A Pakistani court has ordered the government to open an investigation into online “blasphemy”, threatening to ban social media networks if they failed to censor content deemed insulting to Islam, lawyers said Thursday. Four of them were later returned to their families weeks later, but not before they were tarnished by a virulent campaign to paint them enemies of Islam deserving execution. Rights groups say the label of blasphemer is liberally applied by religious conservatives in order to silence criticism of extremism. But Islamabad later came to agreements with major internet firms to block within Pakistan material that violated its laws, generally once the companies had performed their own cross-checks. He’s going to couch it in religious language…It could create a lot of problems if he does that,” he said.

Source: Dhaka Tribune March 09, 2017 13:30 UTC