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Pakistan lifts Facebook ban after page removed (AP)

May 31, 2010 by · Comments Off on Pakistan lifts Facebook ban after page removed (AP) 

Pakistan lifts Facebook ban after page removed (AP)Pakistan lifts Facebook ban after page removed (AP):Lahore, Pakistan – Pakistan lifted the ban Facebook on Monday after officials of the social networking site apologized for a page were considered offensive to Muslims and removed the substance, a technology official high-level information said.

The decision came nearly two weeks after Pakistan imposed a ban amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider depictions of the prophet, even favorable, as blasphemy.

“In response to our protest, Facebook has offered its apologies and informed us that all sacrilegious material has been removed from the leadership,” said Najibullah Malik, secretary of the Pakistan Ministry of Information Technology, referring to the technical term for a Web page .

Facebook said the government of Pakistan that “none of this will happen in the future,” said Malik.

Officials of the website could not immediately be reached for comment. It has been said before the contents of “Everybody Mohammed Drawing Day!” Page not violated the terms of Facebook.

Encouraged users to post pictures of the prophet to protest threats from a radical Muslim group against the creators of the American television series “South Park” to depict Mohammed in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.

Pakistan blocks Facebook on May 19 after a failure of one of the highest courts. The Lahore High Court on Monday reversed its decision because the response from Facebook, paving the way for the government to restore access, “said Malik.

The government will continue to block some Web pages that contain “sacrilegious material, but Malik refused to specify.

Facebook controversy sparked a handful of protests across Pakistan, many of the student members of radical Islamic groups. Some protesters carried signs advocating war against the holy site to let the page.

Bangladesh also decided to block Facebook on Sunday, but said that restoring access to the site if the offending material was removed.

It is not the first time images of the prophet have sparked anger. Pakistan and other Muslim countries were large and sometimes violent protests in 2006 when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad, and again in 2008 when they were reprinted. Later the same year, an alleged Al Qaeda suicide bomber attacked the Danish embassy in Islamabad, killing six people.

Anger on Facebook controversy also led the Pakistani government to block access to YouTube briefly, saying he was growing sacrilegious content on the web site for sharing videos. The government restored access to YouTube last week, but said it would continue to block videos offensive to Muslims that are published on the site.

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