Chaudhry Nisar the Interior Minister on Thursday threatened to block "all social media sites" that host blasphemous content because the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered the government to investigate online blasphemy.
The problem came to the forefront in January when five activists were reported missing. Four missing activists were returned to their families weeks later, but were not spoiled by a relentless campaign to paint them as "enemies of Islam."
On Thursday, IHC ordered the government to open an investigation into online "blasphemy" and threatened to ban social media networks if they failed to censor content considered an insult to Islam.
"We will go to any extent [including] permanently block all social networking sites if they refuse to cooperate," the minister said in a statement.
No country can afford religious sentiments to be hurt or top state functionaries to be subjected to ridicule under what the minister described as "the pretext of freedom of expression."
Judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui IHC asked the government formed a commission of inquiry to report back next Monday on the issue, saying he could order social media sites must be blocked if offending content remained online.
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"The judge ordered the government to do joint research with the team of Muslim officials to address the issue of blasphemy," said lawyer Tariq Asad, the petitioner in the case.
Human rights groups say that the label of "blasphemer" is liberally applied by religious conservatives to silence criticism of extremism.
However, unproven allegations can be fatal. At least 65 people, including lawyers, judges and activists, have been killed by vigilantes over blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to a recent report of the think-tank.
Pakistan banned Facebook previously from hosting the blasphemous content for two weeks in 2010, while YouTube was unavailable from 2012-2016 over an amateur film about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that led to global riots.
But later, Pakistan has agreements with major Internet companies to block the country material that violates its laws, in general, once the companies had performed their own cross-checks.
Yasser Latif Hamdani, a lawyer who worked to get YouTube unblocked, said previous Web censorship had also originated with court's orders and the judge could successfully implement a new set of bans.
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