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AFP: Pakistanis shout ‘Death to Facebook’, burn US flags: “Pakistanis shout ‘Death to Facebook’, burn US flags

By Hasan Mansoor (AFP) – 6 hours ago

KARACHI — Pakistani protesters shouted ‘Death to Facebook’, ‘Death to America’ and burnt US flags on Friday, venting growing anger over ’sacrilegious’ caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on the Internet.

A Facebook user organised an ‘Everyone Draw Mohammed Day’ competition to promote ‘freedom of expression’, inspired by an American woman cartoonist, but sparked a major backlash in the conservative Muslim country of 170 million.

Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous and the row has sparked comparison with protests across the Muslim world over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers in 2006.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) banned access to Facebook, YouTube and more than 450 links, including restricted access to Wikipedia in view of what it called ‘growing sacrilegious content’.

PTA released a toll-free telephone number and email address, and has acted on complaints received by the regulator.

In Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, religious parties mobilised hundreds of protesters onto the streets to demand a ban on Facebook and an apology from the social networking site for humiliating Muslims.

Activists shouted slogans such as ‘Death to Facebook’, ‘Death to America’ and branded the United States the ‘root cause of all mischief’ at the peaceful rallies, said an AFP reporter.

In Multan, a shrine city in Punjab province, hundreds of people rallied, burning US flags and tyres to block traffic before dispersing peacefully.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, about 250 students and religious activists staged small protests, chanting ‘Death to Facebook, death to Youtube,’ and on one occasion torched a US flag, an AFP reporter said.

The offending Facebook page has attracted 105,000 fans — and five pages of crude manipulated pictures and caricatures. Pages denouncing the competition and calling for a boycott of the May 20 competition attracted far more fans.

Facebook expressed disappointment at being blocked and said it was considering whether to make the offending page inaccessible in Pakistan.

YouTube, the Google-owned video-sharing site, said it was ‘working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible’.

The controversy has yet to incite a mass outpouring onto the streets in Pakistan, where there are an estimated 2.5 million Facebook users, and it remains to be seen how far protests will spread to other Muslim countries.

Sweden said it has closed its embassy in Islamabad for more than two weeks due to the security situation, refusing to say whether any direct threats had been issued against the mission.

An Al-Qaeda front organisation has offered 100,000 dollars to anyone who kills Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has angered many Muslims by drawing highly blasphemous caricature of the prophet.

Pakistan condemned the caricatures on Facebook and said that ’such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the feelings of Muslims around the world’.

The PTA asked Facebook and YouTube, which are wildly popular in Pakistan and set up in the United States, to resolve the matter as soon as possible in a manner that ‘ensures religious harmony and respect’.

The purported creator of the Facebook page told a US television channel in a voice-only interview that he had meant to stand up for ‘freedom of expression’.

‘We know that the fight for freedom of expression, freedom of speech can’t be stopped by a country like Pakistan censoring the Internet,’ the man, who would be identified only as ‘Andy’, told MSNBC.

A rival Facebook page called ‘Against Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ started to oppose the caricature page had drawn some 106,300 fans.

Molly Norris, the American cartoonist whose work inspired the controversial page, condemned the Facebook spin-off and apologised to Muslims.

She drew a cartoon in April to protest against the cancellation of an episode of popular show ‘South Park’. Norris satirically proposed May 20 as an ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.’

‘The vitriol this ‘day’ has brought out, of people who only want to draw obscene images, is offensive to Muslims who did nothing to endanger our right to expression in the first place,’ she said.

Pakistan court orders blocking of Facebook over Muhammad cartoon: “Facebook was sucked into a growing row over Islam and freedom of speech yesterday after a Pakistani court ordered the site to be blocked over a page advertising a contest to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

EU privacy watchdogs say Facebook changes ‘unacceptable’: “Europe’s privacy watchdogs have issued a rebuke to Facebook, telling the social networking site that changes it made to the site’s privacy settings late last year were ‘unacceptable’.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Facebook criticised over latest privacy lapse: Facebook is facing growing criticism of its privacy policies after an embarrassing technical error exposed users’ private conversations to others.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Facebook attacked over refusal to install panic button: Britain’s online child protection agency attacked Facebook yesterday for its continued refusal to install a panic button on its site.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

AFP: Outrage in Italy over anti-Down Syndrome website

(AFP) –22 February, 2010

ROME — Politicians and Internet activists in Italy have denounced a page on the social networking site Facebook that calls for children with Down Syndrome to be used for target practice.

Police were trying to track down who set up the page, which features a photo of a Down Syndrome baby with the word ‘idiot’ superimposed on it, and by late Sunday had attracted nearly 1,700 members.

The page proposed what it said was ‘an easy and amusing solution’ to get rid of ‘these foul creatures’: use them as targets at shooting centres.

Equality minister Mara Carfagna, promising legal action against those responsible for the page, denouncing it as ‘unacceptable and dangerous.’

A number of rival groups have already been set up on Facebook to denounce the original page, one of which had attracted more than 17,000 members.

‘People’s ignorance has no limits,’ Manuela Colombo, the president of a support group for families with Down Syndrome children told ANSA news agency.

Police action to get the site shut down might take some time according to some experts, because Facebook is based in Palo Alto, California, and the procedure might entail a lengthy legal process.

One baby in 1,200 is born with Down Sydrome in Italy and there are 38,000 with the condition living there, 61 percent of whom are older than 25 years, according to figures cited by the Italian Down Syndrome Association, ANSA reported.

UK – Facebook takes down 30 prisoners' pages after victim taunts: (Guardian)
Thirty Facebook pages have been taken down because prisoners were using them to taunt their victims, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, has revealed. Straw was speaking after a meeting with victims’ campaigners to discuss prisoners using social networking sites to hound families. The minister said the 30 offending pages brought to the attention of Facebook had been removed within 48 hours. He said he was ‘what we have to do is set up a better system with Facebook. ‘So essentially if they get a notice from us that this site is improper then all they have to do is not make a judgment about it, but press the delete button.’

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Student Suspended for Facebook Page Can Sue: “Katherine Evans did not like her English teacher. She created a Facebook page to say so. Now the matter is in court.”

(Via NYT > Freedom of Speech and Expression.)

Canadian privacy watchdog launches investigation into Facebook’s response to its previous investigation: “Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has launched an investigation into changes Facebook made to its privacy policy. The changes were made in response to an investigation the Privacy Commissioner carried out last year.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Norwegian consumer group will mount legal challenge to Facebook terms: “A Norwegian consumer protection agency is preparing a legal challenge to Facebook and other social networking companies, accusing them of operating ‘in a legal vacuum and irrespective of norms and standards’.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)