LHC Orders PTA to Ban Facebook in Pakistan

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Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday ordered to block Facebook till May 31 which encourages members to draw Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) caricatures.

Justice Ejaz Chaudhry said that the government should record its protest at international level.

Hearing a petition regarding blasphemous page on Facebook, Chaudhry Zulfiqar Advocate said that Facebook hurt the emotions of Muslims with the publication of said page about blasphemous caricatures but the government became a silent spectator.

Deputy Attorney General Naveed Inayat Malim said that PTA has blocked the blasphemous link of Facebook. Director Telecom Mudassar Hussain said that there would be great loss after the complete closure of Facebook. Lawyers and civil society representatives protested the statement of Director Telecom.

The government yesterday had directed the PTA on the orders of LHC to block the blasphemous caricatures link on Facebook. After the directive, the PTA took necessary steps and blocked the link on Facebook.


Update: ISPAK has confirmed that PTA has directed all ISPs to completely ban Facebook till May 31st, 2010.

Update: Micronet sent following email to its customers

Micronet has blocked access to www.facebook.com in compliance with orders of Lahore High Court passed today.

Facebook has been holding a competition to draw caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and has not removed the objectionable hate materials despite thousands of emails from Pakistani facebook community.

This access would remain block till 31 May 2010 or further orders by the Lahore High Court.

Best Regards

Manager
Technical Assistance Center
Micronet Broadband Pvt. Ltd.
Islamabad

Update: 5:44 PM – May 19, 2010

Update: Following is PR from Ministry of IT and Telecom

BLOCKAGE OF FACE BOOK WEBSITE DUE TO PUBLICATION OF PROFANE ANTI ISLAMIC CONTENT ON ITS WEBSITE.

ISLAMABAD: MAY 19, 2010

In compliance with the orders of Honourable Lahore High Court, Lahore, on the Writ Petition No.10392/10, dated the 19th May, 2010, the Ministry of Information Technology has issued a directive to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block the ‘Face Book’ and all other internet links displaying sacrilegious caricatures of the Holy Prophet.

Ministry of IT has also directed the PTA to remain alert and watchful and block all such links displaying the profane caricatures immediately.

Ministry of IT has requested public at large to contact a dedicated Telephone No.0800-5505 and e-mail address: [email protected] , to transmit necessary information, should anything to the effect of objectionable caricature get displayed/propagated at any website.


  • PTA should do what they did to youtube, redirect it to some dummy site – most of the routers in world will see this as fastest path to FB and will redirect all users…. and once complete – PTA can apologize to FB ;) …. I will like it!

      • It worked for YouTube – here is the article…

        http://www.technewsworld.com/story/61821.html?wlc=1274270654

        “The PTA asked Pakistani ISPs to block access to three IP addresses that are associated with YouTube’s site.

        The ISPs could have used one of several methods to block access to the IP addresses, Danny McPherson, chief research officer at network infrastructure security provider Arbor Networks, told TechNewsWorld.

        They could have deployed access-control lists on all their router interfaces leading to those addresses; routed the three IP addresses to a null, the ISP equivalent of a black hole on the network; or basically have all packets that were being sent to or from those three IP addresses automatically discarded by the network.

        The second option requires the ISPs to add static routes to every router in their networks. However, the effect of that is to tell the world that traffic to those three IP addresses should be sent to the ISPs instead of to YouTube.”

  • AWESUM AWESUM! cant believe…. LHC took the BEST action.. i must say this is called UNITY to show our gratitude to our BELOVED BELOVED Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H).

    I cant express my feelings of happiness over this decision. I hope to see FACEBOOK completely banned throughout Pakistan for atleast next 10 days.

    And if they do again in future, we must PERMANENTLY Ban facebook. (yes we can live without Facebook… Facebook TEAM is very proud of its product) but we DITCH such a cheap product whoese owners are ATHIEST and BIASED…

    May Almighty Allah curse them on Day of Judgement.
    Surely Allah is greatest Power. Allah-Akbar!

  • MashAllah… Facebook should be completely banned forever and so is youtube just like in China.

    They are hurting Muslims/

  • Yes this is indeed a good step and I am glad to see my fellow Pakistani Muslims supporting this decision.

    But the government needs to do more. The government should take up this matter further and protest at international level.

  • Facebook completely banned for me. Okara – PTCL Broadband.
    Thanks LHC. Go to hell Facebook.

  • Aamir Bhai why Director Telecom Mudassar Hussain said that there would be great loss after the complete closure of Facebook ????
    Why he is so caring about lost of facebook ?

  • Only in PAKISTAN. We should really completely ban technology in Pakistan and again start living in caves. Like ostrich and pigeons we like to hide our face from realities. Rather than ban a single page the whole of facebook has been banned Subhan Allah.

    • Your children are already around the ban on Facebook, some of them are supporting the atheists in their rights to draw the images. All you are doing is creating a distance between you and your children that may lead to them overthrowing your country, lol.

    • So is a single site the representative of all technology? There are always other options, we don’t have to stick with biased people.
      If you love a stupid site more than your honor that’s fine. But I support the ban and I deactivated my account at exactly 20th of may. I have better things to do than looking at lame pictures all day. I prefer space.com and other educational sites.
      Be liberal but don’t be a supporter of the Kuffar.

  • very gr8 step by LHC…and yes i totaly agree,PTA should do what they did to youtube i.e redirect it to some dummy sites and once complete then after a day or two PTA can revert and do a fake apologize to FB……facebook go to hell

  • Maybe because he also not able to access the site in these 10 days and Many important people miss him there :p

    good step taken by LCH

  • I really appreciate the court’s action, but it would have been really great if a couple hours notice were given to users to remove/deativate their account. More users could have changed their display pic. This way the message given to FB could have been more clear.

    Banning FB will cleary result in lost revenue of local social media advertising agencies, who will eventually contact FB directly to remove the blasphemous pages. This is a good step taken by LHC, but some planning may have resulted in a sharp hit.

  • With great power, comes great responsibility!

    According to me, all social networking sites should apply some limits or make some policies so that no one should be able to write or share anything about anyone’s religion or anyone in history.

    If this is not controlled, then there will be chaos everywhere. We have so much limited life and we are still fighting over religious issues. No one should be able to make such comments or post anything which is a disgrace for others.

    I hope everyone understands and these social networking sites which have become giants in their respective domains should feel the responsibility.

    An outstanding step taken by the government of Pakistan. Facebook is banned by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Let’s hope Facebook realize and remove such events/groups from its site.

    http://ranahammad.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/goodbye-facebook/

  • Shamefully, Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, Sindh and Baluchistan doesn’t seems to care of Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H) and prefer their dear Facebook!

    • buddy people from sindh were posing videos which were praising Prophet Mohammed Saww and debating with that, though it is a gr8 work of panjabis i must say

      • @Ahsan: Don’t put your lameness of mind on others. Why did others not initiated the step? Include those Dear Arabs too now, wondering what made them like facebook so much over their dear Muhammad

  • GReat Great decision this is PAKISTAN ! Long live Pakistan just made me Proud ! GOD BLESS Pakistan! but
    its sad to know that how unilateral FREEDOM OF SPEECH is ” Hey Facebook, RESPECT ethics arent u civilized, arent u amused when ur mom gots banged and rest of internet laughs about it” !

  • Shamefully other provinces didn’t bother to do this!
    Only Punjab was awake enough for that!

  • Amir Bhai, Have a question?

    I can still browse Facebook at my cell phone (Opera Mini 5, UC Web) at Zong GPRS…
    all these work..

    m.facebook.com
    touch.facebook.com
    wwww.facebook.com

    but when I tired all above links at “Mobile Regular Browser (Nokia)” n PC bowers (Opera, Firefox, IE8 n Chrome) they didn’t go browse…

    then why still at mobile? Please inform concerned authorities about it too.

    • Better you first elucidate your inclination first… we ain’t here for fun… our religion is not fun!!!

    • There’re only two religions; The religion of Allah(the only God) and the religion of Lucifer(Iblees)…. Alhumdulillah I am entirely into the religion of Allah

  • Hi guys as you know that Pakistan Government has banned Facebook, which is a very brave and good Action. Now i am going to give you a alternative website’s link, where you can perform almost all those kinds of activities which u were able perform at Facebook. All of you login at http://www.netwatan.com. Its Pakistan’s first ever social networking website and i guess now this is the time when we should support Pakistani Products and services, so that our industry could grow and can reach to the International level, so that it would become easy to voice our objections on different matters like this matter of facebook. Thanks and do loging to Netwatan.

  • woww..amazing…Masha Allah
    thts the wonderful action taken by PTA..
    May Allah guide others as well …Aameen
    Namoos-e-Risalat par Jaan bhi Qurbaan hay!! – Insha Allah!
    em so happyyyyy…cant express my feelings for the ppl who struggled for it…
    May Allah Ta’ala keep us firm & steadfast on the true path -Ilaahi Aameen

  • Very good step , but it is not banned completely , I checked on my Mobile , its working on Mobile , it must be banned on every level.
    Allah bless us all.

  • i think all Muslim countries should take this step for our beloved Prophet.

  • Mobile version and Touch pad version are still working.They must put a ban on subdomains.

  • Sorry to say but Yes , F|_|ck the Facebook

    They dont follow their own Term of Service TOS , its not Freedom of speech , its called Freedom to Hurt !

  • Great…. Pakistani govt ny bohat acha kia ha k block kr di ha facebook aur mery khyl se issy permanent block kr dna chahy.

  • FACEBOOK IS STILL ACCESSIBLE with a super stupid simple trick!! (doesn’t involve any proxies and works from within your normal browser)

    I will not declare it here, but its a shame for our *technical* guys in the gov and ISPs #FAIL

  • i have just sent an email to PTA for the working URL`s..

    one more thing, we just need to find some replacement of FAcebook so that peopple will not go again to FB…i belive this is the golden time…
    any suggession??

  • fb is still accessable through mobiles Dunya News.
    Zong and other mobile companies might have invested on Fb to display their adds so how can we expect deom them to block fb

  • To be honest my eyes are full.Man how on the earth they always insult out Holy Prophet :( ..GOV. we don’t need anything from you..loot us,kill us but please don’t ever ever ever allow anyone to insult our religion and our beloved Prophet and ALLAH

    • O. muslims authorities please block face book permanently.Now they again got courage to have competation to tear quran bc they know muslims will not do nothing. please do it immediatly

  • yes this is very very good decision taken by Lahore High Court, PTA and all other people who supported them to ban facebook :) PAKISTAN ZINDABAD

  • LHC nay bahut acha step leya ha as facebook ko block karwa kay main yahan par aik bat kahna cahhao ga aur yah fact be ha jetnay log facebook ko go 2 hell lekh rahay han jub yah open ho ge tu sub say pahlay yah log he use karain gaay yah sub yahan per dekhawa kar rahay han m sorry 2 say but its 101% fact mujay mari bat say agree karay or na karay

  • Point 7 and 10 in the safety section of the Terms and Conditions (Facebook):

    7. You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

    10. You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.

    Yet they are not going to block/delete the page, You can see the devil inside the creators and management of Facebook:

    A Facebook spokesman told FoxNews.com it has no plans to censor any of the pages associated with the campaign or the counter-campaign, though threats will be removed.

    “Threats of violence and direct statements of hate against particular communities violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and are removed when reported to us,” reads a company statement to FoxNews.com.

    “Facebook is highly self-regulating, and users can and do report content that they find questionable or offensive. Groups that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs — even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some — do not by themselves violate our policies. When a group created to express an opinion devolves into threats or hate speech, we will remove the threatening or hateful comments and may even remove the group itself.”

    The statement continued: “With now more than 400 million people around the world with varying opinions and ideals using Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that are important to them, we sometimes find people discussing and posting about controversial topics.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/19/facebook-fracas-breaks-everybody-draw-mohammad-day/

    I wanna f#*# up those b#*#*%^* badly because of their attitude!

  • We (MUSLIM) did not ever talk about any1’s religion then why these ppl always attack on our religion. Cant they understand “TUMHARE LIYE TUMHARA DEEN MERE LIYE MERA DEEN”. I congratulate all Pakistani authorities who took the step and banned the facebook.

  • people login to your you tube accounts as well and report abuse to all those videos that promote draw day ! it’s another way for not getting it spread

  • For the first time i am proud of pakistani goverment Best this they have every done .. JEETAY RAHOO BADSHAHOO

  • LHC zindabad for giving directive, PTA zindabad for implementation directive.

    Allah ho Akbar, Islam zinda he.

  • Thanks to Courts of Pakistan….

    Just i feel that our courts are on the right way.
    Proud to be a Muslim.

    Proud to be a Pakistani.

    Pakistan Zindabad.
    Quaid-e-Azam Paendabad.

  • the whole team of fb is an A-HOLE!!…!!
    M REALLY REALLY PROUD 2 BE A PAKISTANI!!
    n i congragulate the LHC on der decision!!HATS OFF GUYS!!………ALLAH IS ALL C-ING!!

  • i was addict of facebook but i really appreciate this step, nothing is more than the ALLAH and Rasool Muhammad S.A.W.

  • ye is a good step and we will show that Muslims and Pakis are not Sleeping

  • Today here Youtube Is Also Not opeing when is tryed to open it says

    This Site is Restricted

    why they blocked youtube.com also????

  • Freedom of speech should be there but there are limits to it. One cannot use freedom of speech to hurt beliefs of more than a billion Muslims in the world. Muslims respect beliefs & prophets of all other religions. If others can’t give respect to them atleast they shouldn’t hurt them.

    Its not fair because when someone might say anything against the jews, african americans and gays! then that’s wrong….. but if its against Muslims then its fine? People who deny the holocaust should be shut up because its anti-semetic.. but people who offend muslims are heroes because its freedom of speech?

    Majority of Facebook users are against this page and more than 63,000 users reported to facebook for a ban on it as it is not only blasphemous but also violation of Facebook TOS. Item 3.7 of Facebook TOS says “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence”. Facebook hasn’t removed the page, giving its indirect support for the cause.

    Facebook is earning through advertisement shown to the visitors. Lose in visitors means lose in earnings. People who love peace & have respect for others should de-activate their facebook account & should file a petition in their local courts to get BAN facebook in their region until Facebook removes the blasphemy page. Pakistan’s court has taken a very good step by putting a BAN on facebook other countries should also follow it. This is the best & peaceful way of protest.

  • hurmaat-e-rasool pa jan bhi qurban hain ALLAH HO AKBAR lahore court nay bohat hi neek kam kiya hain ab government ki zimadari hain thori gherat kare or ayse tamam mumalik ka sifarti boycott karen q ka hum hazrat MUHAMMAD s.a.w.w ka nam pa jan bhi qurban kar saktain hain to kisi ghusthak-e-rasool ko chorna bhi humain manzoor nahi

  • La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah

    Well Don PTA, Specially Chief Justice of Lahore High Court Mr. Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif & Lawyers who put the petition.

    We love our Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘Alaihi Wa Sallam), we are proud of that.

    Ghulam-e-Rasool Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Main Maut Bhi Qabool Hai. Jo Ho Na Ishq-e-Mustafa Tu Zindagi Fazool Hai

    Please also take notice and ban all Porn sites in Pakistan.

  • facebook ki to band baja di pakistani bhaiyo ne..HELL TO FACEBOOK
    Thanks to amir bhai for such a great website propakistani.

  • Facebook working for an agenda,,, facebook working for agencies, data provision, if u read facebook terms and condition, you will know, your all data, you deleted or present is facebook property and they can use it,, facebook support the fake groups to support ideas,, I hate it,,plezzzz value your time and void facebookk,,

  • shame on facebook team for supporting such ideas which hurt others, shame facebook team

  • very Appriciatable….ALLAH Bless THose who taken dis step…N Band forever…

  • Dear admin can u tell me about the loss beared by facebook till now from last two days when it was blocked in pakistan
    Thnx..

  • this website http://www.netwatan.com is greeatttt.. i’ve invited all my firndsss… now we have our own sitee… i am very happy..
    its also working n designs n everything is also great… promote ittt as much as u can.. so dat we can stay in touch with our friends n family ..

  • Athar:

    I guess you’ve been brought under a Non Muslim atmosphere. Banning facebook, youtube and wikipedia doesnt mean Pakistanis started living in caves. If you’re so social and love to stay on facebook molesting young girls and parting in childish silliest activities like teenage girls, we’ll appreciate you leave the country and move to any advance country.

    Facebook should be banned forever, Youtube should be banned because it contains blasphemous videos, Wikipedia should be banned because it contains biased information on Muslims. Go to wikipedia and look for the article Draw Mohammed and even if those contents dont enrage you, then you should change your name to Sidharth or Krishna.

    You should be very careful about religious comments.

  • Facebook should be banned forever due to its discriminatory behaviour.

    They should be given no chance at all.

    I have more respect for PTA, thanks a lot PTA, keep it up. We all are with you, except for some scums.

  • The morons at PTA completly banned operas ip and now I can’t access a single website thru opera mini. :(

  • ASlaam-O-Alaikum
    Masha’Allah our protest really did pay off the cartoonist who organised this whole unspeakable event has apologized, Facebook is ban, Pakistanis are in rage !
    But my friends this isnt the best that we could do.. WE could do more! Alhumdulilah Pakistan is a nuclear state our Govt. should demand the Western world to handover these cuplrits to us!! so that they may face our courts and they all should be warn that we have made ourself nuclear Arms capable state and we know how to use them aswell if such activities took place in future we wouldnt have any choice then to launch an attack on whatever piece of land who dare to provoke us by humiliating our Beloved Prophet (S.A.W) to get our Knives on the necks of the doers!!!! Allah Bestowed upon us His Blessings so that we could defend our Religion and our Sovereignty !
    MAy Allah awake us all on time!!!!! Aameen…
    Esp. our Leaders!!!

  • Face book bann
    youtube bann
    wikipedia bann

    light and gas will be bann Soontoo.

    I wonder for a love of God why they don’t bann porn.
    Oh i forgot PTA love porn.

  • itZ not a fault of facebook ……..itz a fault af that prson who creates da page…..and (Nauzbillah) cartoons

  • Hey how can you say its not Facebook’s fault? Facebook’s fault is its discriminatory behaviour towards Muslims. This issue had been long solved if they had’nt turned their deaf ears towards us.

  • yeahhhh =) well done PTA .. ban it for ever please we dont want such Face Book which favors the blasphemy

  • Asllam o Aliakum

    Dear Judges.

    We all Muslims from Pakistan are proud on you Sirs,

    Please Block FaceBook & all other Sexual Web Sites from Pakistan.

    Sir this is a Request for all Muslims to protect there IMAN & better Generation of ISLAM Especially Pakistan…

    JAZAKALLAH

    Zeeshan Sandal

  • wasay hum to muslim hain….magar fajer ki numaz kay time hamara muslim act kidar jata ha….nasha /jua/zanah/chori karty time hum ko yae khayal nai ata kay hum muslim hain…doctor AFIA ko to hum nai bacha sakay….numaz kay time humara muslim pann kidar jata ha…kia wo HAZRAT MUHAMMAD(saw)ki sunit nai the jiss ko hum nay pura karna hi chor dia ha…..tell meeee….chalo joo be hua …PTA walo nay acha kia ….magar youtube to open kar dani cheye…main nay suna tha kay bicort to 31 may tak ho ga…. magar ajj main nay suna kay facebook and youtube to 4ever bolck ho jay gi……its not fare yarrr..hum ko +ve minded hona cheye…….think +ve yaroo
    shaid chand brothers ko mari batay buri lagi hon gi…sorry 4 that….
    and plzz reply me
    [email protected]

    • hahahahahahaha jigar hum na to nasha krtay hain na chori aur na zanah tum hi kartay ho tab hi keh re ho k humay ye khayal ni ata k hum muslims hain :D wese jis tym tum ne comment kia u should b in mosque for maghrib prayers :D ur just giving dese comments to support jews nuthing else tum ne youtube pe konsa quran e paak ki tafseer sun ni hai beta tum ne b ganay aur gandi videos hi dekhni thi to acha ni hai tum gunah se bach jao gay :p

  • It should not have been banned at all. Why is it in Pakistan when any thing wrong happens we have to take extreme measures, remember when cartoons were made in Denmark of the same issue we burned down each other shops, cars, assets etc. Benazir was killed we again burned down looted each others property. On 10th of Muharram we looted & burned down each other property (Boltun market). If any body on facebook has done it banned that page only or may be leave it alone & dont visit that page. We all know you can buy liqueur openly, prostitution is spreading why dont we take action on that?? Look at our economy its going down the drain why dont we do some thing about it??
    Wake up Pakistanis please!!!!

  • Asslam o Alikum, facebook ne jo gustakhana ahrkat ki the us shaks ko us ki sazaa mil chuki hai mere khayal main ab facebook on kar dena chaye … kyun ke jo shaks mafi mangey us ko maaf kar dena chaye.. facebook ke owner ne maafi mag li hai so ab facebook on kar dena cahye…

  • It’s extremely painful and humiliating.

    Now Mr Rehman Malik ..going to remone Ban on face book, how it’s possible…. one side public poll show 73% ban for ever.

  • blashpemous page or pages must be banned. no one even face book should act against the established laws of the Allah Almighty [God, the Creator]. They should themselves do not allow such pages which are below morality and dignity.

  • facebook must be despised by all of us if v r true muslims. but still this devil is at its climax in pakistan. shame on us!


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