Lahore court bans Facebook over 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' competition

"The court has ordered the government to immediately block Facebook until May 31 because of this blasphemous competition. The court has also ordered the foreign ministry to investigate why such a competition is being held," confirmed Azhar Siddique, a representative of the Islamic Lawyers Forum, in a statement given to Reuters.

After finding out about the so-called-competition, angry people protested in Lahore against Facebook on Wednesday.

Later Islamic Lawyers Forum joined the protest and submitted a petition that requested the court to block the “blasphemous” site as it is “un-Islamic” in nature.

Facebook reacted by saying in its defense, "While the content does not violate our terms, we do understand it may not be legal in some countries. In cases like this, the approach is sometimes to restrict certain content from being shown in specific countries."

No intentions to hurt religious feelings?
After the news broke out that Pakistan has banned the Facebook over “Everybody Draw Mohammed” campaign on May 20, an anonymous reader posted a disclaimer on the web page stating:

"We are not trying to slander the average Muslim; it’s not a Muslim/Islam hate page. We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammed 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 to silence."

Later Islamic Lawyers Forum joined the protest and submitted a petition that requested the court to block the “blasphemous” site as it is “un-Islamic” in nature.

“Everybody Draw Mohammed” movement was started to show solidarity with the creators of animated show “South Park,” who ended up getting threats from Muslim extremists after they depicted Mohammad Prophet on the show.

Banning social networking sites not a solution?
Market analysts believe that forcibly stopping people from accessing certain sites is not a very solution since it will only end up fueling their curiosity furthermore. People somehow will manage to find a way to access the banned item.

"I think we can expect to see more of this type of thing coming from dictatorial countries as they try to keep their citizenry locked down. However, they're going to find that it will be increasingly difficult to block things like Facebook, Twitter, and other Web vehicles. While blocking the domain will work, people will discover proxy servers and other work-around that will allow them access to the Internet at large," said Dan Olds, an analyst at The Gabriel Consulting Group.

Shakir Husain with Creative Chaos, a Web company based in Karachi, too thinks that these bans will only “make people more curious.”

Husain added, “You can't police the Internet. The Saudis have tried it, as have other governments, and all have failed."