LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan briefly blocked access to all social networks on Friday, after days of anti-French protests across the country by radical Islamists opposed to the cartoons they consider blasphemous.
Sites, including Twitter and Facebook, were blocked for four hours on the orders of the country’s interior ministry, said Khurram Mehran, a spokesman for Pakistan’s media regulatory agency. He did not give further details.
The move comes as police officials prepare to stage a large demonstration in the eastern city of Lahore and just hours after the government said the now-detained leader of the outlawed Islamist political party, leading protests, had urged his supporters to retire. .
By publishing a handwritten note by Saad Rizvi, the government hopes to ease tensions after its Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party sparked violent protests – in which two police officers were killed and 580 injured. France urged its citizens to leave the country as a result.
Three protesters also died in clashes with security agencies, and the government imposed a ban on the party.
A photo of the statement was released earlier by a prime minister’s adviser on Twitter, but neither Rizvi himself nor any of his party’s leaders were immediately available for comment. Some of his followers insisted on hearing or seeing the words from Rizvi himself before the stop, and the Lahore protest continued after Friday prayers.
On Thursday, the French embassy in Pakistan advised all its citizens and companies to leave the Islamic country temporarily, after violence erupted over Rizvi’s arrest.
Violent protests have been taking place in Lahore since Monday, affecting private and public property and disrupting hospitals’ much-needed oxygen supply. Some of those affected included patients with COVID-19 who were being treated with oxygen.
In a statement, Rizvi called on supporters to disperse peacefully for the good of the country and end the headquarters that began on Monday, when police arrested the radical cleric for threatening protests if the government did not expel the French ambassador before 20th of April.
Rizvi’s arrest sparked violent protests by his followers, who disrupted traffic by organizing sit-ins across the country. Although security forces have wiped out almost all the rallies, thousands of Rizvi followers are still gathered in Lahore, vowing to die to protect the honor of the Prophet Muhammad of Islam.
Rizvi became the leader of the banned Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party in November after the sudden death of his father, Khadim Hussein Rizvi. His party wants the government to boycott French products.
Rizvi’s party denounced French President Emmanuel Macron in October last year, saying it was trying to defend the blasphemous caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as freedom of expression. Macron had spoken after a young Muslim man beheaded a French schoolteacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
The images were republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial for the 2015 deadly attack against the publication for the original cartoons.
This has angered many Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere who believe these descriptions have been blasphemous. Rizvi’s group in recent years has become known for opposing any changes to the country’s harsh blasphemy laws, according to which anyone accused of insulting Islam or other religious figures can be sentenced to death if found guilty.