Pakistan, a Different Country!

just as there is no paranoia involved in claiming that chowk staff censors my articles, they have been doing it for a while now and the latest one titled : Legitimizing a Farce:The 2008 Pakistan Elections and the Pakistan Army

humsab writes "your condition of paranoia"

There is no paranoia involved when you've been unable to access your websites for over a year on the major networks, and when people who used to be able to read them till a couple of years back say they can no longer access them

Mr.masadi ji
You really need to seek help urgently. If any of your friend/relative happens to visit this site and has any clue about your condition of paranoia, he/she should help you since you are not able to do it for yourself.
Regards

later..

hamid writes "masadi mian,

.... you are a big fat liar! .... "

Not at all, how come all those most public and most popular networks don't let me access any of those sites.

feroz writes "Re: Masadi

Rational Realities download is quick, but your site, www.asadi.org, is sluggish"

Thanks for letting me know that however I have been experiencing the same problem since January 2007 after having used i)WOL ii)brain iii)PTCL iv) world call. Some of my students were able to access it at the university library however but not always...

masadi: Pakiland's internet service is provided by FLAG telecom..owned by India's reliance..

maybe the Indian elite is keeping you down..

have you considered that?

Re: Masadi

Rational Realities download is quick, but your site, www.asadi.org, is sluggish and the "refresh" has to be hit a couple of times before the entire page appears.

Please keep in mind that lately Pakistan was experiencing some internet related problems and the overall internet traffic is still slow. The fibre-optic cable that was damaged is not fully repaired and the traffic is being routed through an alternative route. If you are having problems accessing the site, it might be due to a technical reason and not necessarily as a reason of the site being restricted.

Please check your settings. Also note, that there is a merger of sorts taking place and a few ISPs in Pakistan have acquired new owners and are in the process of upgrades and this has caused browsing problems - slow browsings and occassionally the inability to connect with the host server. Again, it depends where your site is "hosted"; traffic towards Europe and the United States is still sluggish and some times non-responsive.

Incidently, YouTube is back online and can be accessed also. SR should be happy....

Ciao

hamidm: I see that PML-PPP-ANP had dinner yesterday in Islamabad where excellent speeches were served. And "shining sun" musharraf was not invited. Poor lota rashid had to eat all by himself in a separate restauratn.
:-(

Re: # 94

#94 Posted by MantoLives on February 27, 2008 3:13:24 am

Well I have visited it on occasion to read your arguments with that other idiot Ali Sina... so as far as I know your website is not banned.

I have been using three different connections (right now I am using PTCL's "DSL") as well Wimax over the years.
reply to this interact write a new interact add to favorites flag objectionable content
#93 Posted by masadi on February 27, 2008 3:10:44 am
Manto writes "You may confirm that the site is not banned"

It most definitely is, nowhere in this country have I been able to access it, only those networks the bypass the national control can get to it.


Manto, Masadi has got in his answer even before you typed your #94 in.

He has said you can get it if you bypass national control and you are a part of this network.

Man, you are truly previleged.....you have been raised to Elite Peon from Peon of the Elite.

Rejoice.

Congratulations on your elevation.

Plese let us all into this secret.

Re: # 110

dash_dot,

.... brilliant! ....... now we will have our own leper colony on chowk with masdi as its first (and hopefully only) inhabitant ...... let's quarantine him and maybe he will get the hint and just go away like khalid poser many moons ago .........

Re: # 108

masadi mian,

.... you are a big fat liar! .... both ferozk and manto (both honorable men) have confirmed that nobody is blocking your silly site in pakistan ..... you are not relevant, so why sould anyone try to block you ? ..... you wish they would so that you could feel important, but you are a nobody and that is why nobody cares .......

.... so stop spewing nonsense on this site and get some help before your condition gets worse ........

Dear Chowk Staff,
I am going to regret (maybe) what I going to day.

But please donot listen to the "drunken peons of the west" (I am paraphrasing MASADI here) like Hamidm2 etc, and ban the likes of MASADI.

In fact i would suggest that

(a) you open up a section for him on Unplugged (its being done implicitly by zeemax already - he has grabbed connections for himself)

(b) Direct all his interacts to this section. You will have a thread for each article from FP he posts on. All replies to him and his interacts get directed similarly.

(c) Post all his articles the main body in that section, with a link from FP! Even the intercts then go to the Unplugged section of chowk.


The reason is simple: the plugged Masadi is causing a stink here - constipation is bad for anynes health. You need to unplug him.

This would unleash him.

Thank you.

meet the new country...same as the old country..

Pakistan Targets TV Critics

By ROBIN McDOWELL – 1 day ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan's elections were supposed to usher in democracy after eight years of military rule, but for Talat Hussain life doesn't look much different. Every time his TV station tries to air shows critical of President Pervez Musharraf, the screen goes black.

Pakistan's main opposition parties announced they would form a coalition government to bring civilian rule after voters delivered a crushing blow to the pro-Musharraf ruling party in Feb. 18 parliamentary polls.

Two days after the vote, Aaj, the privately owned station where Hussain is news director, was knocked off the air. Its signal has been jammed or cut off three more times since then, Hussain said.

"Nothing has really changed in this country, has it?" he said.

Information Minister Nisar Memon said Aaj and two other stations which have had anchors taken off the air in recent weeks were considered threats to the government because they were not only harsh but highly popular.

Pakistan has a flourishing media, with hundreds of newspapers and more than 70 television stations — thanks largely to reforms imposed by Musharraf after he seized power in a 1999 coup. Criticism makes its way onto many stations, mostly through guests appearing on talk shows, and most have managed to stay on the air. But with illiteracy rates high, broadcasters — the main source of news for many — have been closely watched.

The government imposed a weekslong TV blackout at the height of a political crisis that saw the purging of the judiciary, the rounding up of political opponents, and the death of hundreds in attacks blamed on Islamic militants.

Private television stations have all been allowed back on air, but they are still barred from attacking the president, the judiciary and the armed forces. And six of the country's most popular anchors and television talk show hosts — from Aaj, Geo TV and ARY — are banned.

Memon promised the remaining restrictions would be lifted "as soon as possible," but did not elaborate.

All station besides state-run Pakistan TV can only be received by satellite or local cable systems, making it easy for the government to crack down whenever it wants to by jamming the station's outgoing satellite signal or simply pressing cable providers to black out the station or face official sanction.

"We keep getting hopeful about life changing in Pakistan," said Hussain, leaning back in his chair in his modest office on the fourth floor of a dilapidated building. The station has been cut off 15 times since Musharraf imposed emergency rule on Nov. 3.

"We keep trying our luck on the basis of that hope, and we keep getting a reality check from Musharraf," he said.

The Pakistan People's Party — now headed by slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari — and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N have both said restoring press freedoms and an independent judiciary would be among the new parliament's first tasks after the new government is formed — probably in mid-March.

For some, that has made Musharraf's current actions all the more confounding.

Another of the banned anchors is Hamid Mir, an executive editor at Geo TV. He said his company has been meeting with regulators since last week's polls to try to get him back on the air — so far without luck.

"They said, 'If you try to put Hamid Mir on, not just Geo will be taken off the air," but its owner, Pakistan's biggest media conglomerate, will be shut down, Mir said.

His company lost $32 million between Nov. 3 and Jan. 21, Mir said.

"It's a big price for just one anchor," said Mir, who was replaced by an anchor formerly with state television. "We're not in a position to lose any more money."

Aaj — which has a staff of around 800, half devoted to current affairs — was founded four years ago.

Unable to compete with big, hard news broadcasters, it quickly found its niche by providing in-depth analyses, with Hussain, one of the founders, at the helm.

Hussain said he will not bow to pressure, telling his owner he had no intention of falling hostage to government policies, which appear to change by the day.

Several times the government indicated it was willing to give Aaj back some of its freedoms, he said, only to come back with a list of new requirements, demanding question-and-answer interviews rather than more free-flowing discussions.

"We've struggled because we have a very strong editorial line," said Hussain, whose station has sometimes been taken off the air for up to 12 hours.

"Our investors say, you guys are not even on the air, so why should we bother giving you ads?"

Once, he said, a satellite transmission was jammed during a regular news program analyzing the implications of the opposition's sweeping election win.

The other times Aaj tried to bring on its own two banned anchors, Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javeed, whose show "Hear Pakistan Talk" is one of the station's main revenue earners. Largely tongue-in-cheek, the two hosts take up different sides on various issues, laying bare contradicting points of view.

"The government says we can talk about Palestine, Afghanistan, Kashmir ... but not the internal dynamics and politics of Pakistan," said Minhas, 40, who was initially among those cheering the media reforms ushered in by Musharraf.

"But in the end," he said, "a dictator is a dictator."

re: Masadi

Both websites can be accessed from inside Pakistan.

Ciao

Chowk Staff,

As we discussed earlier, please make sure you don't publish anything written by Masadi. I would also suggest that we should completely ban Masadi from this site.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Hamimdm2