Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has formally contacted YouTube and requested to restore religious scholar Dr. Israr Ahmed’s channel.
According to PTA officials, PTA has written a letter to the YouTube administration and asked the video-sharing platform to unblock Dr. Israr Ahmed’s YouTube channel.
Official sources revealed that the unilateral shutdown of Dr. Israr Ahmed’s channels, a prominent Muslim scholar, raises questions about the arbitrary limits of online expression. The closed Youtube channel included videos of Dr. Israr Ahmed explaining Islamist discourse including Quranic teachings and lectures on the implementation of the Islamic system in the social and cultural field etc. Such videos are only intended for the purpose of educating the viewers, sources added.
PTA in its letter stated that Dr. Israr Ahmed is a prominent Muslim scholar and his lectures are for education purposes and cannot be included in hate speech.
The biggest video-sharing website, YouTube had taken down the official web channel of Islamic scholar Dr. Israr Ahmed over allegations of carrying anti-Semitic comments.
However, the followers of the Islamic scholar Dr. Israr Ahmed expressed resentment over the initiative and claimed that he was a great scholar of Islam who never preached violence and urged his followers to get an education and learn modern technology.
Dr. Israr Ahmed’s channel had nearly three million subscribers and his lectures were admired by a large number of people.
