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Google And Apple Take Down Apps Made By Persecuted Muslim Minority


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2021 Feb 5, 9:49am   118 views  2 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced-down-ahmadiyya-apps

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has used anti-blasphemy rules to target members of the Ahmadiyya community.

Over the last two years, the government of Pakistan has forced Google and Apple to take down apps in the country created by developers based in other nations who are part of a repressed religious minority.

The move is part of a crackdown led by the country’s telecommunications regulator targeting the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. Adherents, called Ahmadis, number about 4 million in Pakistan. Though Ahmadis identify as Muslim, Pakistan’s government views them as heretics, and a 1984 ordinance forbids them from “posing” as Muslims, adopting Islamic religious practices, and referring to their houses of worship as mosques. Pakistan is the only country to declare that Ahmadis are not Muslim. ...

Apple did not respond to requests for comment, but a notice from Apple to the app developers, dated May 17, 2019, said it was taking one of their apps down from its store in Pakistan because it “includes content that is illegal.” ...

Pakistan most recently sent takedown notices for Ahmadi content to Google and Wikipedia on Dec. 25, 2020, according to a PTA press release. Two days later, Google took one of the Qur’an apps down, said Harris Zafar, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the United States. ...

“We were certainly surprised … We thought once we raised the human rights aspect, they would do what is right.” ...

Google took the Ahmadiyya community’s first Qur’an app down in September 2018. ...

Apple removed the same app from its store in May.


So Google and Apple have no principles at all. Big surprise.

I hate apps in general because most of them are spyware, but I will never install any app from Goople stores under any circumstances. If I really want an app, like a vpn client, I'll "sideload" it directly, bypassing Goople control.

Comments 1 - 2 of 2        Search these comments

1   MisdemeanorRebel   2021 Feb 5, 10:37am  

Wow. All the more reason to remove Corporation's "Totally a person, just like a real person" protections and prohibit US companies from political and religious discrimination
2   Patrick   2021 Feb 5, 10:48am  

"I'll believe a corporation is a person when one gets executed."

Corporations get the benefits of being a "person" but not the risks.

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