Facebook
said Friday it has not taken any action on the page, which had
attracted more than 100,000 users and encouraged users to post images of
Islam's Prophet Muhammad, purportedly in support of freedom of speech.
Most Muslims regard any depiction of the prophet,
even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
Najibullah
Malik, the secretary at Pakistan's information technology ministry,
said earlier Friday that the government had no option but to shut down
Facebook on Wednesday after a court order to do so.
"We know some people are suffering because of this
blockade, but we have to obey the court order in letter and spirit,"
Malik said.
Pakistan said it would consider
restoring Facebook and other sites with related content only if they
took down pages considered offensive to Islam.
There
was no immediate word on whether the government was lifting the ban.
The Facebook page, called "Everybody Draw
Mohammed Day!," had declared Thursday as the day to draw Mohammed, so it
was possible the creator took it down Friday because the page had
served its purpose.
The Facebook page
encouraged users to post images of the prophet to protest threats made
by a radical Muslim group against the creators of the American TV series
"South Park" for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode
earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Seattle
cartoonist Molly Norris, whose satirical cartoon calling for an
"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" inspired the Facebook page, said in a post
on her website that she meant her work only to be a commentary on the
"South Park" controversy.
"I made a cartoon
about the television show South Park being censored," she wrote. "I
never started a Facebook page. I apologize to people of Muslim faith and
ask that this 'day' be called off."
Other
sites have also been affected in the country as officials scramble to
block content related to the Facebook page. Wikipedia's English-language
site and the Flickr photo-sharing site were also sporadically
unavailable Friday.
It was not the first time
depictions of the prophet have angered Muslims. In 2005, cartoons of
Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper, sparking protests and riots
from Muslims around the world, including in Pakistan, where the protests
turned violent.
There have been several
rallies against Facebook in recent days.
Others
- mostly members of the more secular, educated elite - accused the
government of blocking freedom of expression and hurting small
businesses that use Facebook for marketing. Many questioned need for the
entire Facebook and YouTube sites to be blocked, instead of individual
pages.