Islamabad, May 23: Pakistani authorities have blocked 800 URLs that feature "blasphemous" and "sacrilegious" content in the wake of the ban on Facebook and YouTube, a representative of the country's association of internet service providers said.
Acting on an order of the Lahore High Court, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority initially banned popular social networking website Facebook over a page featuring a contest for "blasphemous" cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.
The ban was later extended YouTube and other links. The move also affected access to Wikipedia and Twitter, internet users said.
"So far, two sites and about 800 URLs have been blocked to prevent access to blasphemous and sacrilegious content," Wahaj-us-Siraj, a spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan said.
URL or Uniform Resource Locator is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.
Siraj said that since the author of the page on Facebook featuring the blasphemous cartoons had been removed, the PTA "probably needs to go back to the Lahore High Court, and then the court could lift the ban".
The final decision in such matters would have to be made by the PTA, he said. PTA spokesman Khurram Mehran said the authority would lift the ban only after receiving instructions from the government.
The competition for the caricatures triggered angry protests in Pakistan though internet users in bigger cities expressed disappointment at the blanket ban on popular websites.
Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and Muslims all over the world staged angry protests over the publication of satirical cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.
Pakistan briefly banned YouTube in February 2008 over blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Islamabad, May 21: After blocking Facebook and Youtube, Pakistani authorities today further widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to popular social networking website Twitter.
Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site.
When users tried to log into site, there browsers displayed a message that said "this site is restricted."
Over the past two days, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has blocked websites like Facebook and Youtube, citing "sacrilegious contents" on the websites as the reason for the action.
The crackdown began after the Lahore High Court issued an order for blocking Facebook over a page hosting a contest for blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammad.
Over 450 URLs have been blocked so far by the authorities.
Islamabad, May 22: After attracting the ire of thousands of Islamic protesters and narrowly avoiding a fatwa, Facebook has today shut down a page titled 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'.
The removal of the page sparked cries of censorship but Facebook responded saying that the page had suffered from "a small technical issue" and that they believed Facebook was a a place "where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others."
Depictions of Mohammed are prohibited in the Islamic faith and the page, which encouraged others to send in their drawings, provoked Muslim groups worldwide.
Although it had gained more than 80,000 followers, the page disappeared from Facebook only for it to reappear later on Thursday. A search for the page on Friday afternoon redirected users back to their own Facebook home page and the only results yielded by typing in the search term in Facebook were opposing pages.
One of the main Facebook pages opposing the page, titled Against "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" posted a "congratulations" status update but called on its 120,000 supporters to continue similar action against other pages mocking the prophet.
Facebook access was blocked without warning in Pakistan in reaction to the page. "We are very disappointed with the Pakistani Courts' decision to block Facebook without warning, and suspect our users there feel the same way," a Facebook read. "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, YouTube, Flickr Banned In Pakistan, A reliable source, who is in direct contact with Secretary MoIT, told HumAyuN.Pk that ministry has issued the directive to PTA to ban said blasphemous content in the country. PTA is Going to Ban FaceBook in Pakistan, After clear discrimination of Facebook for not banning blasphemous Fan Page, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has directed PTA to ban Facebook in Pakistan, told us sources close to authority. It is yet to be ascertained if the whole Facebook will be banned or just a single URL will be filtered. In both the situations, step is inline with thousands of Facebook users and according to their urge of boycotting Facebook on May 20th.
Ministry of Information Technology directs PTA for banning any URL or whole of website in case of any inappropriate content available on it. Despite thousands of requests, Facebook didn’t put this page down even it violated Facebook’s own terms of services. It merits mentioning here that a Fan Page on Facebook is encouraging its members to draw Prophet Mohammad’s drawings (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa-aal-hi-Wasallam).
PTA issued to all ISPs for blocking a single URL (of the particular Fan Page). Order was issued by Yawar Yasin, Director Enforcement PTA. PTCL has confirmed the recipient of the order and said that specific URL is in process of being blocked throughout its network.
By not using facebook on 18,19 n 20May, it wil make a loss of 2.4$ per person, if all muslim users boycot face bok for 3 days it wil make a loss of 16650000000$.Forward as much as u can..!
The most breaking yet shocking news for all of the Pakistani Internet users is that YouTube & Flicker has been banned in Pakistan. This came to me when I was about to open and watch a YouTube video on Firefox but instead it kept returning me the “This Site is Restricted ” This is not the first time that something like this has happened in Pakistan. Last time Blogger.com was blocked as some of the blogs on Blogger were targeting the religious and cultural values of Muslims Now Again is banned Due to facebook Hurting religious and cultural values of Muslims
YouTube, Facebook Banned In Pakistan Till 31st May 2010, YouTube, Facebook Banned In Pakistan Till 31st May, YouTube, Facebook Banned In Pakistan
