[Reader-list] Fwd: [PR] Is FaceBook Down Tonight?

Wed May 19 19:07:35 IST 2010

another view from pk

http://teeth.com.pk/blog/2010/05/19/lahore-high-court-facebook-blocked

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 6:16 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yasir ,
>
> Just stumbled upon a blog ....so thought of sharing it with readers .
> Others , please note that I am not the athor of this blog...
>
> Source : http://umairkazi.wordpress.com/
>
> Congratulations, Lahore High Court. You just sent Pakistan back
> hundreds of years.
>
> To counter the “Draw Muhammad Day” group/event on popular social
> networking site Facebook, the Lahore High Court has ordered the
> website to be banned till May 31 2010, at the petition of an “Islamic”
> forum of lawyers. Here’s what I’m wondering:
>
> By this logic, Pakistani authorities should ban every immoral thing on
> the internet. Bring in the moral police!
> Why ban facebook altogether for the actions of a member? Is the
> foreign ministry also thinking of banning USA altogether because the
> alleged initiator of this movement lives in Seattle?
> Unless I am overcome by curiosity and actively search for the page and
> the pictures, how would my life change? The event is opt-in, not
> opt-out.
> Consistency is necessary. Now unless we block Facebook for every “Fuck
> (insert religious concept here)” group, we’re practicing selective
> justice.
> You’re restricting Pakistanis from accessing 400,000,000 Facebook
> users. The world is moving towards a global village and you’re locking
> us out. Might as well live in a cave.
> Don’t play favorites! Block Google too, they’ll probably list the
> offensive images too.
> Now we can never complain about being labelled terrorists because some
> of us choose that path. If all of Facebook is evil because some
> facebook users are holding this event, then all of Pakistan is evil
> because some of our people like to blow up stuff.
> Nobody gives a shit about a tiny facebook group. People do, however,
> sit up and take notice when governments ban stuff on the internet. You
> just made the Hate a lot louder than it would’ve been otherwise.
> Now every time a punk wants to make a big fuss in the international
> arena he can just make a similar page and wait for the Pakistani
> government to react.
> I could be wrong about all this.
> I still think we should live and let live. The world is tough,
> confusing, and chaotic. Closing your eyes won’t make the ugliness go
> away.
>
> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 6:32 PM, يا سر ~ ɹısɐʎ <yasir.media at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > it was working during the last hour on my service: wateen, but not any
> more
> >  :)
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Claude Almansi <
> claude.almansi at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> >> Now also reported on
> >> <
> >>
> http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1260582/Pakistan-court-orders-block-of-Facebook
> >> >,
> >> via Reuters:
> >>
> >> "A Pakistani court ordered the government on Wednesday to block
> >> Facebook after press reports of a competition being held to draw the
> >> Prophet Mohammad, a lawyer said.
> >>
> >> Pakistani media recently reported that a caricature competition is
> >> being held on May 20 about Mohammad on Facebook.
> >>
> >> "The court has ordered the government to immediately block Facebook
> >> until May 31 because of this blasphemous competition," Azhar Siddique,
> >> a representative of the Islamic Lawyers Forum who filed a petition in
> >> the Lahore High Court, told Reuters.
> >>
> >> "The court has also ordered the foreign ministry to investigate why
> >> such a competition is being held."
> >>
> >> A spokesman for the official telecommunications watchdog, Pakistan
> >> Telecommunication Authority, said the government on Tuesday ordered
> >> Internet service providers to block websites showing these
> >> caricatures, but that they had not received the court orders as yet.
> >>
> >> Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and
> >> blasphemous by Muslims.
> >>
> >> But some warned the court's response could backfire.
> >>
> >> "Blocking the entire website would anger users, especially young and
> >> adults, because the social networking website is so popular among them
> >> and they spend most of their time on it," said the CEO of Nayatel,
> >> Wahaj-us-Siraj.
> >>
> >> "Basically, our judges aren't technically sound. They have just
> >> ordered it, but it should have been done in a better way by just
> >> blocking a particular URL or link."
> >>
> >> "The PTA's decision (to block the URL) was rational and good, but
> >> let's see how they will implement the court decision."
> >>
> >> On the information page on Facebook for the contest -- which was still
> >> visible on Wednesday -- the organizers described it as a "snarky"
> >> response to Muslim bloggers who "warned" the creators of the Comedy
> >> Central television show "South Park" over a recent depiction of the
> >> Prophet in a bear suit.
> >>
> >> "We are not trying to slander the average Muslim," the Facebook page
> >> creators wrote. "We simply want to show the extremists that threaten
> >> to harm people because of their Mohammad depictions that we're not
> >> afraid of them. That they can't take away our right to freedom of
> >> speech by trying to scare us into silence."
> >>
> >> Publications of similar cartoons in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked
> >> deadly protests in Muslim countries. Around 50 people were killed
> >> during violent protests in Muslim countries in 2006 over the cartoons,
> >> five of them in Pakistan.
> >>
> >> Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Denmark's
> >> embassy in Islamabad in 2008, killing six people, saying it was in
> >> revenge for publication of caricatures."
> >>
> >> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Awab Alvi <drawab at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >>
> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\05\19\story_19-5-2010_pg13_6<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C05%5C19%5Cstory_19-5-2010_pg13_6>
> <
> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C05%5C19%5Cstory_19-5-2010_pg13_6
> >
> >> >
> >> > LHC issues notice to PTA on plea to ban Facebook
> >> >
> >> > LAHORE: Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court on
> Tuesday
> >> > issued notice to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority secretary to
> >> reply
> >> > until Wednesday (today), on a petition seeking a ban on Facebook,
> which
> >> is
> >> > holding a competition of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
> Islamic
> >> > Lawyers Movement filed the petition through Chaudhry Zulfiqar
> advocate,
> >> who
> >> > stated that a competition was announced on Facebook on April 20 which
> >> would
> >> > continue until May 20, asking all the members of the website to create
> >> their
> >> > caricatures to participate in the competition. Zulfiqar said under the
> >> law
> >> > no practice against Islam could be allowed in the country. He told the
> >> court
> >> > that the website, having various features against the injunctions of
> >> Islam,
> >> > is banned in various countries. Zulfiqar submitted that there were 45
> >> > million users of Facebook in Pakistan, adding that the PTA was
> >> responsible
> >> > for its spread in Pakistan. He said the PTA has already blocked
> various
> >> > websites in the country but was reluctant to ban Facebook. He said
> >> students
> >> > and various segments of the society have already started protests in
> the
> >> > country, which could be harmful for the public property. He requested
> the
> >> > court to issue directions to PTA to put an immediate ban on the use of
> >> > Facebook in the Pakistan. staff report
> >> >
> >> > Awab Alvi
> >> >
> >> > Blog: http://teeth.com.pk/blog
> >> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/DrAwab
> >> >
> >>
> >> --
> >> This is the People's Resistance Mailing List
> >>
> >> Send only RELEVANT discussion emails to
> >> PeoplesResistance at googlegroups.com
> >>
> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> >> PeoplesResistance+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com<PeoplesResistance%2Bunsubscribe at googlegroups.com>
> <PeoplesResistance%2Bunsubscribe at googlegroups.com<PeoplesResistance%252Bunsubscribe at googlegroups.com>
> >
> >>
> >> Or visit this group at
> >> http://groups.google.com/group/PeoplesResistance
> >>
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>