Dear All,
I am writing to you from Pakistan. I wish to bring to your attention the fact that Muslims across the
world are launching protests against the right to free speech and
having social networking websites banned in their countries.
The court in Lahore, Pakistan, issued a sentence today, banning Facebook for an indefinite period of time.
The URL of the social networking site will be blocked by the
telecommunication authorities. This action was taken in response to
some 20 people protesting against Facebook outside the court.
This entire hue and cry is a response to a facebook page inviting people to submit drawings of Mohammad on
the 20th of May to challenge the sheer intolerance of
Muslims when it comes to bringing their religious beliefs under
scrutiny.
The implications of this action can be dire for atheists, free thinkers, non-Muslims and relatively more
tolerant Muslims residing in these countries. Such ill-conceived
attempts at trying to appease and pander to the religious
sensitivities of Muslims can be utilized in future to curtail any
semblance of democratic rights that we did enjoy in the past. Today
it is facebook, tomorrow it could be who knows what.
I call for all atheists and free thinkers to rise up in arms against such despotic attempts to curtail
the freedom of expression in countries, such as mine. We could use
any and all help that comes our way. Appeal to your media, your
governments to pressurize governments like mine into revoking such
undemocratic orders.
In solidarity
Younas Chowdhry
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