Hearing of petition against Facebook adjourned
LAHORE: THE Lahore High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing by winter vacation on a petition seeking permanent ban on access to Facebook, a social networking website, in Pakistan.
Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry deferred proceedings after the Foreign Ministry submitted a reply.
The judge held that the government should take up this issue at all national and international forums and make others realise that no one should hurt religious feelings of others. The judge also directed the federal ministry of information to file its detailed reply.
On Monday, Deputy Attorney General Naveed Inayat Malik submitted a report on behalf of the Foreign Ministry according to which Pakistan got a resolution passed at Human Rights Commission, Geneva, in 1999 for “Combating Defamation of Religions” and this resolution was again adopted in March 2010. The report stated that the same resolution was also passed by the 13th session of Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).
The deputy attorney general said that Pakistan wanted to raise this issue in the UN with help of the OIC. The ministry had also raised this issue on September 24, in a meeting of Friends of Pakistan and had asked the whole world to give due regard to religious feelings of others.
Muhammad Azhar Siddique, chairman, Judicial Activism Panel, objected to the report, saying that what had been stated in the report was done before May 21, 2010 when the court had ordered raising this issue in the UN and the OIC.
The deputy attorney general also requested the court to give time for filing a reply by the ministry of information. The petitioner had sought a permanent ban on the access to Facebook in Pakistan for repeating its blasphemous acts.
Source: The News
Date:11/23/2010
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