Pakistan's Internet censorship

[Areesh]

Hi
they ban it or not Face book stinks either way

Exactly... I am getting bore of this FB. Ban it

 

[Hyde]

Yahooooooooooooooo Yahoooooooooooo Yahooooooooooooo

Ban Facebook in Pakistan - so that peoples can spare some more time on Studies rather than chatting with strangers..............

And feel free to share your passwords with me in PM i'll take care of your IDs

 

[Frankenstein]

^^^haha XD

 

[Frankenstein]

Last time Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom took down youtube worldwide. LOL.

Lets see what they do now.

Facebook will suffer the same way but for longer period

 

[SQ8]

They should ban facebook anyway.. waste of valuable time for everyone.

 

[Hyde]

ISPs directed to block Facebook’s blasphemous link
Updated at: 1912 PST, Tuesday, May 18, 2010
ISPs directed to block Facebook’s blasphemous link KARACHI: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to close a Facebook’s link about the competition of the blasphemous caricatures.

A caricature competition is being held on May 20 at a link of the Welcome to Facebook | Facebook under a plot to hurt the millions of Muslims around the world.

The PTA, taking notice of this attempt, has asked the ISPs to ensure the blockage of this particular link of the facebook website.

ISPs directed to block Facebook’s blasphemous link - GEO.tv

 

[Bas_tum_Pak]

Facebook Should be banned. I use Facebook so much , but i am ready to by-cot it.

 

[Bas_tum_Pak]

Update: (3:14 PM – May 18, 2010) We have received confirmation from PTA that directive has been issued to all ISPs for blocking a single URL (of the particular Fan Page). Order was issued by Yawar Yasin, Director Enforcement PTA.

PTCL has confirmed the recipient of the order and said that specific URL is in process of being blocked throughout its network.

Update: (8:24 PM – May 18, 2010) Facebook fan page in question is still opening on various ISPs, however, reports are coming that specific URL is inaccessible on selected ISPs. Complete blackout is expected later tonight.

Source: Propakistani

 

[Peregrine]

Hi
All Muslim states should take this step why only Pakistan.

 

[Hyde]

so is that mean they are banning one URL only?

I was thinking they banned all facebook

 

[mehru]

And how banning the website will effect their health? They do this just to annoy us. Ignore it. Simple as that. They will stop doing this in case of no response. Banning the website is like
"Billi ko dekh key Kabootar ankhen band kar ley"

 

[Comet]

And how banning the website will effect their health? They do this just to annoy us. Ignore it. Simple as that. They will stop doing this in case of no response. Banning the website is like
"Billi ko dekh key Kabootar ankhen band kar ley"

No I do not agree !!!
Its more like you have a dog in the street whom every one(including you) feeds. Lately, the dog has started barking at you. So, you stopped feeding it.

 

[gambit]

Kind of unfair though, we can't abuse their religion where as they can have a crack at ours any time they please.

By saying "Taking a Crack at their religion" I was trying to reciprocate their gesture at them, i.e. Hurting the sentiments of a HUGE community to get even with a microscopic minority.

I was not planning to or am ever going to try such a shameful act.

Who says you cannot insult Christianity in the same manner?

Piss Christ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Piss Christ is a 1987 photograph by photographer Andres Serrano. It depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. The piece was a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition,[1] which is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, a United States Government agency that offers support and funding for artistic projects.

Please note the source of money that funded this so-called 'art' piece.

So if the US government allocated some money supposedly to promote artistic expressions and some of that money was spent on an 'artist' who created an expression that insulted Christians worldwide, pray tell WHO is preventing you from insulting Christianity in the same manner? Whether you approve or not, when the Taliban blew up those old Buddhist statues, that is certainly 'taking a crack' at another religion, right? If you want to draw a line that you do not cross, make that line physical assaults on persons, then by all means be as offensive as you want at symbols. Mr. Andres Serrano did and he was not harmed in anyway.

Andres Serrano - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Serrano is from a half Honduran, half Afro-Cuban background and was raised a strict Roman Catholic.

The Vatican did not send a 'hit squad' to take out Mr. Serrano. Or do you think the Papacy should have taken a Taliban-like attitude, especially when Serrano is a Catholic? So do tell the readers WHO is preventing you from insulting Christianity?

 

[Hyde]

Ignore the Trolls - THREAD CLOSED

 

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

Intended Insults: Unintended Consequences

By Khalid Baig

On 31 January, Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, published an open letter to Muslims saying he was sorry that Muslims took offence from the cartoons (which his cultural editor had commissioned for the express purpose of causing offence). In that caricature of an apology he did not admit that the paper had done anything wrong. Rather he blamed the Muslims' poor understanding of the Danish culture for their getting so upset. Then he wondered, as did many media pundits, why Muslims were not buying his apology.

He also said in a separate comment that had he known the extent of Muslim anger, he would not have published those cartoons. Since then the same cartoons have been reproduced by one newspaper after another in Europe. How could these "especially commissioned works of art" be reproduced by other papers? Only if Jyllands-Posten, the original copyright holder, gave them permission to do so. That it should continue to let others reprint these despicable cartoons, while claiming that it had expressed its regret, is only fitting in a drama that continues to reveal the depths of hypocrisy in which Europe is mired today.

In a different setting, Jan Lund, the paper's foreign editor was more open. In his Guardian interview he said. "We apologised for hurting the feelings of a lot of Muslims in this. But we don't apologise for printing the cartoons." (Translation: I am sorry your father was killed. But I am not sorry for firing at him.)

And in the theatre of the absurd, the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, offered his own wise counsel. Even as the offending cartoons continued to be reprinted, he urged Muslims to accept the publisher's apology (which was never offered) and forget everything. "What is important is that the newspaper that initially published the cartoons has apologized, and I would urge my Muslim friends to accept the apology, to accept it in the name of Allah the Merciful, and let's move on."

It all started with a shrewdly prepared script. Jyllands-Posten would publish deeply offensive cartoons of Islam's holiest person, the Prophet Muhammad |(Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam). If Muslims protested or tried to discuss it, they would be ignored. If the protests grew louder, that would be even better. They would gleefully present the images of the deeply hurt protesters from around the Muslim world, without ever explaining what made them feel so hurt, so the audiences could easily draw the conclusions about these "extremists and fanatics." That would fit in nicely with the current narrative about Islam and terrorism. In either case they would be winning.

And so it began. Stunned Muslims called the editor for a meeting and were refused. When ambassadors from twelve Muslim countries tried to arrange a meeting with the prime minister, he also refused to meet them, saying the government had nothing to do with the regulation of the media. This was a lie, but in this holy campaign that did not matter. Both did find the occasion to lecture the complaining Muslims on the virtues of democracy. Obviously there was no place for a dialog in their "democracy." Democracy meant only one thing: their unending right to insult Islam and Muslims and the unending obligation of Muslims to submit to that.

Then something unexpected happened. People in the Muslim world decided to take some action beyond protests. They decided to refuse to buy any products from Denmark. With just one company, Arla Foods, facing losses of 1.8 million dollars a day, the scene changed. That is when the newspaper and the government issued half-hearted and disingenuous regrets.

Islam Teaches Decency and Dignity

However, the media machine has framed it as a clash between Islam and the cherished European values of freedom of expression.

It is true that Islam teaches decency and prohibits provoking followers of other religions. It teaches that we are responsible for every word we utter and will have to account for it in the Hereafter (Al-Qur'an, 50:18). The prophet Muhammad (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam)said: "Anyone who believes in Allah and the Last Day should either say something good or keep quiet." Muslims revere all the Prophets of God, from Adam to Noah, to Abraham to Moses and Jesus (peace and blessing on them all), and finally, Prophet Muhammad (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam). While Muslims welcome debates with other religions, they want to make sure it is a civilized debate. No ridicule, no insults. They are even prohibited from using bad words about the false gods of other religions, meant only to hurt the feelings of their followers. (Al-Qur'an, 6:108). Obviously it does not recognize the endless freedom to insult.

One will be hard pressed to find comparable teachings in the Western world.

It is not that Europe is totally unaware of the idea of responsibility that should limit the freedom of expression. In every European country there are laws restricting the freedom of expression. There are laws regarding libel, hate-speech, invasion of privacy, protection of national secrets, blasphemy, and anti-Semitism. However there is a fundamental difference between Islam and the West. In Islam the laws are based on eternal principles as laid down in the Qur'an and the teachings of the holy Prophet (Sallaho Alaihe Wassallam). In the West, on the other hand, the laws and policies are a result of compromises between competing interests. Stated principles provide a veneer but not the foundation. For example U.K. had a law against blasphemy but when Muslims tried to invoke it against the blasphemy perpetrated by the Satanic Verses in 1989, they were told that the law protected only Christianity, not Islam. What is the moral principle here? Why curbing insults against Christianity is a proper limitation of the freedom of expression but curbing those against other religions is not? Because underlying the law is not a moral principle but a compromise between Christian and secular forces.

This can take very interesting forms. Thus, on the one hand even objective inquiry into the history (of the Holocaust) is banned and people presenting an alternative view of history are sent to prison without anyone remembering freedom of expression, and on the other the filthiest of insults are permitted—even encouraged—against Islam. Very principled indeed!

The implementation of the laws follows the same "principled" approach. Thus, Denmark has laws regarding blasphemy as well as racism. Both of these laws have been violated in the current case, the assertion of the newspaper that it broke no laws, notwithstanding. Section 266b of the Danish Criminal Code provides:

Any person who, publicly or with the intention of wider dissemination, makes a statement or imparts other information by which a group of people are threatened, insulted or degraded on account of their race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion, or sexual inclination shall be liable to a fine or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding 2 years.

And its section 140, which deals with blasphemy, reads:

Those who publicly mock or insult the doctrines or worship of any religious community that is legal in this country, will be punished by a fine or incarceration for up to 4 month.

Similarly section 142 of the Norwegian Penal Code provides for punishment for any person "who publicly insults or in an offensive manner shows contempt for any religious creed...or for the doctrines or worship of any religious community lawfully existing here."

That these laws provided no protection to the Muslims, highlights the fact that despite their sizable populations, the Muslims carry no political weight in the European democracies.

Hence the importance of the economic boycott started by the grassroots in the Muslim countries.

The expressed worry of the pundits in Europe is that the Muslim do not understand their societies; their real worry is that the Muslims have begun to understand how these societies really work. The Muslims are realizing that if they want to get any rights and respect there, they will have to show their weight. The boycott of products from offending countries is a result of that realization and it is exactly the kind of step that, if continued patiently, can help Europe deal with its arrogance and Islamophobia. Europe could then see that treating Islam and Muslims with respect is a good policy. And in a land where honesty is the best policy (not principle but policy), that is the best one can hope for.