Pakistan blocks Facebook in row over Muhammad drawings

[Al-khiyal]

Pakistan blocks Facebook in row over Muhammad drawings

May 19, 2010 -- Pakistan today blocked Facebook indefinitely in response to public outrage over a competition on the social networking site that encourages people to post drawings of the prophet Muhammad. The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which controls internet access, directed service providers to block the website "until further notice" in compliance with a high court order obtained by a group of lawyers yesterday. The court action was triggered by a Facebook page entitled Everybody draw Mohammad Day — May 20 which contains over 200 images, many of them certain to offend Muslims, who consider all depictions of the prophet to be blasphemous.

As of today, the site had 5,000 followers and listed links to the pages of prominent critics of Islam such as the rightwing Dutch politician Geert Wilders and the Somali feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The page says its objective is to encourage the "free discussion of brutality of the radical aspects of Islam" and invites members to submit drawings of the prophet Muhammad by tomorrow . Whatever its goals, the site's principal achievement may be to inflame Muslim opinion. Many of the 200 images already submitted depict Muhammad in a variety of unflattering poses and situations likely to offend even moderate Muslims. In one, a bearded face is superimposed over a bikini-clad body. Others had a distinctly political tinge, such as a stereotypical photos of Islamist protests or images of an airliner smashing into the World Trade Centre under the slogan "Islam: a religion of peace." The page's creator, whose identity is not revealed, appears to anticipate an angry and possibly violent backlash, by inviting members to post "death threats" on the site's wall, or public forum.

Anger over the site is focused in Pakistan, where it has been the subject of outraged media reports but as yet no street protests. In 2006, similar cartoons of Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper sparked deadly riots that left more than 50 people dead across the Muslim world, five of them in Pakistan. In Lahore, a prominent Islamist student group with links to the country's largest religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, distributed leaflets calling for a boycott of Facebook. "The west is conspiring against the honour of the prophet and of Muslims. The real purpose of freedom of speech is to provoke the sentiments of Muslims," it read.

Shakir Husain of Creative Chaos, an internet company based in Karachi, said the ban was unlikely to succeed because it could be easily circumvented through the use of proxy servers. "By banning this web page, it will just make people more curious. It's pouring petrol on a small fire that could become a lot bigger," he said. "You can't police the internet. The Saudis have tried it, as have other governments, and all have failed. It's a waste of state money."

The row over the Facebook group comes after a recent skit on the U.S. comedy cartoon show South Park that depicted the prophet Muhammad, prompting some criticism in Pakistan. There was some speculation that the suspected Times square bomber Faisal Shahzad tried to explode his vehicle near the headquarters of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central.

This is not the first time the Pakistan government has censored the internet. A variety of sites are already blocked including those of Sindhi and Baloch nationalists and members of the Ahmedi religious sect, which has suffered decades of discrimination. A video showing Pakistani soldiers beating civilians in the Swat Valley is also unavailable in Pakistan. Pornography, however, is widely available. According to Google, the mostly widely searched word in Pakistan is "sex", followed by "education". Pakistan has about 20 million internet users in a population of 170 million people.

[Al-khiyal]

[Desert winds]

i do not care about anything else,
i am not fond of my country, but i love them for this block on facebook, i hope other muslim countries follow their footsteps.

[Al-khiyal]

Facebook considers censoring content in Pakistan

May 20, 2010 -- Facebook said Thursday it may consider making content that is considered objectionable by Pakistan inaccessible to users in the country. "We are analyzing the situation and the legal considerations, and will take appropriate action, which may include making this content inaccessible to users in Pakistan," Facebook said in an e-mailed statement. A Pakistani court ordered on Wednesday that Facebook should be blocked because of a page inviting people to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Protestors took to the streets in Pakistan on Wednesday to protest against the Facebook page. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the country's telecommunications regulator, said on Thursday that it was also blocking YouTube because of its "sacrilegious" content, after trying all possible avenues to get the two sites to remove material it considered derogatory.

Though Facebook said it would consider making the content inaccessible in Pakistan, it has reservations. "We are very disappointed with the Pakistani Courts' decision to block Facebook without warning, and suspect our users there feel the same way," Facebook said in the statement. YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.

"While some kinds of comments and content, such as criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political ideology may be upsetting for someone, that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion," Facebook said. Facebook said that when dealing with user-generated content on global Web sites, there are occasions where content that is illegal in one country is not, or may even be protected, in another. Most companies approach this issue by preventing certain content from being shown to users in the countries where it is illegal and that is Facebook's approach as well, it added. The PTA said earlier on Thursday that it would welcome the authorities at Facebook and YouTube to contact the PTA for resolving the issue to ensure religious harmony and respect.

The Facebook page that triggered Pakistan's anger increased the number of fans on Thursday to about 88,000. The page is called "Everybody draw Mohammed Day!" and features a number of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

[Al-khiyal]

Pakistan lifts YouTube ban, but keeps Facebook's

LAHORE, Pakistan, May 20, 2010 — The Pakistani government lifted a ban on video-sharing website YouTube after the company took down "blasphemous" footage but retained a temporary ban on social-networking site Facebook imposed earlier this week, the country's telecommunications regulator said Thursday. Access to YouTube, which is owned by Google Inc., was cut earlier in the day but restored after the San Bruno, California-based company had "taken off from their website highly offensive blasphemous footage," the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said, without specifying what content sparked the ban.

Facebook remained blocked after the Lahore High Court ruled on Wednesday that authorities should shut the site down until May 31. The High Court was ruling on a petition brought by the Lahore-based Islamic Lawyers Forum, which was protesting a Facebook page called "Everybody draw Mohammed Day!" The Palo Alto, California-based company hadn't taken down the Facebook page as of late Thursday. On Wednesday, Facebook said the content didn't violate its terms but added it understood it may not be legal in some countries, the Associated Press reported.

The creators of the page, which has more than 90,000 followers, say in a personal-data entry that the site isn't meant to be disrespectful to Muslims but is challenging extremists who have threatened violence against people because of their depiction of Muhammad. These include Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the U.S. animated television series South Park. Depictions of Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims, including moderate followers of the faith. Islam proscribes idolatry and traditionally Islamic art has been based on calligraphy and architecture, not portraiture. A rival Facebook group, "AGAINST 'Everybody draw Mohammed Day!'" had more than 100,000 followers late Thursday.

In Pakistan, public protests have broken out in recent days against the Facebook page. But many Pakistanis have questioned putting a blanket ban on Internet sites. Other nations, including Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, have tried and failed to block offensive pages on YouTube and Facebook in recent years as users can find ways around bans. Pakistan has implemented limited bans on Internet content in the past, including YouTube. Jawaid Abdul Ghani, chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board in Lahore and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Facebook ban could have been limited to specific pages. "You can shut down bits and pieces, not entire highways," Mr. Ghani said.

Pakistan's government had ordered Internet providers to block the page earlier this week as protests mounted. But the lawyers petition called for the entire Facebook site to be blocked in retaliation for allowing the post. The dispute is the latest between non-Muslims who say depicting Islam's prophet is a matter of free speech, and critics who say it is unnecessary provocation. The best-known incident was in 2005 when Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse.

[Al-khiyal]