Pakistan Twitter website homepage states Twitter must remove ‘blasphemous and inflammatory’ messages and Pakistan banned access to Twitter on Sunday because of blasphemous material, but normal service was resumed after 12 hours ban.

Islamabad / NationalTurk – Pakistani officials have restored access to Twitter, hours after blocking it for messages deemed ‘offensive to Islam’ with blasphemous content.

Pakistan briefly bans Twitter access for blasphemy against Islam Pakistan blocked access to Facebook in May 2010 for nearly two weeks because of users conducting a competition on drawing Prophet Muhammad. Twitter, YouTube and about 1,000 other websites were also blocked for carrying blasphemous content.

Pakistan bans Twitter over offensive to Islam content

No clear reason was given for the ban, which came into force shortly after Interior Minister Rehman Malik said there were no plans to block Twitter. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, an active Twitter user, said on the website Sunday night that he had intervened and asked the prime minister to order an end to the ban.

Correspondents state it appeared to stem from tweets about a 2010 competition on Facebook to submit images of the Prophet Muhammad whose images are forbidden in Islam.

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) lifted the ban on Sunday, about eight hours after it came into force.

No reason was given for the about-turn.The Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan said its members had been asked to block Twitter indefinitely, but no reason was provided by the government.

The ministry of information technology had talked of ‘ blasphemous and inflammatory content, offensive to Islam’ on Twitter.

On Saturday, PTA chairman Mohammed Yaseen told the Associated Press (AP) on Saturday that Twitter was blocked after it refused to remove the material.

Prophet Mohammad Images : Not to be drawn in Islam

A few hours earlier, Rehman Malik had tweeted: ‘ Dear all, I assure u that Twitter and Facebook will continue in our country and it will not be blocked. Please do not believe in rumors,’ his tweet said. ‘ Dear All yes I spoke to PM and informed how people are feeling about it. PM ordered to reopen the twitter,’ Malik tweeted again.

US-based Human Rights Watch responded immediately never missing a chance for show-off. The organisation called the Twitter ban in Pakistan ‘ ill-advised, counterproductive and futile’.

Despite the temporary Twitter ban, AP reported that many people in Pakistan were still been able to access Twitter by using software that disguises the user’s location.

In 2010, Pakistan blocked access to about 1,000 websites because of the ‘ Draw Prophet Muhammad Day ‘ competition on Facebook.

That ban remained in place for about a fortnight until Facebook blocked access to the controversial page in Pakistan.

Pakistan : 1000 websites banned

Over the past year thousands of websites have been blocked without warning in Pakistan. Pornographic sites have been targeted, as have sites that are considered ‘ anti-state ‘.

But while there may be those worried about freedom of speech in Pakistan, there have also been many who, in the past, have raised their voice in support of such restrictions on the media and internet, states the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool reporting from Islamabad, the country’s capital.

The Paki government did not specify which users or messages had prompted the ban on the microblogging site or the reasons behind  the allowence for Twitter to reoperate so quickly.

Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by many Muslims, who make up the overwhelming majority in Pakistan.

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