LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistan briefly blocked access to all social media on Friday, after days of anti-French protests across the country by radical anti-cartoon Islamists they consider blasphemous.
Sites like Twitter and Facebook were blocked for four hours by order of the country’s interior ministry, said Khurram Mehran, a spokesman for Pakistan’s media regulatory agency. He gave no further details.
The move comes as police officers prepare to clear a large demonstration in the eastern city of Lahore, and a few hours later the government said the now-arrested leader of the outlawed Islamist political party at the helm of the protests he had urged his supporters to withdraw.
In a note saying it was handwritten by Saad Rizvi, the government hopes to calm tensions after its Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party sparked violent protests, in which two policemen were killed and 580 injured. As a result, France urged its citizens to leave the country.
Three protesters were also killed in clashes with security agencies, and the government has imposed a ban on the party.
An adviser to the prime minister previously posted a photo of the statement 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 Rizvi’s own words before stopping, and Lahore’s protest continued after Friday prayers.
On Thursday, the French embassy in Pakistan advised all its citizens and businesses to temporarily leave the Islamic country, after violence erupted over Rizvi’s arrest.
Violent protests have been taking place in Lahore since Monday, damaging public and private property and disrupting oxygen supplies to hospitals. Some of those affected included patients with COVID-19, who had oxygen support.
In the statement, Rizvi called on his followers to disperse peacefully for the good of the country and end their main sitting which began on Monday, when police arrested the radical cleric for threatening protests if the government did not expel the French ambassador. before April 20th.
Rizvi’s arrest sparked violent protests by his followers, who disrupted traffic by making scenes across the country. Although security forces eliminated almost all rallies, thousands of Rizvi followers remain gathered in Lahore, vowing to die to protect the honor of the Prophet Muhammad from Islam.
Rizvi became the leader of the illegal party Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan in November after the sudden death of his father, Khadim Hussein Rizvi. His party also wants the government to boycott French products.
Rizvi’s party has denounced French President Emmanuel Macron since 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 beheaded a French school teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class.
The images had been republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on the occasion of the opening of the trial for the deadly 2015 attack on the publication of the original cartoons.
This infuriated many Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere who believe these representations were blasphemous. Rizvi’s group in recent years has become known for opposing any change 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 he is found guilty.