Nearly two weeks after ordering Pakistan Telecommunications Authority(PTA) to Ban Facebook in Pakistan, Lahore High court has reversed its orders by lifting the temporary ban imposed on access to the social networking website. The ban came in as a result of the nation-wide protests in Pakistan due to Facebook event “Everyone Draw Mohammad Day” organized by a group of people on a community page.
In a statement, Justice Chaudhry told the court,“Restore Facebook. We don’t want to block access to information” .
Ban was lifted this morning after assurance from the government that they will soon develop a system that blocks offending images, referring to it as “blasphemous material” from the internet, that arouse resentment among the people and brought them on to the streets. Similar to blocking of un-islamic content from you-tube that was un-banned last week, after similar orders from the court.
Yesterday, Facebook was also Banned in Bangladesh due to the offending images from the page as a result of the contest, which led to on-street protest in the country. After the orders from Pakistan High court, we expect that the ban will soon be uplifted in Bangladesh also.
Link: The US Daily