Islamabad: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has directed cell phone companies to block text messages containing indecent, false and fabricated content.
The authority has sent a letter containing list of more than 1,500 English and Urdu words that were to be blocked.
“It’s a big issue, so it is being examined carefully from all points of view,” Anjum Nida Rahman, a spokeswoman for Telenor Pakistan said Friday.
Rahman, the Telenor spokeswoman, told the Associated Press that her company first received the letter Thursday and was discussing how to proceed.
“It’s a big issue, so it is being examined carefully from all points of view,” said Rahman.
The letter said the order was legal under a 1996 law preventing people from sending information through the telecommunications system that is “false, fabricated, indecent or obscene.”
It also stated that free speech can be restricted “in the interest of the glory of Islam.”
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