Facebook, the most used social networking site in Pakistan lands in trouble for publishing blasphemous content.

A petition had been filed against Facebook and according to the petition; Facebook should be temporarily banned in Pakistan.

In reply to the petition Facebook sent a delegation for investigation. The investigation delegation will look keenly into the content that was reported to be “blasphemous“.

The director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Mazhar Kakakhail said,

“The government had approached Facebook earlier this week regarding access to the records of three controversial pages accused of spreading blasphemous content.”

According to the Facebook authorities they know the reservations by government. Facebook intends to resolve the matter with mutual understanding. It wants to look into issues together with Pakistan and solve every problem by dialogue.

According to the Facebook authorities have recently mentioned the name of the focal person, the one who will communicate with Pakistan on these issues. The person will contact the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on behalf of Facebook and ask the details about the petition.

The case was filed in Islamabad High court. The petition featured ‘dissemination of blasphemous content through social media.‘

The case was filed by Salman Shahid. In the case he mentioned that there is some religiously inappropriate content. He mentions that, “social media sites are hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims“.

There had been some videos that were against the dignity of Holy Prophet (S.A.W.W) and the respected personalities of Islam. The petition says that even after the complaint the videos defaming the Prophet (S.A.W.W) were not removed.

According to FIA DG, while he was in court, “Tree of the ‘blasphemous’ pages had already been blocked, whereas five to six other pages carrying blasphemous content had been marked.”

Kakakhail said,

“An application will be launched under international law if the Facebook management failed to comply with the Pakistani government’s request.”

“We are at an early stage of inquiry in this regard,” he added.

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A petition has been filed to shutdown Facebook temporarily in Pakistan

Facebook is most commonly used social media and for good or bad it has been rumored that Facebook is going to be banned in Pakistan. After the reports were published in The Nation¹, the Civil Society has filed a petition in Islamabad High Court. The petition demands temporary yet immediate shutdown Facebook in Pakistan.

The petition demands the Facebook should be shutdown and should not be allowed to run in Pakistan unless the government permanently removes all the “blasphemous content”.

The petition was filed by Secretary Ministry of Interior, Secretary Ministry of Information and Technology, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) through its Chairman, Federal Investigation Authority through its Director General, Inspector General of Islamabad police and Pakistan Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA).

According to petitioner,

“To start a nationwide movement of the blasphemous content is not removed from the platform. The petition also mentioned that as opposed to PTA chairman claiming that the controversial content is removed from the platform, the platform still contains such content in the form of drawings, writings and videos.”

This is not the first time, back in mid-2010, similar petition was filed and even the YouTube was banned in Pakistan in 2012. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan recently has said that all the social platforms that contain blasphemous content will be shutdown in Pakistan if these contents are not removed.

Source: The Nation

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