[c]ALHC adjourns hearing against Facebook.

THE Lahore High Court on Friday adjourned for one week the hearing of identical petitions, seeking action against Facebook, a social networking website of America, for displaying blasphemous sketches of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and burning pictures of the Holy Quran.

The petitions were filed by Muhammad Azhar siddique advocate and others, submitting that facebook and other internet websites which displayed blasphemous contents might be blocked in Pakistan, and the federal government t might be directed to raise the said issue at international level.

Petitioner submitted that first the Facebook held a competition of blasphemous caricatures and then Quran was burt in America by a priest and its photos were put on the Facebook to damage the Islam.

The court had directed the federal government to raise at international forums the issue of hosting blasphemous material contest against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and Holy Quran on Facebook and other websites.

The court had also directed the ministry of foreign affairs and ministry of information technology to submit a detailed report about the steps taken to stop the display of derogatory contents against the Islam on internet.

On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Naveed Inayat Malik sought time to submit the progress report, and the court adjourned the hearing for one week.

On previous hearing, the deputy attorney general had told the court as per directions of the court that Government of Pakistan was making a lot of efforts for mobilising Islamic countries of the OIC for tabling a resolution in the United Nations against blasphemous material on American social networking website Facebook.

Petitioner Counsel Azhar Siddique had rejected the report, stating it was an old tale and nothing new had been done by the government to raise the issue at the platform of the General Assembly, as asked by the court in its order on May 21, 2010.

The court directed the government to raise the issue at international forums so that such a thing did not occur in future.

The court also directed the petitioner to keep an eye on blasphemous contents if any on internet and move the court whenever such a thing came to be seen.

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