A Pakistani court lifted a ban on Facebook yesterday after officials from the social networking site apologized for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its contents, a top information technology official said.
The Lahore High Court imposed the ban almost two weeks ago amid anger over a page that encouraged users to post images of the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
“In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL,” said Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan’s information technology ministry, referring to the technical term for a Web page.
Facebook assured the Pakistani government that “nothing of this sort will happen in the future,” Malik said.
Officials from the Web site could not immediately be reached for comment. They said earlier the contents of the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” page did not violate Facebook’s terms.
The page encouraged users to post images of the prophet to protest threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the US TV series South Park for depicting Mohammed in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.
The controversy sparked a handful of protests across Pakistan, many by student members of radical Islamic groups. Some of the protesters carried signs advocating holy war against Facebook for allowing the page.
Bangladesh also decided to block Facebook on Sunday but said it would restore access to the site if the offensive material were removed.
It is not the first time that images of the prophet have sparked anger. Pakistan and other Muslim countries saw large and sometimes violent protests in 2006 when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammed, and again in 2008 when they were reprinted. Later the same year, a suspected al-Qaeda suicide bomber attacked the Danish embassy in Islamabad, killing six people.
As of midmorning yesterday, access to Facebook inside Pakistan was still restricted, but users outside the country confirmed the page that sparked the recent uproar was no longer accessible.
Pakistani government officials are waiting for a written court order lifting the ban before they advise Internet service providers to restore access to the site, Malik said.
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