Facebook said today it has blocked users in Pakistan from accessing the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” page on its site out of respect for local standards and customs, reported PC World.
The Web site adopted a similar approach in India about a week ago when it was approached by Indian authorities in connection with the page, which has angered Muslims in many countries.
The indications are that Facebook may take a similar approach in Bangladesh, where the Web site has been blocked since Sunday.
“We have not removed the content from Facebook, although some pages may have been removed by their creators, but have only restricted access to it from certain countries out of respect for local rules,” Facebook spokeswoman Debbie Frost wrote in an e-mail to PC World on Tuesday.
On Monday a High Court in Lahore, Pakistan, ordered the removal of the block on the site that had been imposed on May 19.
Facebook has agreed to block the page in Pakistan, Naguibullah Malik, Pakistan’s secretary of IT and telecom, said in a telephone interview to PC World.
Malik also added that Facebook has reassured their government that nothing of this sort will happen again, although Facebook officials had said earlier that the contents of the Web page had not violated the Facebook terms in any way.
On other hands, ISPs in Pakistan have restricted all urls that have specific words in it, for instance “Draw”. This is probably why, Facebook page against the Draw Mohammad Day is also inaccessible on various ISPs.