Facebook - An Offensive Act

On 20th May 2010, a page with name “Everybody draw Mohammad day” on well-known social media site facebook promoted a competition which encourages the users to draw and post the images of the Prophet Mohammad (S.A.W). This game of playing with Muslim’s sentiments and emotions is completely supported by facebook’s administration.

This action has sparked violent protests in the Muslims globally. In Pakistan, on May 19, 2010, government ordered all the internet service provider of the country to block facebook as an angry reaction to hit Muslim’s emotions. The page on the social networking site has generated criticism in Pakistan and elsewhere because Islam prohibits any images of the prophet. The government took action after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order Wednesday requiring officials to block Facebook until 31st May.
 

Protest against the courage of this satanic group is not limited till Pakistan. The other Muslim countries around the globe including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, U.A.E., Saudi Arabia are also promoted to be the next in the group of blocking nations. A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the idea behind the group was offensive.
 

According to BBC, facebook has faced big loss of 2 billion euros so far in last two days. And Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of facebook) will bear much more loss in future due to less traffic and user activities that will hardly affect his business.
 

Mimi Sulpovar, who is an American and started this satanic group at Facebook, said that she read about the idea on a blog after Comedy Central bleeped out part of an episode of “South Park” that mentioned the prophet. The whole campaign has been taken up by Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes.
 

Sulpovar denied being anti-Muslim and said: “If it’s offensive to you, that’s fine, but I don’t feel it’s right to impose your belief on others through intimidation. This is nothing to do with hate or bigotry. Nobody is creating violence or preaching open hatred towards individuals.” She also said: “I received hundreds of e-mails from people trying to explain this to me.” Finally while being confident on her rude act, she said: “Islam is not above criticism or cartoons. I believe in equality, and censoring Mohammed while we can draw every other figure in the world does not equal equality.”

Later that after some hours, a Seattle based cartoonist Molly Norris who drew cartoons of Prophet Mohammad (S.A.W) and is also the part of this group apologized from Muslims on her drawing. On her website http://www.mollynorris.com (currently banned in Pakistan), she said that “I did not declare 20th May as “Everybody Draw Mohammad Day”. I neither started this group of facebook nor set up any place for people to send drawings and I never received any drawings. I extremely apologize to the Muslims of the world to hurt their faith and belief.”