South Park, Facebook and bomb scares: How a cartoon changed Pakistan's internet landscape

"Freedom of speech is a right, but this right is not befitting of irrationality. It should be treated like any other right afforded by civil liberties: with responsibility. And when it is abused, an apology or some form of resolution is in order.” 

Photo: The Times - Pakistan Protests against Facebook

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Opinion
Source & Credit:  The Times | Articles of Faith
by Helen Nianias | May 27, 2010

The furore surrounding depicting Muhammad has reached new heights after US-cartoon South Park showed the prophet wearing a bear suit.

The first installment of the two-part episode showed the holy prophet dressed as a bear, but was censored out in the second episode, along with all mentions of his name. The episodes also featured a coke-snorting Buddha and portrayed Moses as an enormous orange head. The episodes, called “200” and “201”, centred around celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, trying to harness Muhammad’s ability to not be laughed at.


The programme led to an alleged bomb scare in Times Square, New York and a furore over groups set up on Facebook encouraging people to draw Muhammad leading to Pakistan banning the social networking website until the end of May. After the 31st, a detailed hearing will be opened.

According to a report on Al Jazeera, Pakistan is home to some 45 million Facebook users.

Pakistan blocked access to YouTube on Thursday following demonstrations against the group “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”, and other spin-off groups, on Facebook. The group encouraged members to draw a picture of Muhammad on 20th May in order to show extremists “that we’re not afraid of them”. Muslims offended by the blasphemy of depicting the prophet, set up an opposing group: AGAINST “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”

At last count, the anti-blasphemy page had 181,317 fans. The offending page was later taken down by Facebook moderators. The furore even has its own Wikipedia page.

The paper The Muslim Weekly blamed the group on Islamophobia. The paper said: “With the number of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim pages splashed across the social networking site Facebook, it was only a matter of time before some Islamophobe took it too far; and this is precisely what has transpired”.

Some have criticised Pakistan’s reactions as extreme, when blacking some offending pages online may have been another option for the government. Wikipedia, Twitter and photo-sharing site Flickr will also be banned, which accounts for about 25 per cent of all Pakistani internet traffic. Bilal Baloch argued on the Guardian’s Comment is Free that the ban is “not the answer”.

Baloch, in a piece co-authored by Nadia Naviwala, argued that letting Muslims use the websites to oppose the groups would be much more effective than the blanket ban. He said: “While sensitivity to drawings may seem irrational to non-Muslims, many religions and cultures have sore spots that the world has learned to respect. Freedom of speech is a right, but this right is not befitting of irrationality. It should be treated like any other right afforded by civil liberties: with responsibility. And when it is abused, an apology or some form of resolution is in order.”

Newsweek reported that people inside the Lahore court burst into applause when the court reached its decision to ban the page. The judge, Ijaz Chaudhry, banned the website for “very blasphemous content”.

While the court claimed that the decision reflected the wishes of the people of Pakistan, there was some resistance on the blogosphere. Pakistani media blog Cafe Pyala updated their site on Wednesday, describing the blockage as “cretinous”. The blog said: “The Lahore High Court has ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block Facebook in Pakistan because of some lame-ass campaign originating out of Seattle to make caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).”

This has raised doubts as to why the Pakistani government has taken a move some see as drastic. Eric Schmidt, Google chief, questioned whether the ban was actually to suppress political criticism. Schmidt told the New America Foundation that he’s “always suspicious of broad bans”.

“In every case we looked at, there is an official reason then another reason. There is an awful lot of political criticism they are blocking at the same time. I am very suspicious here.”

Helen Nianias is a guest blogger for Articles of Faith, and is taught by Ruth Gledhill at City University London

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