Azerbaijan can block access to Facebook

The Pakistani government has blocked popular social networks Facebook and YouTube due to what it describes as sacrilegious content. In particular, there is a page on Facebook, titled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" inviting people to post drawings of the prophet Muhammad.

The Pakistani government temporarily blocked in-country access to YouTube, Facebook and at least 450 sites, including Wikipedia, by midday Thursday, and the government said more blockages could come.

“It looks like someone wants to cause emotions and protests among the Islamic world in order to say later – here is the Islamic fundamentalism and radicalism, destroying the world,” said Vugar Hasanov, an author of the article titled “Azerbaijan can claim to block access to Facebook.” He said that there special forces who intentionally move to cause new tensions after the waves of protests related to the caricatures of Mohammed in the Danish newspaper had calm down.

“It’s possible that the social network could be blocked in Azerbaijan, it can be demanded by the religious people. However, will this be a way out? If we block the access and the Azerbaijanis don’t see the page with drawings it will not come as that there is not a page with that contest at all,” said Hasanov, pointing that there are powers who have serious concerns about expansion of Islam.

Dayanat Rzayev, a psychologist, said that there are forces interested in propaganda. He said: “In my opinion, one can just remember that after the cartoons in the Danish newspaper we witnessed mass protests and even clashes between the Christians and Muslims. You know, contests of this kind are being organised by powers, interested in war and conflicts in the world. That is why I think that the social networks should be under control; however, this is hardly possible.”

The religious leader of Juma Mosque, a philosopher and theologian, Ilgar Ibragymoglu said that he considers the happening as “the moral terror.”

“I don’t think that the passive defense is the right way; on the contrary it is necessary to carry out certain activities aiming at casting light on these Islam-phobic crimes,” Ilgar Ibragymoglu said.