Pakistan Court Hears Arguments On Permanently Banning Facebook Over Blasphemous Pages

Pakistan's The News reports today on proceedings in the Lahore High Court seeking a permanent ban on Facebook for again displaying blasphemous material. A temporary ban was placed on the site in May because of a page promoting "Everybody Draw Muhammad" day. (See prior posting.) Now another page is promoting "Everybody Burn Quran" day. It is also claimed that Facebook carried blasphemous caricatures of the Kaaba, Islam's holy site in Mecca. The court gave Telecom Wireless three weeks to inform it of the steps it has taken to make blasphemous material unavailable in the country. In arguing for the ban, the petitioner contended that the U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires every country to pass legislation to ban religious hatred, and cited the U.N. Human Rights Commission's resolution on Combatting Defamation of Religions.(See prior posting.)