A petition was filed by Judicial Activism Panel (JAP) chairman Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique stating that Facebook has announced a contest by the name of “Everybody Burn Quran Day”, displaying sacrilegious pictures of Khana-e-Kaaba.
He requested the court to impose an interim ban on the website so that the pictures could not be accessible in Pakistan and added that the acts of the respondents should be declared illegal, un-Islamic, unconditional and against the injunctions of Islam.
However, Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the LHC issued notice to the ministry of information technology, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, and director Telecom Wireless, after observing that the website cannot be blocked without giving the respondents an opportunity to defend themselves.
The petitioner further requested the court to order a permanent ban on Facebook in Pakistan and initiate contempt-of-court proceedings against the owners of the website.
He also requested that the authorities in Pakistan be directed to this effect that no material with respect to blasphemy of any religion or the Khana-e-Kaaba be published, displayed, visualised or aired in the country.
Facebook had already faced an interim ban by the LHC in Pakistan for carrying a blasphemous caricature competition of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
Published in The Express Tribune, July 28th, 2010.
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