Peshawar High Court (PHC) has lifted the ban imposed on video sharing mobile application TikTok, three weeks after it was imposed by the same court.
In a short verdict on April 1, PHC Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan said the application can be unblocked across Pakistan as long as “indecent” content is removed from it.
Therefore, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is likely to unblock the application soon.
Sharing the news on Twitter, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said: “My submission is let’s be careful while taking decisions that may effect [sic] the economic future of Pakistan.”
“We need a framework to encourage international companies so [as] to make Pakistan their investment hub,” he added.
On March 11, the Peshawar High Court had ordered Pakistani authorities to immediately ban TikTok over sharing of “immoral content.“
The orders were issued by PHC Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan, who was hearing a petition filed by a citizen seeking a ban on TikTok. He said that the ban not be removed till all objectionable content is removed.
A man had filed a petition Peshawar High Court on September 8, 2020. He claimed to have approached the court after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authorities and other institutions failed to take notice of ‘immoral and objectionable’ content on the popular video-sharing mobile app.
Earlier, Pakistan had banned TikTok on October 9, 2020, but the ban was reversed after 10 days.
