Imran Khan’s Tinder and Grindr ban in Pakistan criticised as ‘hypocrisy’
Dating app ban is move to appease conservative factions and sign of weakness, say critics
For Hamza Baloch, Grindr was a life-changer. As a gay man in Pakistan, an Islamic republic where homosexuality carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, his means of meeting others in the LGBT community had always been shrouded in secrecy and risk and kept within known safe spaces.
But the arrival of dating apps such as Grindr and Tinder in Pakistan about four years ago brought with it a small revolution among young people across the spectrum of sexuality. Here they could connect and meet people on their own terms, with an honesty about their sexuality that was previously taboo and dangerous. The apps proved popular: Tinder has been downloaded 440,000 times in Pakistan in the last 13 months.