
on HTTP, rather than blocking access to entire domains. Overall,
we only found ISPs to be blocking the HTTP version of sites,
potentially enabling censorship circumvention over HTTPS (for
sites that support encrypted HTTPS connections). <br>
</p>
<p>We found a wide range of different types of sites to be blocked,
including LGBT sites, communication tools, and pornography,
amongst others.</p>
Notably, most of the blocked URLs include:<br>
<ul>
<li>Sites hosting content pertaining to the controversial
"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day"</li>
<li>Web proxies</li>
</ul>
The blocking of sites related to "Draw Mohammed Day" is legally
justified under Pakistan's Penal Code, which prohibits blasphemy.
Similarly, the blocking of other sites (such as pornography and
other sites promoting provocative attire) can be justified under
Pakistan's laws and regulations.<br>
<br>
However, we also found the <b>sites of the Baluch and Hazara ethnic
minority groups to be blocked </b>as well. According to human
rights groups, these minorities have experienced discrimination and
abuse by authorities. These censorship events may be politically
motivated.<br>
<br>
On a positive note, we found popular communication tools, like
WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, to be accessible. Quite similarly,
the Tor network was accessible in most networks throughout the
testing period.<br>
<br>
All data collected from Pakistan is publicly available here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://api.ooni.io/files/by_country/PK">https://api.ooni.io/files/by_country/PK</a><br>
<br>
~ The OONI team.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Maria Xynou
Research and Partnerships Coordinator
Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI)
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ooni.torproject.org/">https://ooni.torproject.org/</a>
PGP Key Fingerprint: 2DC8 AFB6 CA11 B552 1081 FBDE 2131 B3BE 70CA 417E</pre>
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