After Pak, Bangla blocks Facebook

May 31, 2010 - Anisur Rahman |

Dhaka

After Pakistan, Bangladesh has now blocked social networking site Facebook for hosting pages featuring blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed and “obnoxious” images of the country’s leaders.
No official announcement was made yet on the decision but the Daily Star newspaper quoted an unnamed Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission official as saying that “part of the reason (of blocking the network) is the posting of some anti-religious and porn links by users across the globe”.
“We have blocked all access to Facebook temporarily. It was done in line with a decision of government high-ups,” the official said, adding some users had posted anti-Islamic content about Prophet Mohammed, which the government took seriously. Earlier, the state-run BSS news agency on Saturday said that the BTRC action came hours after elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion troops arrested a “cyber criminal” in the city on charges of posting “objectionable, disfigured and satirical photographs” of several government leaders using different accounts.
Leaders of several right-wing Islamic groups have demanded a ban on the networking website for posting of materials hurting Muslim religious sentiments. Users suddenly were barred from logging into the network since 6.30 pm on Saturday evening while in a late-night development a group of Dhaka University students took to the streets to protest the government’s decision.
The protesters dubbed the move radical and said the government should have blocked individual profiles rather than the entire site. Pakistan has also banned Facebook over a page featuring a contest for “blasphemous” cartoons of Prophet.
***
Narrow escape for Rehman
Lahore, May 30: Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik and minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti had a narrow escape when the tyre of a small aircraft in which they were travelling burst while landing at the airport in Lahore on Sunday. A Civil Aviation Authority spokesperson said all four passengers in the Cessna aircraft escaped unscathed as the pilot controlled the plane. —PTI

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