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Facebook’s ‘Draw Muhammad’ competition provokes protests in Pakistan

Angry Muslims staged protest demonstrations in many cities of Pakistan over an online competition in a section of Facebook, a social networking website, encouraging its users to draw designs of Prophet Muhammad, ANS has learned.

Pakistan’s government on Wednesday May 19, 2010 ordered internet service providers to block Facebook amid anger over a page that encourages people to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

The government took action after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order on May 19, requiring officials to block Facebook until May 31.

Pakistan's minister of religious affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, said the ban was only a temporary solution and suggested the government organise a conference of Muslim countries to figure out ways to prevent the publication of images of the prophet.

"Everybody Draw Muhammad Day!" -- the page at the centre of the dispute -- encourages users to post images of the prophet on May 20.

It is in protest to threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the TV show South Park for depicting Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.

Islamic tradition prohibits pictorial representation of Prophet Muhammad.

The Facebook competition sparked outrage in Pakistan, prompting Muslims scholars to lead protest rallies and organize conferences across the country to voice Muslim anger against drawings of Prophet Muhammad.

ANS has discovered that protest rallies and conferences were staged in Pakistan on May 18 and May 19 to condemn Facebook.

According to Nawai-e-Waqat, Pakistan Urdu Daily Newspaper, various Islamic organizations held anti-Facebook protest demonstrations in Pakistani cities of Lahore, Gujranwala, Narowal and Gojra on May 18.

The newspaper report quoted Muslim speakers as saying that Facebook would not have dared holding a competition to draw images of Prophet Muhammad if Muslim rulers had taken a daring stance against printing and reprinting of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad by the west in the past.

A series of cartoons of the prophet published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 sparked violent protests by Muslims around the world, including Pakistan, and death threats against the cartoonists.

The Muslim scholars according to the newspaper urged Muslims to wake up and be ready to hold “blasphemous countries” accountable.

The speakers urged the Pakistani government to lodge a formal protest against the online competition by Facebook to draw images of Prophet Muhammad.

According to media reports Sweden’s Embassy in Pakistan has been closed for an indefinite period due to security reasons .

The embassy was closed last week in the wake of possible protest demonstrations against blasphemous caricatures.

It is unclear when it will be re-opened.

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TAGS: Pakistan ‘Draw Muhammad’ competition Facebook violent protests blasphemous caricatures

[05/23/2010]

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