Pakistan bans blogspot over the cartoons
More on the story that refuses to die. (h/t Danial) Pakistan telecom authorities have blocked several websites inviting people to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, it has emerged. Instructions were issued to internet service providers across Pakistan on 27 February to block about a dozen websites of various origins. [...] Bloggers in Pakistan became first became aware of the ban on 28 February when they were unable to access a popular blog hosting site, Blogspot. One of the blocked sites is hosted on Blogspot, which led to the blocking of all web journals hosted on the site. The Pakistan bloggers found their blogs blocked, even though their blogs are not connected with the cartoons. They say they have still been able to edit and update their blogs, but not able to read them.
The BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan in Karachi says the blocking is unlikely to turn into a major freedom of expression issue in Pakistan as there seems to be a consensus against allowing such freedom to extend to irreverent treatment of religious figures. Pakistani bloggers agree the blocking of Blogspot cannot be intentional, but are hoping the authorities realise the problem soon and rectify it, he said. There are many ways of blocking specific sites without letting it affect the entire hosting facility, bloggers say. Pakistan, meanwhile, is seeking an internationally applicable law against blasphemy. Okay Europe, I swear to god if you don't oppose that international law against blasphemy, then you are a bunch of spineless cowards that should get their asses kicked repeatedly by 6 year olds midgets. Or something like that!
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 3/04/2006 12:53:00 AM
17 Comments:
Somebody should let the Pakistanis know that they can access Blogspot blogs via Unipeak:
Unipeak
They just need to know the address of the website that they're searching for. If they don't know that, then they can do a Google search:
Google
Copy the address from the items shown, and paste it into the Unipeak engine.
They should have no problem. That's what we did here in Korea when blogspot was blocked to prevent Koreans from viewing the online beheading of Kim Sun Il, the South Korean who was murdered by Islamists in Iraq back in 2004.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
If they bring in a blasphemy law here, we need to take some Muslims to court for referring to Jesus as a "prophet". This should be a capital offence. The Hindus might like to bring some cases against prominent Imams, too. Maybe the Quran ought to be banned?
What Don Cox said...
This could be fun.
"God as no sons" is extreme blasphemy in Christianity. So any Imam making that statement is committing blasphemy.... Of course, any Christian saying that Jesus is the son of God is committing blasphemy according to Islam and Judaism. So all the preachers of all religions are going to have to just shut up... because, whenever they open their mouths, they are going to be committing blasphemy according to another religion. (And that's just looking at those three - gets to be even more fun if you add in Hindus and Buddhists and such.)
"Pakistani bloggers agree that the blocking of Blogspot cannot be intentional.." how fucking stupid are these people and who asked them,their imams? Of course it's intentional and these people are either too afraid to speak out or they should return their pc's to the place of purchase because they are too fucking stupid to use something that is connected to the electrical grid.
Six year old midgets, but with BIG NASTY TEETH!
Don't get your hopes up, Sandmonkey. Every time I think "there's no way they'll give in to this ridicuous demand," they do.
Be careful about saying you might quit Islam. According to shari'a that can get you in big trouble. Even in the future tense you could be termed an apostate. And I'm sure you know what that means.
Why do I - an ordinary secular American - know so much about Islamic law? I wish I didn't, but decades of threats, fatwas, and terrorist acts made me study up.
Annon 3:18
I think they meant that the intention was to objective was to block speciffic blogs, not all blogs at blogspot. I put it down to lazy blockers.
As far as I understand the international blasphemy laws are meant to protect Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
With international blasphemy laws it will be blasphemy to mock
- the virgin birth
- the crucifixion
- the resurrection
- the Holy Communion
To question that Christianity is a monotheistic religion, because we have the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost will be insulting and will be banned.
To extend the rules of one religion and to demand the dogmas being respected and followed by people from other religions will face some interesting dilemmas.
Hindus, Buddhist, practising heathens (http://www.fornsidr.dk/index_uk.html) and atheists could demand protection from religions insisting that “There is only on G_d”.
The polytheistic religions could be protected from name calling and the use of the word infidel could be banned.
We could invent new words like Hinduphobic, Atheistphobic and so on..
The buddhists would have a very strong case of extending the dogma of non-violence to everyone else, banning killing, violence and the consumption of meat.
anonymous: Actually Buddhists don't (specifically) believe in a god. I mean, some may believe in a god of some sort, but it's not really a religion. Buddha is kind of an example of how to be, rather than someone to worship.
Right on about the nonviolence and so on.
rescuing reason.
Thank you for exposing my ignorance.
I'm christian but seeing how my religion can be exploited, I would prefer that the buddhist had much more influence - religion or not.
I'm not quite sure that I could say the same for the ones taking the initiative for the blasphemy laws....
Those Euroweenies better not give in this bullshit.
It'll be downhill from there if they do.
Getting the UN to have an interational ban on blasphemy has been mentioned since the beginning of the toon crisis, but the EU an Javier Solanas have said several times that it is out of the question for the EU to agree to such a ban. Of cource it's not only muslim countries who are interested in such a ban on blasphemy, Poland is being more and more influenced by the Catholic church, and then you have the hard core protestants and I'm sure there are lots of others too. As they say, "one man's religion is another man's blasphemy", so this could create a lot of interesting problems. I think we should start a new "religion" that declares believing in Gods idolatry and consequently blasphemus, that could be fun, thihi.
K from Oslo
Leftists would LOVE having such a law on the books. One step closer to completely silencing anyone talking about their faith, anywhere and everywhere. One step closer to a world where people walk past each other in silence, fearful that anything they say will offend someone. One step closer to a world where the ONLY public opinion, is that spoken by chosen representatives of the government, who would, by that time, be the ONLY source of news, anywhere on the globe.
Big Brother will be that much closer, if such a law is passed.
~Gary
"Those Euroweenies better not give in this bullshit"
And the danish cartoons were published in every major US newspaper and news section on TV, right?
The blasphemy law will go to the UN, so US will have an opportunity to say what they think about it. They were some of the first to condemn the danish cartoons - first the White House and then former president Clinton.
EU have already said it's out of the question.
Ok, add our own PC-weenies to that bunch then. We're doomed.
Glad to hear from you drpak! I'll visit your blog to hear more.
And for christine
http://marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com/
Q
Islam Comic Book Down Due to Death Threats
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2006/03/islam-comic-book-down-due-to-death.html
Nothing good could possibly come by encouraging editors to omit information from their columns. How are newspapers supposed to do their job, that of informing readers, when their hands are tied through fear of irrational Islamist aggression. One cannot make an informed decision about this issue - perhaps the most significant news story of the day - without having all of the facts. Newspapers already print descriptions of the cartoons, what is the difference? As there is no difference, there can be no objection to reprinting.
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