The Pakistani government temporarily blocked in-country access to
YouTube May 20, a day after barring Facebook, and accused both Websites of
sacrilege, following protests across Pakistan
in reaction to a Facebook group titled, "Everybody Draw Mohammed
Day!"
That Facebook group asked users to draw and submit images of the Prophet
Muhammad on May 20. "We are not trying to slander the average Muslim, it's
not a Muslim/Islam hate page," the group's moderator wrote. "We
simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of
their Muhammad depictions that we're not afraid of them."
Some 99,754 people had clicked to "Like" the Facebook group by the
afternoon of May 20. In Pakistan,
however, anger over the depictions of the prophet—forbidden by Islamic code—led
to the blocking of not only Facebook, but also YouTube for a few hours.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority cited "growing sacrilegious
contents" as the reason to act against YouTube, according
to the Associated Press, as well as "derogatory material" on both
the video-sharing site and Facebook. By midday
May 20, though, the Wall Street Journal reported that the
ban against YouTube had been lifted, apparently after unspecified offensive
material was removed.
The ban on Facebook will stay in place until May 31, according to a
Pakistani High Court ruling. Reactions within Pakistan seem mixed, according to news reports, with many suggesting
that the specific Facebook group should have been banned instead of the entire
Website; but other opinions range across the spectrum.
"Such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the sentiments of Muslims
around the world and cannot be accepted under the garb of freedom of
expression," Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abdul Basit told the
Associated Press May 20, in reference to the Facebook group.
Facebook's response to the matter seemed cautious.
"While the content does not violate our terms, we do understand it may
not be legal in some countries," the social networking site said in a
statement widely disseminated online. "In cases like this, the approach is
sometimes to restrict certain content from being shown in specific
countries."
Meanwhile, a Facebook group titled, "Against 'Everybody Draw Mohammed
Day!'" had been "Liked" by more than 106,781 people.
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