Offensive SMS row: Pakistan postpones 'moral police' directive

Pakistan's telecom regulator on Tuesday postponed the implementation of a directive to block nearly 1,700 "offensive" words from SMS messages, saying the matter would be sorted out after discussions with the civil society.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority's move to filter over 1,100 English words and terms and 586 Urdu words and phrases from text messages had been met with outrage and ridicule by consumers and rights activists.

Though the directive was set to come into force on Monday, mobile phone operators had deferred its implementation.

"The PTA constituted a committee today to examine the matter and give its broad-based recommendations. Till this committee comes up with its findings, the implementation of the directive has been held back," said PTA spokesman Mohammad Younis Khan.

The panel that will look into the blocking of offensive and obscene words will include representatives from the media and mobile phone operators, academics, members of civil society groups, consumer forums and government officials, Khan said.

The decision to put off the implementation of the directive was made in view of inputs from different quarters, including consumers and government departments, he said.

Khan said the lists of "offensive" words that had been in circulation were only aimed at designing a filtering system for mobile phone operators and were not final.

"The words to be included in the list of blocked words will depend on the recommendations of the committee set up today," he said.

A letter written to mobile phone operators on November 14 by PTA's Director General (Services) Muhammad Talib Doger had instructed them to start filtering SMS messages within a week.

Industry insiders said it would not be possible to implement the measure within the deadline.

While the English list has 148 items, including a four-letter swear word, it had many scratching their heads by including words and terms like athlete's foot, deposit, black out, drunk, flatulence, glazed donut, idiot, harem, Jesus Christ, hostage, murder, penthouse, Satan, virgin and "flogging the dolphin".

Rights group Bytes for All had said it would challenge the PTA's directive in court, describing it as a "ruthless wave of moral policing" that violated rights to free speech and privacy.

"We are talking to a few lawyers to take this matter to court. We will file a petition if this directive is not withdrawn," said Shahzad Ahmad, country coordinator for Bytes for All Pakistan.

Pakistan had blocked Facebook for nearly two weeks in May last year over a competition to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

It also briefly banned YouTube in February 2008 during a similar outcry against blasphemous cartoons.