Pakistan started by banning Facebook as one of the pages had a cartoon drawing competition of one of Islam’s revered figures. A group of lawyers petitioned the court to ban the entire Facebook service and not just the particular page as Facebook was complicit indirectly for allowing the page to be hosted. The court to my surprise obliged to this request.Frankly this seemed a bit absurd Banning the entire infrastructure because an application  was offensive does not seem very rational.I am not sure whether the authorities asked Facebook to remove the particular page.Then the government banned YouTube followed by Twitter .The Witch Hunt  seems to be going to ridiculous lengths with the ban on Blackberry.The way they are going they might ban communications in the entire country. A lot of closed societies in the Middle East ,China and other places place restrictions on the Internet but never go as far as to ban an entire Service. Would be interesting to see how this Witch Hunt ends. I think Pakistan needs these companies more than these companies need Pakistan as a market.

Pakistani telecom authority bans Blackberry services – Economic Times

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has not only blocked the usage of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, but also of Blackberry services.

According to the Daily Times, the PTA has asked all cellular companies to put an immediate cap on all Blackberry services until further notice.Sources said the PTA issued the directives on the orders of the Lahore High Court, which asked the government to make sure that Facebook is blocked for all Internet users in the country. On Friday, following a ban on Facebook and popular video sharing portal YouTube, the social networking site Twitter was banned in Pakistan for carrying blasphemous content.

Hundreds of Twitter users tried in vain to log in to their accounts as a message, “This site has been restricted,” was displayed on their computer screens.