: A court in Pakistan has ordered authorities to impose a temporary ban on Facebook in the country after a competition featuring caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad appeared on the social networking website.In a case brought by the Islamic Lawyers' Movement, the Lahore high court ordered Pakistan's department of communications block Facebook until May 31st over the "blasphemous" content.
Websites are freely accessible in Pakistan but all interest usage is monitored through a central exchange. It is thought more than 45 million people in the country have Facebook accounts.
The offending Facebook page has reminded Pakistanis of the publication in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 of cartoons of Muhammad, prompting protests across the Islamic world.
The Facebook group called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, which has more than 40,000 members, invites people to draw their own representation of Muhammad on May 20th.
The organisers claim the campaign was launched after criticism the creators of South Park received for portraying Muhammad wearing a bear suit in a recent episode.
"We are not trying to slander the average Muslim," a message on the page said. "It's not a Muslim/Islam hatepage. We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammed depictions, that we're not afraid of them.
"That they can't take away our right to freedom of speech by trying to scare us to silence."
A group set up in opposition to Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, had more than 53,000 members on Wednesday.
Post a Comment
Thank you for your valuable comments and opinion. Please have your comment on this post below.