Appeal to Chowk from Barachota’s Lawyer

Dear Chowk Management:

I represent the law firm of Khan, Khan, Khanna, and Kahn. Our client, Mr. Salim Ahmed Chauhan, aka ’’Barachota” has retained us to amicably resolve your recent action in banning him from your Chowk website.

It has come to our attention that he was not the only one banned from this forum. We are aware of at least four other users - atif1, obake, Old_Chowkie, and Love_to_Laugh.

It has further come to our attention that almost all of the users banned by you are of a pro-Pakistani or pro-Muslim attitude. We are not aware of Chowk banning any users that express a pro-Indian or pro-Hindu orientation. While you have every right to enforce your interaction guidelines, we remind you that you need to do so in a consistent and fair manner.

It has further come to our attention that you are allowing, if not outright condoning, blasphemous attacks on the person of the Holy Prophet, PBUH. Our client has provided at least five examples of posts that included extremely repugnant content. We understand that none of these miscreants was banned from Chowk.

We don’t need to inform you about the very strict anti-blasphemy laws of Pakistan, the statutes against communal disharmony in India and the anti-hate crime laws in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. If your site operates from any of these countries, you must be aware of the substantial responsibilities placed on you for your exercise of freedom of expression. We must remind you that if you desire freedom of operation you must allow freedom of expression to all your participants. Also, if you invoke inconsistent and unfair enforcement of your own interaction policies, then you will have no recourse when authorities shut you down for breaking national laws.

Our client has already unilaterally and publicly apologized for his objectionable material. So has the gentleman with the atif1 user id. Only one of the pro-Indian transgressors has apologized for his attack on the Holy Prophet, PBUH. In the spirit of containing problems at their inception, we request that you issue a public apology to our client on this board, reinstate his user id of ’’Barachota,’’ and restore all his posts and i-logs. We also insist that you restore the other four user ids mentioned above.

We look forward to prompt action on your part and an early resolution of this very important problem. If not satisfied with your progress, we intend to pursue this matter with the Ministries of Interior and Religious Affairs in Pakistan.

Sincerely,

Joseph Kahn,
Attorney

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