According to the Associated Press, Pakistan leaders are cracking down on ‘blasphemous content’:
Pakistan will monitor seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, to block anti-Islamic links and content, an official said Friday. Seventeen lesser-known sites are being blocked outright for alleged blasphemous material.
The moves follow Pakistan’s temporary ban imposed on Facebook in May that drew both praise and condemnation in a country that has long struggled to figure out how strict a version of Islam it should follow.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority spokesman Khurram Mehran commented, “If any particular link with offensive content appears on these websites, the (link) shall be blocked immediately without disturbing the main website.” Mehran pointed specifically to islamexposed.blogspot.com, which is a blog created through Google’s Blogger service. That site features postings with headlines such as “Islam: The Ultimate Hypocrisy” and links to anti-Islam online petitions.
TechGadgetsWeb.com has more details about the ‘ban’:
Lahore High Court in Pakistan has directed a ban order on nine leading websites which has almost made the Pakistanis isolated from the net world. The latest ban extends to Google, Yahoo and Hotmail, MSN, YouTube, Bing and Amazon. The main complain against these websites were posting blasphemous materials which offended the sentiments of the Pakistani citizens. The court orders Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block these nine websites as soon as possible.
BBC reports:
In May, Pakistan banned access to Facebook after the social network hosted a “blasphemous” competition to draw the prophet Muhammad…
…The ban on Facebook was lifted after about two weeks, when the site blocked access to the page, called Everybody Draw Muhammad.
The Draw Muhammad page on Facebook sparked protests in Pakistan
Facebook itself is not on the new list of websites to be monitored. A number of links from YouTube will be blocked but not the main site itself.
Tha Australian sheds a little more light on the situation:
Judge Mazhar Iqbal had previously asked the government to block the websites due to “material against the fundamental principles of Islam and its preaching,” according to a copy of the judgment obtained by AFP.
“The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has received orders from the ministry of information technology to monitor these websites, which are being implemented,” a spokesman for the authority said.
Many suspect that the distribution of South Park episodes over YouTube depicting the characters making fun of Islamic rules about Muhammad may also have led to more emphasis on censoring search results and specific sites.
Tags: censorship, Google, Islam. Pakistan, muhammad, YouTube faceBook