Lahore High Court orders Facebook blocked till the 31st of May

Following hot in the footsteps of the controversial Draw Mohammed Day, Lahore High Court has issued orders to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block facebook up till the 31st of May on an petition lodged by Islamic Lawyers Movement on Tuesday

Daily Times: Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority secretary to reply until Wednesday (today), on a petition seeking a ban on Facebook, which is holding a competition of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Islamic Lawyers Movement filed the petition through Chaudhry Zulfiqar advocate, who stated that a competition was announced on Facebook on April 20 which would continue until May 20, asking all the members of the website to create their caricatures to participate in the competition

Tribune reports that PTA urged the court to only ban those particular pages showing the offensive drawings. It is said PTA still awaits the orders when they will be handed down from the Ministry of IT, after which a nationwide ban will go into effect on facebook.com

I believe this is an overkill on an issue that could have been handled easily by placing a filter/block on the particular offending Draw Mohammed Day Facebook page URL. It must also be noted that the Draw Mohammed Day campaign has registered an official website which is no where mentioned within the petition or the court judgment and remains freely accessible. Blocking a website with the hope that the evil curse shall disappear is counterproductive and only draws more attention to the issue.

In 2006 Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry ordered the PTA to block 12 website on a petition filed by Dr. Mohammed Imram Uppal which resulted in the blocking of 10 million blogs hosted on blogspot.com, at that time PTA did not have the ability to block a particular URL and the filters that it had installed on the Hubs catered for only filtering out IP level blocks which forced PTA to block the blogspot.com IP and hence all the blogs located on its sub-domains were rendered blacklisted for Pakistani, this continue for a good 18 months until Google upgraded its servers and changed the IP, PTA never reacted hence forth. Since a good two years PTA has some very high end cutting edge technology and they are able to block any URL on the internet, to youtube videos being blocked at the whims of politicians and even some Anti-Pakistan propaganda that the government may deem unhealthy for Pakistanis.

Blocking the entire facebook, that too for a good 11 days until the 31st of May is mind boggling, it would render only about 2 millions Pakistanis hungry for their daily dose of social networking, but it sends a wrong message to the world.

While I may halfheartedly agree with a particular ban on the offending Draw Mohammed Day page, but I must condemn the across the board ban by Lahore High Court, it does little to solve the problem, we as peaceful Pakistanis were lobbying to force Facebook to block the groups activities, our outreach was peaceful and with a definite commitment we had condemned this issue to such a strong degree that we might have possibly been on the verge of a break through, to be honest no one from the Muslim world was so emotionally charged lobbying against this group as we were here in Pakistan, now they have a free reign to celebrate the Draw Mohammed Day. to have won, while our government simply forced us to keep our eye closed.

Why should the people of Pakistan suffer for an action committed elsewhere, it may have better been to order a Pakistani lawyer to represent the people of Pakistan filing a lawsuit in the jurisdiction of Facebook and accuse them to having violated their own terms of service listed on their own website. It may have taught them a lesson to not repeat such a mistake again. Little good this ban shall do now in Pakistan.


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80 responses to “Lahore High Court orders Facebook blocked till the 31st of May”

  1. Noor Avatar
    Noor

    hello……oh thnk god again facbook getting start on 31st may…..actually i cnt liv without facebook i was trying to kill myself without facebook seriously………thnk youuu…..i love facebook……..

    1. somaiyah Avatar
      somaiyah

      oh..thts gr8 that facebook is opening on 31 may becaz i just love facebook but i also hate it becoz it have insulted us..

  2. Asad Avatar
    Asad

    I wish facebook will block forever in pakistan

  3. Saniya Avatar
    Saniya

    enjoy this!

    facebook faces some tough time.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10128476.st

  4. Arsalan Khan Avatar
    Arsalan Khan

    I wish to permenent block facebook for pakistan…..

    HATE….Bloody Bustareds

  5. Rasheed Avatar
    Rasheed

    i agree this the face book website permanently blocked in Pakistan and also in Muslim countries. if we are Muslims we will do this. but Muslims, in this time not known that what is Islam.every Muslim use the Islam about himself.he do not know about the judgment day. but ALLAH better knows.

  6. kumail Avatar
    kumail

    WTF

    y shud v suffer while da maker ov da F/U/K/I/N GRUP SPREADS IT

    WHEN FACEBOOK REOPENS IM GONNA SEND DAT PERSON A STRONG MESSEGE.ILL SAVE HIS PIC ND MAKE POOP OUT OV DA S/H/I/T

  7. anitacamphor Avatar
    anitacamphor

    i agree with GOX, THIS IS WHAT I HAD BEEN WAILING ABOUT ALL MY LIFE. ITS PAINFUL AS TO HOW EACH DAY WE LEARN OF THEIR HYPOCRISY ,DEFAMING ISLAM, NOT EVEN IN THE HOMELAD BUT THROUGH OUT THE WORLD.SHAME ON THEM .ALLAH CURSE BE UPON THEM.

  8. anitacamphor Avatar
    anitacamphor

    NOOR MY KIDS FEEL SAME AS YOU. SO MUCH SO THAT THEY HAVE STARTED HATING THEIR OWN COUNTRY, AND THESE TAIKAIDAR'S OF ISLAM. AND MY HEART LOST ITS BEATING WHEN IN ONE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION. I HEARD A KID SAY. " THE JEWS HAVE MADE CARTOONS OF OUR PROPHET,I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE PROPHET , I WOULD WANT TO SEE THE CARTOON SO I KNOW HOW HE LOOKED LIKE.

    ( IT WAS SAID IN URDU BY HIM,). NAUZIBILLAH.

    I JUST WANT TO TELL THESE SO CALLED MUSALMANS. AS THEY CAN NEVER BE MOMIN, PLZ DONT DESTROY OUR UPCOMING GENERATION WE WORK VERY HARD TO AWARE THEM OF THE TRUTH OF ISLAM. LOOK WHAT HAVE U DONE BY RETALITING NEGATIVELY. ALL THEIR LIVES THEY WILL TAKE THOSE CARICATURES TO BE THAT OF THE PROPHET ,PBUH. AND NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE DRAWN BY THE KAFIRS. BUT MORE CAUSE THE HEAD OF KAFIRS REACTED SO NEGATIVE AS TO CONFIRM THOSE CARICATURES TO BE EXACTLY OF THE PROPHET.

    THEY HAD BEEN WRITING ABOUT ISLAM DEPICTING IT A FALSE RELIGION FOR LONG ON FACEBOOK, AND WE HAD BEEN CONFRONTING THEM PROVIDING THEM THE TRUTH OF ISLAM, WHY NOT THEN FACEBOOK GOT BANNED. WHY NOW ? SHOULD I TELL WHY? CAUSE THE SO CALLED MUSALMAN'S ARE NOT EQUIPPED WITH THE TRUTH OF ISLAM, AND THEY DONT HAVE THE GUTS TO REPLY THEM WITH PEACE AND AWARING THEM TO THE EXACT TEACHINGS. BUT THIS TIME THE ILLITERATES UNDERSTOOD THE SKETCHES, AND THEY KICKED UP THE ROW, AFFIRMING THOSE SKETCHES TO BE OF PROPHET MUHAMMAD. P.B U.H. ( NAUZIBILLAH). I PROTEST THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE HANGED TO DEATH. I ASK MY VERY LITERATE JUDJES , WHAT PROOF HAVE U GOT? THAT THEY TRULY ARE SKETCHES OF HIM.HAS ANY ONE GOT A PROOF? HAS ANYONE EVER WITNESSED THE PROPHET PHYSICALLY. OH YOU IGNORANT ONES, JESUS, SON OF MARY HAS IMAGES DONE BY THEM, COULD ALLAH NOT STOP IT. THE ONLY PERSON THAT NEVER HAD ANY IMAGE IN THIS WORLD IS OUR ONE HOLY PROPHET. AND THAT BECAUSE ALLAH NEVER ALLOWED IT.

    ARE THESE PEOPLE ABOVE ALLAH, HAD THEY BEEN WITH THE PROPHET IN HIS TIMES? I GUESS THE JUDJE WAS,LOL. WHATS THE USE OF ALL THOSE DEGREES, WHICH COULD NOT AWARE YOU OF THE DIVINITY OF YOUR PROPHET. WOE TO YOU. ALLAH CURSE BE UPON YOU. AMEEN.YAZID AUR USS KI AL AULAD PUR LANUTH BAISHUMAR.

  9. Komal Avatar
    Komal

    I know what facebok did was wrong and against our religion

    but the government shouldn't have banned it……

    I seriously can't live without facebook….

    Am waiting for 31st May…….

  10. sadia Avatar
    sadia

    look! we Pakistanis dont find facebook so important. its nothing so special that we cant live without it. but still if someone is sensitive to a decesion that obstacles there social networking they can join several other social networking sites like myspace or orkut or any other.

    i am unable to understand that why the hell you people are too crazy to use facebook? is it more special than our relegion.

    and if you talk about rape or any other rates. just consider that the rates are below a number of counteries and even if they were'nt its not related to it.

  11. sadia Avatar
    sadia

    even after 31st may i swear i will never use facebook HATE facebook.

  12. Rehan Muhammad Rafiq Avatar

    Leave 'FACEBOOK'

    &

    Join 'PEACEBOOK' having strong policies regarding the matter of 'Religion'

    http://www.peacebook.spruz.com

    Register yourself there & share the link with your friends.

  13. Muhammad Mustafa Avatar
    Muhammad Mustafa

    facebook should be blocked forever.No justification to unblock such a website which has hurt 100000000000000000,s of people.