Intro
Qadiani-Ahmadi’s are crying all over social media the past few months about how Google and Apple have removed Ahmadiyya apps for users in Pakistan. Ahmadi’s in America met with Google and tried to stop this. Amjad Khan and Harris Ahmad, who are a few of the official spokesmen of Ahmadiyya in America. Over the last two years, the government of Pakistan has forced Google and Apple to take down apps in the country created by developers based in other nations who are part of the Ahmadiyya community. The move is part of a crackdown led by the country’s telecommunications regulator targeting the Ahmadiyya community. At issue are seven religious apps created by the Ahmadi community in the United States, published under the name “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.” Three of the apps contain “the exact same [Arabic] text found universally in all versions of the Holy Quran,” as well as commentary from the Ahmadi perspective, according to their descriptions. They are still available on app stores in other countries. All of these have been taken down by Google in Pakistan. In addition, there are four other apps, which include an FAQ on Islam and a weekly Urdu-language news magazine, that the PTA is pressuring Google to remove, but which have not been taken down. Apple issued a notice from Apple to the app developers, dated May 17, 2019, said it was taking one of their apps down from its store in Pakistan because it “includes content that is illegal.”
Pakistan most recently sent takedown notices for Ahmadi content to Google and Wikipedia on Dec. 25, 2020, according to a PTA press release. Two days later, Google took one of the Qur’an apps down, said Harris Zafar, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Community in the United States. (There’s no indication that Wikipedia took down any Ahmadi content in response to the request, but the Wikimedia Foundation did not return a request for comment.) The PTA also ordered shut a US-based Ahmadi site, TrueIslam.com, threatening its administrators with criminal charges that carry a $3 million fine. The decision may not be enforceable, since the people who run the site, including Zafar, do not live in Pakistan. But it does mean they may face charges if they travel there, which means Zafar can’t visit his extended family.
A few weeks later, a group of Ahmadi community leaders spoke with Google executives.
“[Google] indicated that they had raised the human rights concerns to PTA but were told that they would have to stop their business in Pakistan if they did not remove the Ahmadi content,” Zafar said. “We were certainly surprised … We thought once we raised the human rights aspect, they would do what is right.”
Asked to comment, a PTA spokesperson directed BuzzFeed News to the department’s website.
“Our services make search results, videos, apps, and other content broadly available, subject to local laws, taking into account human rights standards,” a Google spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “We challenge government orders whenever appropriate, and when we’re required to remove apps and other types of content that don’t violate our policies, we try to do so in the least restrictive way possible.”
The PTA issued new rules late last year that give it broader powers to block online content. Those rules allowed it to censor content online that could, in its view, harm the government or threaten the security of Pakistan.
The Asia Internet Coalition, an industry group whose members include Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, opposed the decision, writing in a letter to the regulator on Dec. 5 that the rules would “prevent Pakistani citizens from accessing a free and open internet.”
Zafar said the PTA had been pressuring Google since 2018 and Apple since 2019. Ahmadi developers have made other versions of the Qur’an app in the years since, each of which the companies have taken down following PTA orders.
Google took the Ahmadiyya community’s first Qur’an app down in September 2018. After objections, Google reinstated the app and held a meeting between the company and the developers the following March.
According to notes from the meeting, a Google executive asked if they would consider taking the word “Muslim” out of their name to avoid offending Pakistan’s government.
“No,” one of Zafar’s colleagues, an Ahmadi lawyer, replied. “This decision will have a major impact, a precedent that will empower Pakistan to continue with this, due to validation from one of the world’s major corporations.”
The meeting ended without a resolution, Zafar said, and in October 2019, Google took the app down again. Apple removed the same app from its store in May.
Zafar said he was disappointed.
“All Google has done is capitulate to PTA and censor our community,” Zafar said. “This exacerbates the human rights abuses against us as it validates Pakistan’s basis of the persecution. If there are alternative solutions, we would like to hear them, but to date Google has offered no alternatives.” ●
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Harris Ahmad tweets
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Amjad Khan tweets
Must read report by
on disturbing & dangerous actions by
to target persecuted Ahmadiyya Muslim Community through digital bullying tactics against
&
, & how neither company has yet shown moral courage in defense of human rights.
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Links and Related Essay’s
How should tech companies react to demands from authoritarian governments? So far, @Google and @Apple have caved to demands for censorship of a peaceful & law-abiding religious community. They have put short term commercial interests ahead of human rights. https://t.co/nR5k4gALJS pic.twitter.com/NzkrVrANCp
— Harris Zafar (@Harris_Zafar) February 5, 2021
https://religionunplugged.com/news/2023/5/5/pakistan-encroaches-on-international-ahmadi-content
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Tags
#pta #Pakistantelecommunicationauthority #ahmadiyya #ahmadiyyafactcheckblog #messiahhascome #nolifewithoutkhalifa #ahmadiyyatrueislam #ahmadiapartheid #Ahmadiyyat #rabwah #qadian #meetthekhalifa #muslimsforpeace
February 14, 2021 at 8:13 am
Brother why you write Ahmadiyya Muslim.???
February 14, 2021 at 6:27 pm
Corrected, the only one I kept was the name of the Ahmadiyya app.
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