Good riddance.

Seriously though, that country is a close second to China.

All because of "Draw Mohammad Day" too. What the hell is wrong with them?

Guess the Authorities can't take anything in the lighter vein.
A cartoon is supposed to amuse people, but seems that the decision makers are pretty conservative and regressive.

More bandwidth for me. No wonder so many people emigrate from Pakistan.

Pakistan, moving farther into the past in the name of religion. Very progressive of them.

I think it's due to their strictness overthere. Blackberry has nothing to do with draw Mohammad Day.

I suggest a pre-paid sim cards from abroad with bis activated and used only trough wifi in Pakistan as a work around. There's bound to be plenty corporations on bes that's gonna kick off. It's so stupid tho, it's like banning all cars cuz somebody used one commiting a crime.

The BB is mightier than the sword

Stupid A$$ dictator's what a joke taking away peoples right to do what they want.

its annoying to say the least, not to have BIS. but we can get emails and BBM's working, EDGE services aren't working, so no apps.
Also, Pakistan is taking a stance. I'm against the ban and i believe that's not the way to go...but its just sad that people are proud of offending the Muslims, their religious ideologies and beliefs, and then pointing fingers when they react.
no Muslim drew a picture mocking any of the religion. Don't know why we are targeted, then we have to suffer the consequences as well.
Its just sad to say the least :)

its not banned anymore they banned it for a couple hours

This news was just a hoax, the BIS was down temporarily due to technical reasons which people linked to this banning. My office members use BIS and we are not facing any kind of trouble or issues.

As for the banning of other sites n stuff, only those can understand this when they love someone and that person is insulted :) for say Mr X loves her gf n if i draw stupid images or cartoons of her, it might amuse me n others but not Mr X n not even his gf :P

I grew up in a very strict religious household and because of that I am not longer spiritual at all and don't care about religions or spirituality at all but I do recognize the right for individuals to practice whatever religion they choose to practice and to be tolerant of others beliefs. But we all know that will never happen because every religion or sect of a religion believes they are right and everyone else is wrong. Some have gone to the point of killing millions of people in past history or current times to make their point. It really is a sad world we live in when people have no sense of humor at all when what they believe is made fun of but has no problem when another persons beliefs are made of next. Just another reason why I view all religions hypocritical.

It's easy for the muslims today to play the victim but for me it's hard to forget my country was oppressed for hundreds of years by the ottoman empire, also muslims. Probably millions of romanians died defending the country against the Turks so sorry, no sympathy from me.

I live in india,
And traveled most part of country.
Meet good and bad...

No one want to live like 1200 BC, but common mass is like flock of sheep, stupid shepard takes them where ever he wishes.
..............
Don't take it too seriously.

That's what they want. BB sucks for real. 6.0 better be for real. just Got me a android phone...LOL

Here's a little perspective from someone who won't make rash comments and pass one-sided judgments.

0. Censorship is wrong on all forms, but so is purposely insulting a group of people under the guise of free speech.

1. Muslims hold dear to their hearts Muhammad, sometimes more than themselves. Mocking or insulting him is sort of like insulting someone's mother or father. People do take it personally. Yes, getting all violent and foam mouthed isn't an appropriate response, but mind you, most Muslims don't react like that. There are approximately 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. If the majority of them were to act like that then wars would've been started. People need to stop blowing things out of proportion.

2. You don't get to decide what insults someone and what doesn't. In the workplace sexual harassment is more a function of personal perception than it is what everyone else thinks; that's why everyone is careful what they say or do. Similarly, you insult Muhammad, you're insulting Muslims whether you think they should be insulted or not.

3. Crying freedom of speech in this instance is a joke in this instance because no one would dare draw or republish any Nazi propaganda depicting 'the stereotypical Jew'

4. Religion is not S@#% as some people like to point out. People who pretend to practice that religion might be. Just because you have a narrow and unfortunate set of experiences that has upset you, doesn't mean that religion hasn't benefited many, many other people. In this case Pakistan censoring facebook, youtube, BIS, or whatever is not in compliance with Islamic laws and values because there is nothing in Islam that dictates an Islamic country must censor something it doesn't like.

This is hilarious, drawing and depicting another religous figure to express freedom of speech is very weak point. How does this empower our freedom of speech. The decision made by Pakistan was a little harsh since it does not eliminate all possible sources for the drawings to get in. But in Reality this 'everybody draw Muhammad day' is a mockery more than an expression. And if you think our freedom of speech is threatened by avoiding this topic, lets try to Talk about the Holocaust and see where our "freedom of speech" takes us.

The holy Prophet means alot to The Muslim Community ,
The following is from Michael Hart's book and lists Prophet Muhammad as the most influential man in History. A Citadel Press Book, published by Carol Publishing Group
Ranking of the twenty from the list of 100:

1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein
11. Karl Marx
12. Louis Pasteur
13. Galileo Galilei
14. Aristotle
15. Lenin
16. Moses
17. Charles Darwin
18. Shih Huang Ti
19. Augustus Caesar
20. Mao Tse-tung

Banning Blackberry isn't a wise decesion, but people should respect other religions. What's next? why not banning everything???

Lol,
No one has said it yet and I know thats what most people are thinking.

Well most people are probably thinking some other things but I dont think Im in the mood to get banned right now!

Religion is merely a way of life for people, imposed on some, but a vast majority who migrate to more secular regimes still choose to practice it. Alot of People even convert to it to seek enlightenment. But this is a personal choice. The western world is To some is a safer and easier place to practice their religions that they were born into or learned from in the original countries that they immigrated from. So Religion is not a bad thing, extremism is. And yes i agree it is harder for someone to live in Pakistan if they do not embrace Islam. But this is not the religions fault. In situations like this people tend to discredit Religions and give it full blame of the problem, when in reality, The people are at Fault.

An example of this would be someone stabbing someone else to death, Is the Knife to blame or The person?

Same idea with Religion, it is merely a tool which if interpeted right,it can produce positivity and do good,and if iinterpeted wrong can cause harm.

I live in Pakistan. First of all, before posting something like this, get your facts straight. Blackberry was only banned for a few hours after which it was reactivated. This was only due to the fact that Facebook was to be banned on the Blackberry. It is not because of "their strictness overthere". This perfectly illustrates a lack of general knowledge.

Although, I am completely against the Facebook ban, I do, however, understand why the government did so. The prophet (PBUH) is a highly respected individual in Islam and any depictions of him are strictly prohibited.

As for the freedom of speech issue - this is actually quite amusing. When you attack black people, they call it racism. When you attack Jewish people, they call it anti semitism. When you attack women, they call it sexism. When you attack homosexuality, they call it intolerance. When you attack your country, they call it treason. When you attack a religious sect, they call it hate speech. But when they attack the Prophet (PBUH), they want to call it freedom of speech. It is truly sad how a person is so ruthless and insensitive as to creating such a group that would hurt thousands.

Again, although I am completely against the ban, I am completely shocked and devastated by seeing the lack of humanity that the person who created the group possessed.

"inappropriate" cartoons, LOL!!!

Not exactly all the services are banned. BBM and email services are working fine while rest of things are inaccessible.

You know...as a Muslim, I am in the least bit offended about alleged "graven" images of Mohammad (PBUH). Political satire is political satire. Take it or leave it. What I AM offended by are these hard-line countries who impose on their citizen's civil liberties in order to keep their people in the philosophical Dark Ages.

That's some good ol' fashion muslim oppression right there!

BB services were banned for few hours only in Pakistan. I can use all the regular BB services except facebook now.

:speechless:

I wouldn't say that freedom of speech is a good excuse to be disrespectful. We clearly don't just get to go around saying whatever we want in certain situations.

That being said, I don't feel like anyone should get to impose the ideals if his or her religious beliefs on anyone else. If you believe drawing Muhammad is immoral, don't do it. If depictions of him offend you, don't look at him. I'm not saying it's nice of someone to draw something you may find offensive, but you don't get to dictate what other people can or can't do, no matter what you personally believe.

If my own belief system led me to the conclusion that it is wrong to paint cars blue, should I get to make a huge case about how insensitive and inhuman people are for painting a car blue? Of course not! I'm personally offended by crappy syndicated episodes of The Fresh Prince. Does that mean TBS owes me an apology for offending me? Unfortunately, no. It doesn't matter how strongly I believe something is wrong, I don't get to force the rest of the world to regard that action as wrong. What I do get to do is make the choice not to look at it and to focus on things I don't find offensive.

although what has been reported here is very true, it not really is.

As the article say's, facebook has been banned in Pakistan, due to with Blackberry services were also stopped.
but after half a day of service shut down, the services providers worked something out in their services so as to not totally leave the blackberry users hanging.
Although services like facebook, twitter, google maps, etc are still not working on the blackberry devices.
data services via WAP have been switched on for BB users in Pakistan.
Meaning that even while all these services are still no accessible, bb users can use their data service to send and receive emails, BB Messenger and access wap based websites.

Regards,

Omer

Now Pakistan is surely being pushed to the medieval era by their govt. itself. No web, no nothing.

Here's the reality of freedom of speech - http://propakistani.pk/2010/05/23/one-facebook-two-faces-one-is-real-ugl...

I strongly believe in freedom of speech and religion. At the same time, I believe that part of that also includes personal responsibility.

My personal opinion is that the freedoms we have should be governed by our own personal values, while giving respect to others. If you are a Christian, is it "Christian" to attack someone? Maybe the drawings are an attack, per se, but they were done to invoke a negative response.

No matter what your religion or beliefs are, I believe it is human and mature of us to respect peoples' differences and know when to hold our tongue, and when to use our freedoms properly.

Not sure who gave you this info but its wrong.. my blackberry services are working fine except for facebook and twitter.

This is kinda cool so maybe we should try to offend some other countries and get services turned off elsewhere. =)

What a big bunch of babies! "Inappropriate cartoons" Come on, I could care less!