acebook Prophet Trouble Escalates: Indian Muslims Demand For Ban On Facebook

Indian Muslims have also asked the government to ban Facebook, after the social networking site posted a page promoting "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day", and the programme was being promoted by an American cartoonist.

Noted Supreme Court lawyer Naushad Ahmad said that they are planning to approach SC with a petition demanding ban on world’s most popular social networking site- Facebook. 

India is a secular country and it is home to the world’s second largest Muslim population. New Delhi is very prompt in taking steps to prevent any kind of religious hatred in the country.
A protest meeting was held at Minara Masjid at Bhendi Bazaar and at Hindustani Masjid at Byculla in South Mumbai. Various Muslim organizations in India have called for a permanent ban on Facebook. 

The protest at Minara Masjid was organized by Raza Academy. The protesters asked the government to take strict action against the organizers of the competition. Well-known Islamic scholar Maulana Abdul Jabbar Kadri said, “We cannot tolerate such things which hurt the sentiments of millions of Muslims across the world.” 

Earlier also, Indian government had taken strict actions to maintain its secular fabric. India was the first country to ban The Satanic Verses written by Salman Rushdie. The book was later banned by Iran and Pakistan. The ban was imposed after Muslims launched protests across the country against the book, which they saw as insulting to their religion.

India had also banned Taslima Nasrin’s controversial book “Lajja” because they thought that the book contained thoughts which were blasphemous to the teachings of Prophet Mohammad. Lajja is still banned in India and recently Taslima was sent outside India because Muslims group were unhappy with her presence in the country.

Meanwhile, the controversial page on social networking site Facebook, which prompted the Pakistan government from banning Facebook in the country, has been removed now. 

On the page, a suggestion was given, encouraging people to draw images of the prophet to promote free speech. A lot of people were following the page. But the page was removed two days ago. It is believed that the page was removed by its creator.

An association of lawyers in Pakistan argued that drawing picture of the Holy Prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam and a Pakistani court banned the networking site. Pakistan also banned YouTube over "sacrilegious" content.

Arab News reported that Saudi Arabia has also blocked a controversial page of Facebook that ridicules an Islamic ban on depicting Prophet Muhammad. The paper said that the kingdom's Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) blocked the page that marked May 20 as " Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." 

The controversial page was based on a cartoon by U.S. illustrator Molly Norris. He had asked people to draw their own images of the Holy Prophet on May 20.