In another shocking act of censorship and tyranny displayed by big tech social media companies, two ardent critics of Islam on Twitter received notices from the social media company informing them they violated Pakistani law.
Both Imam Tawhidi, a Muslim scholar from Australia and Ensaf Haidar, a Canadian human rights activist and wife of Raif Badawi, a Saudi writer who has been imprisoned and tortured in Saudi Arabia for his satirical blogs, received notifications from Twitter informing them of their “violations” of Pakistani blasphemy laws.
According to Tawhidi, the tweet that was in violation of Pakistani law was one in which he called for a jihadi mosque to be investigated, while Haidar was flagged for asking people to retweet if they were against the niqab, the oppressive full body garb women are required to wear in many Muslim countries where Sharia is the law of the land.
In August of 2018, Pakistan’s Islamabad High Court said it would block Twitter unless the American social media company complied with Pakistani Sharia law, and the government’s request to block “objectionable content”.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Talha Mehmood said,
“Twitter was not as popular in Pakistan as Facebook, and so they had little to lose if Twitter was blocked. However, the platform would lose business if it was shut down in the country. The court is determined to teach Twitter a lesson — they will lose business.”
The Pakistani government has made many efforts to control social media and enforce Sharia in the digital square. Facebook has been banned in the country twice, once in 2008, and again in 2010.
In September 2012, PTA blocked YouTube throughout the entire country for two years until YouTube also agreed to block content that violated Sharia.
The Islamabad High Court has “taken notice of the increase in objectionable content posted on social media websites”, and as a result, Twitter, an American company, is now serving as an enforcer of Sharia law by sending notices to users around the world who post content that critiques or “insults” Islam.
Neither Tawhidi or Haidar live in Pakistan. Tawhidi lives in Australia, and Haidar lives in Canada.
Pakistan, one of the most extreme Muslim countries in the world, has very strict blasphemy laws. According to the Pakistani law, anyone convicted of insulting the Prophet Muhammad can be sentenced to death, and anyone guilty of insulting Islam can be sent to jail for 10 years.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been at the center of global discussion in the last month as they relate to the case of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian who was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sentenced to death, simply because she drank water from a cup that allegedly belonged to a Muslim.
In October 2018, she was acquitted by the Pakistani Supreme Court, which prompted a string of violent uprisings throughout the country. Bibi has since gone into hiding due to threats from violent lynch mobs who have threatened to kill her and are calling on her to be hanged.
According to Bibi, she was often denied food in jail because she is a Christian. “They would say, you disgraced our religion,” she said.
Because the threats against her life are so severe, Bibi does not venture outside to visit her family, as she fears placing them in harms way.
Nearly 1,472 people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan between 1987 and 2016, according to Centre for Social Justice.
An estimated 70 people have been murdered since 1990 in attacks by vigilantes after being accused of blasphemy, which begs the question: why are American social media companies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube participating in the enforcement of barbaric human rights violations by upholding Sharia law?
Twitter and Facebook aren’t the only big tech and social media companies enforcing Sharia law.
A new Android app launched last month with the focus of allowing Muslims to report individuals who commit blasphemy, or insult Islam. The app, “Smart Pakem”, which launched in Indonesia last month at the request of the Indonesian government, will allow users and government officials to uphold Sharia law and target and report people who hold “misguided” beliefs in violation of Islamic law, which forbids insults of Islam, insults against the Prophet Mohammed, or the recognition of any other religion besides Islam.
The app is available in the Google app store. Since the app’s launch in the Google app store, it has been flooded with one star reviews and criticisms by anti-Sharia and human rights advocates.
On November 29, 2018, investigative journalist Laura Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter HQ in NYC after she was banned from Twitter for criticizing Sharia law. While handcuffed, Loomer argued “Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google, Instagram, they are essentially upholding Sharia. Silicon Valley is essentially upholding Sharia when they decide to ban me for posting facts about Islam, when they decide to ban me for posting facts about Sharia law and criticizing an anti-Jewish Muslim Congresswoman.”
WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJSYVPfGVkQ&t=7s
Michelle Malkin has also spoken out about Silicon Valley Sharia.
Read More about Silicon Valley Sharia here.
Laura Loomer is a conservative investigative journalist and activist. Originally from Arizona, Laura began her career working as an undercover journalist for Project Veritas from 2015-2017. She covers politics, anti-Semitism, immigration, terrorism, the Islamification of the West, and voter fraud. Loomer’s investigations have been broadcasted on every major national mainstream media outlet in the United States, as well as many international publications. Support Laura Loomer’s Independent Journalism here: PayPal.me/lauraloomer
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