The High
Court in Bangladesh has ruled five "blasphemous" Facebook pages and a
website must be blocked.
The court
heard the pages offended the Prophet Muhammad as well as other religions.
The lawyer
who brought the petition, Muhammad Nawshad Zamir, told the AFP news agency some
of the images were close to pornography.
He said the
court has asked Bangladeshi authorities to find out who posted the cartoons and
comments online.
The case
was brought by two teachers from Dhaka University and Dhaka Centre for Law and
Economics who said the pictures hurt the religious sentiment of Muslims.
Mr Zamir
said the pages also contained disparaging remarks about "the holy book of
the Koran, Jesus, Lord Buddha and Hindu gods".
He declined
to name the Bengali-language website and advised that the government has been
given three weeks to report developments to the court.
Some
bloggers have raised concerns that the ruling is curbing free speech.
This is the
first time the country's High Court has intervened, although two years ago
Facebook was blocked in Bangladesh for a short period until caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad and "obnoxious" images of the country's leaders were
removed.
Courts in
India and Pakistan have also ruled in cases where internet sites have published
what is considered to be offensive material.
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