Pakistan Court Orders Facebook Ban to Be Lifted

A Pakistani court ordered the government to lift a ban on Facebook, the world's No. 1 social networking service, 12 days after it blocked access to the website, according to a lawyer.

"Facebook assured the court no blasphemous material will be available to users in Pakistan," Chaudhry Zulfiqar, the lawyer who asked the court to block Facebook. The Lahore High Court ordered the ban on Facebook on May 20 and blocked Google Inc.'s YouTube video service a day later. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority also blocked 450 Web links for carrying objectionable material. The ban began after a Facebook user started a competition asking participants to draw sketches of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. Creating images of the Prophet is prohibited in Islam. Managers at Facebook had corresponded with U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Zulfiqar said, without providing details of the correspondence.