‘The webpages hosted on your platform are extremely Blasphemous and are hurting the sentiments of many Muslims.” So claimed an email from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to WordPress, the platform that hosts my website Pandaemonium.

The email pointed to some of my articles about Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine targeted by Islamist gunmen in a machine-gun attack that left 12 people dead in January 2015. The PTA ordered WordPress to block access to my website in Pakistan in order “to contribute towards maintaining peace and harmony in the world”. Which is why readers in Pakistan can no longer see it.

I am not the first person whose website has been blocked in Pakistan, nor is it the only country that blocks websites. China, Russia and many others routinely do so. Britain has its list of unacceptable extremist sites, the takedown of which will no doubt also “contribute towards maintaining peace and harmony in the world”.

When the Charlie Hebdo offices were attacked, many western liberals were reluctant to offer solidarity. As I observed (in one article causing offence to the PTA): “Hardly had news begun filtering out about the Charlie Hebdo shootings than there were those suggesting that the magazine was a ‘racist institution’ and that the cartoonists, if not deserving what they got, had nevertheless brought it on themselves.” Perhaps the most disgraceful refusal of solidarity was the boycott by a host of writers of the annual gala of PEN America in protest at its decision to present Charlie Hebdo with its Freedom of Expression Courage award.

Such critics would no doubt object to Pakistan’s decision to censor “blasphemous” websites. Is there that great a distance between their refusal to support Charlie Hebdo and the Pakistani authorities’ takedown of websites that do demonstrate solidarity?

• Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist