Pak briefly blocks Twitter after row over caricatures

May 21, 2012 - Shafqat Ali |

Age Correspondent With agency inputs

Islamabad

Pakistan briefly imposed a ban on Twitter Sunday after it reportedly refused to remove posts promoting a Facebook competition involving caricatures of Prophet Mohammed, before access to the social networking site was restored later in the night, reportedly on the orders of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
A spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunica-tions Authority said earlier Sunday the information technology ministry had imposed the ban over “blasphemous material” on Twitter. He said “both Facebook and Twitter were involved” in the controversy. “We negotiated with both. Facebook agreed to remove the stuff, but Twitter was not responding.”
Late Sunday evening Mr Gilani’s daughter Fiza Batool Gilani, the government’s goodwill ambassador for women’s empowerment, announced on Twitter the ban had been lifted. “The Prime Minister has ordered the IT minister to restore Twitter services in Pakistan,” she said.
Interior minister Rehman Malik also tweeted that no restrictions would be imposed on the microblogging website.

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