The extremely popular social networking site Facebook has been blocked in Bangladesh this weekend after pages were found to include satirical images of the prophet Muhammad.
Additionally, satirical images were found of Bengali leaders and one man was even arrested and charged with “spreading malice and insulting the country’s leaders.”
The block is temporary, and Bengali officials say access will be fully restored once all the images are removed.
Adds the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) (via BBC): Facebook “hurt the religious sentiments of the country’s majority Muslim population” by allowing the images of Muhammad.
“Some links in the site also contained obnoxious images of our leaders including the father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the leader of the opposition,” notes the group.
Pakistan blocked access to Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Flickr last week after the images first appeared.
Result for: opposition
New Zealand has become the first country to adopt a ‘3-strikes’ law for Internet pirates after signing the Copyright Amendment Act 2008 this year. The bill will go into effect on March 1st 2009.
The three strikes law, as previously discussed in France and the UK, would give pirates two warnings before kicking them off the Internet for good on a “third strike.” The EU recently struck down a bill calling for the three strikes rule and it appears that opposition is growing in New Zealand as well despite the fact the bill has already been signed.
The section of the act signed into law, 92A reads as follows:
Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
Six industry bodies have already voiced opposition to the law however and it appears that the law may be moving towards a rewording. The law would not be repealed however.
