Facebook and YouTube banned in Pakistan

Facebook, the largest social networking site in the world, has been banned in Pakistan till 31st May, 2010 due to the insult of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Islam following the order of the Lahore High Court on Wednesday 19th May, 2010.
The court directed the PTA (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) to use all measures to ban this site in Pakistan. Following the court’s order, PTA instantly ordered all the Internet Service Providers in the country to immediately ban Facebook. PTA has also blocked the famous video sharing website ‘YouTube’ due to the blasphemous material being shown on the site.
An online competition on Facebook has been created and promoted under the title of ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ inviting people to send in caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on May 20th.

The sketches or caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and representation of any Prophet is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous in Islam. The Muslims came out on the roads in protest all over the country and demanded the government to put a ban on the site. The court took notice and immediately ordered to block ‘Facebook’ in Pakistan on Wednesday. The government took serious and immediate action on the blocking ‘YouTube’ as well after some sacrilegious caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) were transferred from Facebook to YouTube.
Earlier in 2005, the Danish newspapers had published the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
The California-based social networking site, ‘Facebook’ has been set-up on the slogan of ‘Freedom of Speech’. But freedom of speech does not mean to hurt anybody’s feelings or insult anybody’s religion or religious personalities rather they must be respected.

Protest