In other news, Pakistan apparently blocked access to Facebook this Wednesday because of "an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad." I've pasted the first page of the article below for your reading pleasure. Please note the particularly scary highlighted quote:
Quote:
SLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube indefinitely in a bid to contain “blasphemous” material, officials said on Thursday.
The blockade came after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) directed Internet service providers to stop access to social network site Facebook indefinitely on Wednesday because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad.
Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by Muslims.
Wahaj-us-Siraj, the CEO of Nayatel, an Internet service provider, said the PTA issued an order late on Wednesday seeking an “immediate” block of YouTube.
“It was a serious instruction as they wanted us to do it quickly and let them know after that,” he told Reuters.
YouTube was also blocked in the Muslim country in 2007 for about a year for what it called un-Islamic videos.
A Foreign Office spokesman condemned the publication of caricatures of the Muslim prophet on Facebook and urged countries to “address the issue” which he said was an “extremely sensitive and emotional matter for Muslims.”
“Such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the sentiments of Muslims around the world and can not be accepted under the garb of freedom of expression,” the spokesman, Abdul Basit, told a weekly briefing.
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Source: Wired
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