Bangladesh Blocks Facebook Over Muhammad Cartoons

lbalbalba writes with a BBC story about Bangladesh following Pakistan in censoring Facebook. "Bangladesh has blocked access to Facebook after satirical images of the prophet Muhammad and the country's leaders were uploaded. One man has been arrested and charged with 'spreading malice and insulting the country's leaders' with the images. Officials said the ban was temporary and access to the site would be restored once the images were removed. It comes after Pakistan invoked a similar ban over 'blasphemous content.' ... Thousands of people joined anti-Facebook protests in Bangladesh on Friday demanding the site be blocked over the contest. A telecomm regulator there said, "Facebook will be re-opened once we erase the pages that contain the obnoxious images." And how do they propose to do that?

Comments

Here's a better idea

[earthforce_1]

Let's totally unplug all backwards theocracies from the internet.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bad idea as internet access has a serious western influence on these countries, for better or for worse.

Every time I see a story like this it makes me want to find the part of my state with the highest Islamic population and then decorate the streets so they cannot walk ten feet without seeing a cartoon making fun of Mohammed. It would be a way to say "welcome to the ridicule and derision Christians and Jews and others are expected to put up with." Psychologists call this "systematic desensitization" when it's used for phobias and other irational fears. In the case of Islam everyone would be better off for it. It would absolutely not be an attack against Islam. It would merely establish parity between Islam and all other major religions.

It's time for Islam to learn what Christianity learned hundreds of years ago. Not everyone is going to adhere to your religion and fighting crusades, jihads, or holding inquisitions won't change that and is not the correct solution. All that does is convince every non-adherant that you're really a bunch of barbarians who use force because you don't actually believe in your faith or the power of its message. If your goal is to spread your religion, this is extremely counter-productive and will produce unyielding resistance to it. Realistically, every time an Islamic terrorist makes something go "ka-boom" do you think the rest of us say "wow, that Islam sure has some great points, I better convert today!" or do you think we say "yup, what a bunch of primitive savages." It does not help that the more moderate Islamic leaders rarely or never condemn the murderous actions of their extremist brethren. It's as though they are afraid to, or they agree with the extremists, and either case means that the extremist minority gets to dictate the entire course of Islam. Again, that's not a selling point if you want to win converts.

For all religious people, Islamic or not, here's a novel concept: practice your religion as you see fit to the extent that you don't coerce others against their will. If others do things that you consider blasphemous, say a quiet prayer for them in your own privacy wishing that they come to understand things as you do. If they don't, consider it the will of an all-knowing and all-powerful God and leave those people the hell alone. If they do, celebrate that your prayers had an effect. I know that has the serious drawback of not giving you an excuse to force others to behave as you think they should, but you can get over that.

Re:Here's a better idea

[matunos]

No need. They are unplugging themselves.

Re:Here's a better idea

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

So we punish the citizens for the crimes of their corrupt leaders? Better would be to subvert their leaders and try to give them proper access anyway.

Re:Here's a better idea

[PopeRatzo]

That's a bad idea as internet access has a serious western influence on these countries, for better or for worse.

Not if they're going to block anything that might offend their backward beliefs. And it's not a "western" influence that the internet brings, but an influence that is dangerous for any society, East or West, that seeks to maintain control over the population. At least until corporations have locked down the last dingy corner of the Internet, which might be sooner than you think.

But let's face it: backward religious beliefs that exploit human desire for meaning are poisoning societies everywhere. Not that mysticism or faith in the supernatural are themselves poisonous, but the minute such beliefs become organized, they are co-opted by people who would pervert them for political purposes.

Pictures of Mohamed? The leaders of Bangladesh are happy enough to use the Internet to fuel their explosion in high-tech industries and end-user support facilities, but they believe they can keep out anything that's "offensive" to their culture. Little do they know that they're way too late. I'm willing to bet that the first thing a Bangladeshi teenager does when first encountering the Internet is to look up pictures of Mohamed. Right after they look up 2 girls, 1 cup and Hentai.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Pharmboy]

here's a novel concept: practice your religion as you see fit to the extent that you don't coerce others against their will.

That would hold true for all religions. Fortunately, about 90% of Christians and 100% of Jews in America don't care what religion you are and consider their relationship with their god to be a personal matter. The other 10% are just annoying as hell, but are not likely to stone you or blow themselves up. Muslim, however, seem to be a different thing altogether.

If you think something is a sin, (alcohol, for instance) why can't Muslims simply choose to not drink alcohol and leave everyone else alone? The answer, of course, is that it appears the majority thinks everyone must become Muslim. Parts of the Koran specifically say to convert or kill infidels, although other parts say to respect other's beliefs and leave them alone. While most would likely prefer to convert the infidels with words, and only a minority with force, the problem is that they feel they must convert us at all. The idea of "live and let live" just isn't in their vocabulary.

It is going to take something big to see change or a large amount of time, and frankly, I don't think the rest of the world is going to be patient enough to allow a large amount of time.

Re:Here's a better idea

[blackraven14250]

In Jerusalem the danger is rock throwing groups for violators of the sabbath.

....aren't Jews not supposed to do any work, like, you know, picking up and throwing rocks, on the Sabbath?

Re:Here's a better idea

[biryokumaru]

Yes. The whole "Islamic Terrorist" idea is obviously a conspiracy on the part of western translators. Good eye!

Re:Here's a better idea

[CAIMLAS]

. Not everyone is going to adhere to your religion and fighting crusades, jihads, or holding inquisitions won't change that and is not the correct solution.

And if they (Muslims) win their jihads?

HINT: the world's Islamic population is increasing substantially, and not solely through birth. Jihad is alive and well in many (most) parts of the world. Social subversion goes a long way towards reaching one's goals when the status quo is one of accepting others' beliefs: it doesn't take much pressure to flip the coin.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Sperbels]

For the record: as a non-Christian (in the 'organized religion' sense), non-Jewish believer-in-god, I sure find atheists annoying as hell. These guys need to shut the hell up and stop being so critical of every semi-religious/spiritual statement people make.

For the record: as an atheist who doesn't go around criticizing religion, I sure find people who believe all atheists are Richard-Dawkins-wannabes annoying as hell. You people turned atheism into a dirty word. So much so that most atheists just call themselves agnostic to avoid being confused with an anti-theist.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Cassius Corodes]

This isn't about ridicule just for fun. This is one group of people demanding special treatment (i.e. no drawing of Muhammad etc.) on the basis of their beliefs and threatening (and carrying out - so its not an empty threat) violence against any who dont give them this special treatment. This is simply not acceptable. And this ridicule serves as a way of showing that we are united in this perspective. If this offends someone more than murdering someone in the street then they have their priorities way wrong and I dont have much sympathy for them.

TL;DR: We aren't the students picking on the weird kid, we are the students uniting against a bully who wants to do things his way.

Re:Here's a better idea

[shutdown -p now]

Frankly, I don't care if it is in the Qu'ran or not. The matter of the fact is that even self-proclaimed moderate Muslims in the West, when questioned, admit that death is the right and proper punishment for apostasy. So that interpretation is mainstream.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Cassius Corodes]

Ignoring that your particular example is illegal, and addressing your main point, what if someone posted legal things I found offensive on my street (not vandalism mind you), I would ignore it as I do many other things I find offensive in my daily life. Would there be outrage? - depending on the thing maybe - and that's fair and good. They have a right to cause us offence, and in turn some might exercise their right to protest (personally I wouldn't give it the publicity by protesting it). If they caused property damage there might be lawsuits, but otherwise there wouldn't be a case to answer. However someone threatened them with violence for doing it, I certainly would speak out against it.

The main point is that you don't have a right not to be offended in a free country. If someone offends you - feel free to offend them back, or you know - consider being the bigger person and exposing the other as petty. I might even support you for it. However, threaten violence and all free people ought to align against you.

And that is what this is about. This is not about causing offence for fun, its about taking back a boundary which has been slowly eroded by extremist elements among Muslims (and rather shamefully supported by the mainstream) who have declared that drawing images of Muhammad is punishable by death. They have backed this up with murder. As we saw with the south park debacle, some in the west have caved. We are here to defend our freedom and defy those who would threaten us into submission.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Cassius Corodes]

But religious freedom is a human right. They have a taboo and it involves images of Muhammad. Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam.

Freedom of religion is a human right, but respect of your religion is not. As an atheist, I can tell you that much of what is said by preachers in the street is disrespectful of atheists. I find the belief that I will be tortured for all eternity very disrespectful. But I don't demand them to respect me, just like Catholics cannot demand I respect their holy crackers. Neither can Muslims demand that the image of Muhammad be sacrosanct. This is just how it works is a free society.

In a multicultural society, there is good reason to behave respectfully to beliefs you do not share. But when such things are backed up with violence, then it crosses a line, and this is about making it very clear that such things will not be tolerated.

It's not like the majority of Muslims are violent so why blame the entire religion

Nobody is blaming the entire religion. Put it this way - if some atheists beheaded someone for saying "atheism is crap" or something similar - I would be the first to hold this banner. I would look down on anyone who felt it was more important to preserve "respect for atheism", then to reprint or otherwise display such as statement. In fact I would feel that this very act was doing more for this cause. Otherwise there is something very wrong with your priorities.

Re:Idiots

[Vinegar Joe]

The point of the ban is to try and force non-muslims to accept Muslim rules.

As a proud American I find this outrageous.

[CompassIIDX]

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to contact the FBI about some naked cartoon images that might not be of legal age.

Yet another proof by demonstration...

[stonewolf]

that islam is having a very hard time dealing with the 16th century. I hate to image what will happen if it/they what ever, it actually comes into contact with the 21st century. Oh, yeah... that was what happened in 9/11/2001 and just a while ago in Times Square.

The question is which happens first? Either 1) these so called islamic "civizations" learn to accept basic concepts like "human rights" or 2) they finally become a real danger. By real danger I mean they actually set off a nuke in a western city, release a ton of nerve gas, set off a dirty bomb, start the black death 2.0, or do a bunch of little things that just really piss us off. Like say, killing the South Park guys.

If 1 happens first, then cool. Everyone gets to live. But if 2 happens, what then? Do we keep trying to bottle them up and worrying about whether it is safe to have lunch in the park today? Or, do we just start killing them? I think that is going to be a major test of *our* so called civilization.

My bet is that our great great grandchildren will be ashamed of what we do. But, I'm also betting that there are going to be very very few great great grandchildren who are raised as moslems.

IMHO, the belief in absolute truth is the greatest enemy of humanity. The belief in absolute truth is absolute evil.

Stonewolf

It's wrong to apply banning in 99% of cases.

[elucido]

Banning burkas is wrong. Banning websites is wrong. Banning ideas, books, clothing, all of this is wrong. I don't think banning does anything other than irritate and piss people off who might have been peaceable before. If you know a group of people like to wear burkas and you ban it, you just pissed them off and it makes them feel like you just banned THEM. The same can be said if you have millions of people who smoke weed legally and suddenly it's banned. It's the same as if this website were banned.

It's wrong because it fans the flames of hatred against US policy for no real gain politically, culturally, diplomatically, militarily. This accomplishes what?

Re:This is religious intolerance.

[victorhooi]

heya,

Well, actually no...haha...you're completely wrong.

As a Christian, I can tell you people make fun of us all the time. Heck, they've been doing it for around, what, 2000 years? And the Jews have probably suffered a lot longer. Thing is, every religion gets made fun of

I mean, seriously, has your head been under a sand. What do you think Raptor Jesus is? (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Raptor_Jesus) Or say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Or how about all those bestselling books alleging Jesus was gay, or he had a family with kids, or some other ridiculous nonsense....

I actually find some of these funny, and a little comical (well, the FSM I think is actually clever/ironic, the Raptor Jesus meme is just a bit insipid/childish, but hey, it's the 4chan crowd, they're mostly 12-year olds kids).

You can either act like tantrum-throwing little kids, like some Muslims here are, or you can grow up and act like an adult, and shrug it off. It's not personal, they just don't believe the same things as you. And for a Christian, it just means they miss you on having God's awesome grace - so you should just pray for them, and be loving to them.

It's things like these that make Muslims look like backward primitives...*cue somebody declaring a fatwah against me*

Cheers,
Victor

Re:Idiots

[Totenglocke]

It's scary how many people in Western countries think Muslims are beyond reproach though. I was in an IRC channel a few months back (don't ask me which, I sure as hell don't remember) and I was playing around with different screen names. While doing this, I found out that the names Jesus and God were banned, so a friend suggested I try Allah - that was allowed. After I change it to that, some Muslim starts foaming at the mouth about how he's going to hunt me down and kill me for "insulting" his god merely by making my screen name Allah (despite the fact that I didn't say a single unkind or inappropriate thing while I had that name on). As you would expect, everyone in the room told him to STFU and asked him to stop being an irrational lunatic, right? Wrong, they vilified me and defended the Muslim threatening to kill someone just over a damn screen name.

The Muslim extremists have already won - politicians are too cowardly to stand up to them because they might lose a few votes and most citizens are afraid to stand up to them because they might be called "mean" or "racist".

They'll just ban you rather than stone you.

[elucido]

here's a novel concept: practice your religion as you see fit to the extent that you don't coerce others against their will.

That would hold true for all religions. Fortunately, about 90% of Christians and 100% of Jews in America don't care what religion you are and consider their relationship with their god to be a personal matter. The other 10% are just annoying as hell, but are not likely to stone you or blow themselves up. Muslim, however, seem to be a different thing altogether.

If you think something is a sin, (alcohol, for instance) why can't Muslims simply choose to not drink alcohol and leave everyone else alone? The answer, of course, is that it appears the majority thinks everyone must become Muslim. Parts of the Koran specifically say to convert or kill infidels, although other parts say to respect other's beliefs and leave them alone. While most would likely prefer to convert the infidels with words, and only a minority with force, the problem is that they feel they must convert us at all. The idea of "live and let live" just isn't in their vocabulary.

It is going to take something big to see change or a large amount of time, and frankly, I don't think the rest of the world is going to be patient enough to allow a large amount of time.

The Christian right is behind the banning of homosexuality. Look it up, Sodomy was a crime. Adultery was a crime. They used the law to make being anything but Christian illegal.

So no you cannot say these people aren't still trying. They want to ban abortion and gay marriage now.

Re:They'll just ban you rather than stone you.

[EdIII]

but at least we are moving in the right direction with a little momentum and the majority of Jews and Christians are not trying to convert us all.

Conversion is the least of our issues. I quite frankly have no problems with it and see it as an acceptable behavior in society. How can we say it is any different than the man on a soap box in the park telling us about the end times or the Great Squirrel Conspiracy (that's true btw)? As long as it is conducted in public, on public property, between consenting adults the behavior is non-threatening.

What *is* the problem is punishment . When people use interpretations of their religion to justify vigilante actions against you, outside of society's laws, to punish you for transgressions against their religion, that is extremely concerning. Equally concerning, are the attempts to subvert and pervert the laws of society through so-called political activism to enact non-secular laws in accordance with their religion.

Thankfully, America and Europe has largely evolved past such behaviors (like the Crusades and the Inquisition), and the people who insist on performing or advocating such actions are marginalized and punished according to the law when they act inappropriately. Society does not condone or encourage *any* of their behavior whatsoever.

However, America and Europe have enjoyed a period of peace of prosperity that quite frankly has allowed us the luxury of evolving to this state in the first place.

The Middle East has been without such an environment for a very long long time and is unarguably in the grips of a Dark Age. Groups and people that should be marginalized and punished for their actions are being taken seriously, they are getting their laws enacted, and are proceeding with a culture of punishment of *anybody* that offends their religious sensibilities. Intolerance and violence is breeding more intolerance and violence.

I don't know what the solution is, but as long as angry violent men control the Middle East we are going to continue experiencing the anguish they bring upon the rest of the world.

The problem was never Islam or the words of the Quaran. Every other religious text has passages in it, often misconstrued due to a lack of anthropological sophistication required to understand their meanings in their time, but the vast majority of other people practice these religions in the moderation required to integrate into society.

That's the problem with Islam; The way it is practiced. No moderation and in many situations merely a framework of justifications for violence that these men are predisposed to anyways.

Re:This is religious intolerance.

[thenextstevejobs]

I think you're missing the point. I don't think anyone here has a problem with Muslims finding cartoons offensive. I can't relate to their offense at this, but that's no surprise. The problem is this being used as a reason to block access to a huge website like Facebook such that no one in the country can access it.

If we made a website declaring Jesus Christ was a homosexual, wouldn't this anger Christians in this country and don't you think that certain individuals would want the website banned?

Given your example, I quickly searched Facebook to see if there was any results for "Jesus is gay". Lo and behold, there is a group with 200 people who like "Jesus is Gay" as well as an app which has a picture of Jesus open-mouth kissing Satan. I'm not someone who wants to throw the US in your face as the shining example of everything good and warm and fuzzy, but I am sure fucking glad this country isn't banning Facebook because of content such as mentioned above.

So lets not be hypocrites here, the majority of Americans support censorship for cultural reasons

I just find it hypocritical that people can switch from being for free speech in one instance but then when it's free speech that can apply to America suddenly we have to crack down and censor.

I seriously don't know what the fuck you're talking about. We have all kinds of nutjobs here in the US who want all kinds of shit taken down, banned, etc. Last I checked I could still pick up a copy of 'Howl' at the bookstore.

Are we for censorship or not?

I'm always against censorship. I don't see the hypocrisy that you're accusing vague swaths of Slashdot with for having regarding this issue. I am completely against governments limiting the materials available to their citizens based on ANYTHING, including religion, even if its the state religion, even if 99.99% of the population follows this religion.

Really bothers me that you're at +4 right now. Is everyone's brain dead this weekend?

Re:This is religious intolerance.

[ChinggisK]

I'm certain that if Muslims made fun of Christians tightly held cultural and religious beliefs there would be outrage from Christians.

You must be new here. In threads on this site discussing Christianity it is almost guaranteed that someone will refer to the Christian God as the 'sky-daddy' and Jesus as the 'undead zombie Jew'. Christians and Jews are constantly ridiculed, we get over it.