Pakistan blocked You Tube, 450 links in the countryside

Pakistan, home to half of the largest Muslim population in the world, blocked Google Inc. service YouTube and over 450 web links and the government has increased the crackdown on the Internet material deemed blasphemous.
Sites were blocked because of the increased level of profanity and derogatory material, the basis of Islamabad, Pakistan Telecommunications Authority said in a news release today. The regulator, which makes access to the site Inc. closed yesterday Facebook, other sites to block blasphemous content, "said Khurram Mehran, spokesman of the regulator.
Pakistan escalating campaign of online censorship after a Facebook user to create a page with an invitation to other cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, considered by Muslims as blasphemous act of drawing. Demonstrators gathered in Karachi waving banners and chanting slogans against Facebook and text messages circulated yesterday to ask users of the site in Pakistan to support the ban.
"The attitude of administrators on Facebook and YouTube is in violation of resolutions of the WSIS and its own stated policy on the web for the general public," said Mehran in the statement, referring to the World Summit on the Society Information adopted by the United Nations. "PTA would like to see the competent authorities of Facebook and YouTube to communicate with the PTA to resolve the problem."
Blackberry Browsers
Google looks at the issue and working to ensure its YouTube service is restored, the Mountain View, California, the company said in an e-mail. Agency Facebook not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The regulator has also blocked Internet browsers on Research In Motion Ltd. BlackBerry phones, Mehran, said today.
A Facebook user to set up a page called "All Day Draw Mohammed", inviting others into a representation "creative and funny Muhammad sent May 20, according to the site.
"We just want the extremists to threaten people because of their images Muhammad evil we're not afraid to show them," according to the description page of Facebook. "They can not leave our right to freedom of expression, trying to scare us to silence."
Pakistan has an effective plan for the anti-Islam to avoid "hurting the feelings of Muslims", state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Religious Affairs Saeed Kazmi Islamabad naturally. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Kazmi at a meeting of Islamic countries to formulate a common policy to deal with the anti-Islamic to do, APA.
Court Ban
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority Facebook blocked after the Lahore High Court to prohibit the Department of Information Technology, she charged, according to Mehran.
Now, stop in the Constitution of Pakistan and is an expansion of the order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Government's policies, "said Mehran. The controller has a number of phone calls for regulatory sites with offensive content knowledge, the statement said.
Caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 led to protests from the Muslim community around the world include
Blackberry Browsers
Google looks at the issue and working to ensure its YouTube service is restored, the Mountain View, California, the company said in an e-mail. Agency Facebook not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
The regulator has also blocked Internet browsers on Research In Motion Ltd. BlackBerry phones, Mehran, said today.
A Facebook user to set up a page called "All Day Draw Mohammed" and others calling for a creative and humorous representation of Muhammad sent May 20, according to the site.
"We just want the extremists who threaten people because of their images Muhammad evil we're not afraid to show them," according to the description page of Facebook. "They can not leave our right to freedom of expression, trying to scare us to silence."
Pakistan has an effective plan for the anti-Islam to avoid "hurting the feelings of Muslims", state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Religious Affairs Saeed Kazmi Islamabad naturally. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Kazmi at a meeting of Islamic countries to formulate a common policy to deal with the anti-Islamic to do, APA.
Court ban
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority Facebook blocked after the Lahore High Court to prohibit the Department of Information Technology, she charged, according to Mehran.
Today, stop in the Constitution of Pakistan and is an extension of orders by the High Court of Pakistan and the Government's policies, "said Mehran. The controller has a number of phone calls for regulatory sites with offensive content knowledge, the statement said.
Caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 led to protests from the Muslim community around the world, including Pakistan. The cartoons, one of the prophet with a bomb in his turban and accompanied by an article on freedom of expression and self-censorship in the media.
Pakistan Internet traffic has dropped 25 percent after two sites are blocked, CNBC Pakistan reported, without citing anyone.
Pakistan ng. The cartoons, one of the prophet with a bomb inside his turban and accompanied an article on freedom of expression and self censorship in media.
Pakistan Internet traffic has dropped 25 percent after two sites are blocked, CNBC Pakistan reported, without citing anyone.

Pakistan Blocked Facebook Today

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) directed Internet service providers to block Facebook indefinitely on Wednesday because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad.

The order followed a decision by the Lahore High Court temporarily banning Facebook in Pakistan after the country's media reported that the competition would be held on May 20.

"The court has ordered the government to immediately block Facebook until May 31 because of this blasphemous competition," Azhar Siddique, a representative of the Islamic Lawyers Forum who filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, told Reuters.

"The court has also ordered the foreign ministry to investigate why such a competition is being held."

A spokesman for the PTA, the country's telecommunication watchdog, said the government on Tuesday ordered Internet providers to block only the Facebook page showing these caricatures. But on Wednesday the court ordered the entire Facebook site blocked.

Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by Muslims.

By late afternoon, Facebook was unavailable to Pakistan''s computer users, although Blackberries and other mobile devices appeared able to access the site.

But some warned the court's response could backfire.

"Blocking the entire website would anger users, especially young adults, because the social networking website is so popular among them and they spend most of their time on it," said the CEO of Nayatel, Wahaj-us-Siraj.

"Basically, our judges aren't technically sound. They have just ordered it, but it should have been done in a better way by just blocking a particular URL or link."

On the Facebook information page for the contest the organisers described it as a "snarky" response to Muslim bloggers who "warned" the creators of the Comedy Central television show "South Park" over a recent depiction of the Prophet in a bear suit.

"We are not trying to slander the average Muslim," the Facebook page creators wrote. "We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammad depictions that we're not afraid of them. That they can't take away our right to freedom of speech by trying to scare us into silence."

Publications of similar cartoons in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked deadly protests in Muslim countries. Around 50 people were killed during protests in Muslim countries in 2006 over the cartoons, five of them in Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Denmark's embassy in Islamabad in 2008, killing six people, saying it was in revenge for publication of caricatures.

Pakistan also blocked the popular video sharing site YouTube in 2007 for about a year for what it called un-Islamic videos.

Bomber Strikes Rally of Religious Party in Pakistan

A teenage suicide bomber waded into a political rally by an Islamic party, and his explosives detonated Monday, said a policeman.

The bomb, which went to Peshawar, a northwestern town who were tormented by bombs last year, with more than 20 people, including a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, a hard-line political party, which until recently in the had publicly supported the Taliban. A policeman was among the dead.

Television pictures showed a scene of mad-capped Muslim youth protest help people on stretchers. Nobody has claimed responsibility.

It was unclear whether the target was to rally, or the police station nearby. A bomb disposal officer said the young bomber was wearing an amazing 15 pounds of explosives.

If the goal was rally would be highly unusual. Jamaat-e-Islami is the oldest Islamic Pakistani political party and its hard-line language sometimes echoes of the Taliban: anti-Western, anti-India and strongly against small religious minorities in Pakistan - Christians, Shiites and an Islamic sect known as Ahmedis. But the party is also part of government's operations in Pakistan and critical of any direct attack on Pakistan army, his people.

A senior police official in Peshawar, Kareem Khan, said the policeman who was slain Gulfat Hussain, a Shiite. The members of the sect are several goals since late last week in the violent attacks in western Pakistan.

Mr Hussain was active in protecting the Shiite processions, often the procession to Holy Places militant attack dragging, said Officer Khan. Al Qaeda is fiercely anti-Shiite. Sectarian militancy is so widespread that Shiite policemen sometimes pray not to be posted in the field, for fear that they will get because of their sect.

It was the second bomb on Monday. The first exploded just seven hours before the close of a school and a student slain and wounded 10, authorities said.

Action to be taken against Musharraf: Malik

Following the report of the United Nations, which accused the security arrangements are inadequate to Musharraf's regime for the assassination of Bhutto, said Interior Minister Rehman Malik and action will be taken against the former president after the concrete evidence is reached.

And accused the king of the Punjab government for not providing adequate security for Bhutto. He said that the Pakistani officers also investigate the assassination of Bhutto.

The minister said the government has the full support of the international investigation committee.

The UN report also accused the intelligence officials and others that severely hampered the investigation into who was behind the murder.

After these results, the Pakistan People's Party said that any person named in the report would work, including the former news Pervez Musharraf.

Suicide bomb at police station kills 7 in Pakistan

A suicide bomber rammed a truck loaded with explosives into a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing a child and six other civilians, police said. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

The attack was the second this weekend in the Kohat area, illustrating the resilient nature of militant networks in Pakistan despite army offensives targeting their sanctuaries along the Afghan border.

At least 26 people were wounded, including six police, officials said.

Qari Hussain, a top Pakistani Taliban militant commander who allegedly trains suicide bombers, called an Associated Press reporter from an undisclosed location hours after the blast to claim responsibility.

He said the suicide blast was revenge for a recent army strike on a militant-run hospital in the South Waziristan tribal area.

Hussain and other Taliban commanders are believed to be hiding in North Waziristan to avoid the army onslaught in South Waziristan.

"Such attacks will continue in revenge for the deaths of our fellows," Hussain said.

The truck was loaded with up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of explosives, area police official Dilawar Khan Bangash said. It struck a concrete barrier in front of the building, which was heavily damaged, as was an adjoining school.

Twin suicide attacks in the Kohat area on Saturday targeted refugees who were fleeing a separate army offensive in the Orakzai tribal region. That attack killed 41 people in line to register for food and relief supplies.

The victims of Saturday's attacks were among around 200,000 people who have left the Orakzai region since the end of last year, when the Pakistan army began airstrikes against militants believed to have fled there from South Waziristan.

The registration point in Kohat was managed by the local government, but was sometimes used by foreign humanitarian groups to deliver aid. There was no claim of responsibility for Saturday's bombings, which is not unusual when large numbers of Pakistani civilians die.

The registration point - essentially a small building in a dusty field - may have been hit to persuade people not to have any contact with the local administration or foreign relief groups.

The United Nations temporarily suspended work helping displaced people in Kohat and neighboring Hangu after Saturday's attack.

The bombers were men disguised in burqas, the all-encompassing veil worn by conservative Muslim women, allowing them to get close to the building without arousing suspicion, police said.

The tempo of the offensive in Orakzai has picked up since March. On Sunday, one soldier and 13 militants were killed in a clash in the Sangra area, said Jahanzeb Khan, an official in Orakzai.