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

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.

This is the new age of the internet.

[pizzach]

People don't want all of the content that is on it. It's not just a group of techies, but people from all walks of life. If they thing that images of Muhammad are as bad a child porn, who is to stop them from blocking it? This isn't the old Internet. We aren't living in the wild west anymore. Not everyone's sense of ethics line up.

Re:This is the new age of the internet.

[stonewolf]

Naw.... I saw my first posting by a dumb ass moslem screaming about how we are all going to be killed in the great jihad blah blah blahdy blah blah back on usenet when the Internet was young and you could still have an arapnet domain.

This crap has been happening for centuries. Every time some poor bastard realizes that those fast moving lights in the sky were put there by us and that not one of their countries could do the same thing or when they saw the steam powered steel ships come into harbor and they realized that not one of their countries could... You get the picture. Contact with the west destroyed their image of themselves as a great culture so they have to kill us all.

Sad sick puppies.

Stonewolf

Re:Idiots

[Ethanol-fueled]

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

An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine that Muslims must take an oath to renounce Islam(not having to choose another religion, just renouncing Islam) upon immigration to generic, prosperous Western countries. How many would give up a safe and comfortable lifestyle and a good education, for themselves and their families, for the sake of religious self-righteousness?

Another principle-related thought experiment: Would the number of abortions increase if men were not obligated to pay child support?

They never learned

[linumax]

It's time for Islam to learn what Christianity learned hundreds of years ago.

That never happened. Christianity never learned anything, in fact they lost control as a result of not learning and adapting. They were thrown out of governments for good and lost the power to enforce their ways on the rest of us. Give Christianity back the power they had a in the dark ages and in a decade or two "peaceful" and "tolerant" Christians will be burning heathens on crosses in the name of their lord. If you have any doubts about that keep in mind how with the tiny bit of power left in hands of Vatican they systematically and on a global scale sexually abuse innocent children, silence the victims, protect the culprits and still consider themselves righteous. Then imagine what would happen if church had unlimited powers

The reason there are relatively few terrorist Christian militias or individual Christian terrorists is fear of harsh repercussions, specifically prosecution by the state. Bring back church to the state and their fears will vanish, then you'll see how hurting Christians' feelings, including you and I's innocent jokes about Jesus would result in "bodily harm".

tldr; It is Islamic states (or generally religion+state) that are the problem, not Islam per se. For more proof, I was in Iran during the original cartoon controversy. Not a single person knew or cared about the cartoons until state media started blasting them. Not a single grassroots protest happened, not a single gathering, until government sponsored protests (which most people have to attend) started.

Re:Here's a better idea

[Pharmboy]

Just for the record, some of us Westerners find Christians, Jews and Muslims all pretty annoying. Not all of us are Christians. 20% openly say they are not, many who say they are have never gone to church, thus they are on paper only.

Re:Here's a better idea

[biryokumaru]

Well, here's an interesting article on the subject... and here's some choice selections:

“Truly Allah loves those who fight in His cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure” (Koran 61:4)

“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends: They are but friends to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them [for friendship] is of them [an infidel]. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust” (Koran 5:51)

“When ye meet the unbelievers smite at their necks” (Koran 47:4)

I guess you're right. Those are clearly all sentence fragments. The rest of that last sentence will obviously be "smite at their necks... with explanatory pamphlets, so that they are at eye level and clearly readable!"

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

[Zontar The Mindless]

..."marriage" is a sacred institution, meaning it is of religious value only.

Hello there -- ever actually been married? You really should try it sometime. You might learn something.

"Religious value" has very little to do with it -- a marriage is a contract, with legally binding economic and other consequences, such as:

-You agree to share your home and property/assets, and you may (depending on the jurisdiction) become liable for any debts your spouse incurs.

-You agree that any children born or adopted into your household are your joint responsibility.

-Your spouse gains the right to make medical and other decisions on your behalf, should you become incapacitated.

-Your spouse gains the right to inherit your benefits, such as pensions and insurance payouts.

-And so on.

(In many places, you don't necessarily have to participate in a ceremony, and it might be called something like "common-law marriage", "cohabitation", "de facto relationship", etc. In Sweden, it's called samboförhållande or "sambo" for short -- which has absolutely nothing to do with race, but is rather a contraction of samboende, meaning "same dwelling". But in all such cases, the intent and effects are generally the same as with "marriage".)

These are the sorts of practical issues that gays and others prohibited from marrying are complaining about: social and legal recognition as a unit.

Such a unit is sometimes referred to in the vernacular as a family.

This has absolutely nothing to do with an (in)ability to conform to the dicta of some Imaginary Dude Upstairs.