Intellectuals and scholars at a roundtable conference on Saturday urged Muslims to boycott the products of the countries and organizations involved in blasphemy of the Holy Prophet (SAW), especially the social networking website, Facebook, which had been adamant on hosting a blasphemous page in the name of freedom of speech, callously ignoring the annoyance of the whole Muslim world.

Speaking at the conference “Blasphemy by Facebook and the Role of Muslim Youth on Social Media”, hosted by owners of Millat Facebook, a Muslims alternative to the US Facebook at Hamdard center Saturday, the speakers came hard on the country’s pseudo intellectuals and TV analysts who, they said, had been following the footsteps of Facebook by advocating the abolishment or amendment to the country’s Blasphemy laws.

The conference was participated in by veteran scholar Muhammad Khan Qadri, Allama Iqbal’s grandson Waleed Iabal Advocate, former chairman of Quran Board Punjab Ahmad Ali Kasuri, Azhar Siddiq Advocate, Khalid Habib Elahi Advocate, Admrl (r) Javed Iqbal, Ijaz Chaudhry, Khalilur Rehman Qadri and Shiraz Amin, Zulqernain Haider, among others.

Millat Facebook owners told the participants that their website had received huge success soon after it was launched in May 2010 in response to deliberate blasphemy of the Prophet of Islam (SAW) as Muslim masses across the globe had joined it in large numbers. However, it had been suffering the hostilities from the authorities in the US, Europe and Pakistan which had created hurdles in its functioning by closing its hosting or denying it any place on the world wide web.

Umar Mir, the CEO of MFB, said unnamed US officials had forced its closure within few months by threatening the hosts in the US and Europe. What was more hurting was that Pakistan’s national ISP, the PTCL had not only refused to host the site for unknown reasons but also refused to give their denial in writing. Finally, they had managed to get the hosting from a European ISP which had the courage to defy the threats of leading Christians and Jewish authorities in the world.

He said several Jewish and Christian groups had made organized attacks to hack MFB for which they had invited all of their likeminded people from all over the world by posting appeals and invitations on the internet calling to block “Muslims’ alternative to FB” on different agreed upon dates. However, the MFB team had thwarted their malicious designs.

Comparing MFB with the Facebook, he said MFB had got about 1.5 million users in just over 18 months while the Facebook had around seven thousand users in same amount of time. Terming the MFB far superior to the FB in privacy, he said the former had no policy to share users data with intelligence agencies like NSA, CIA and FBI. Besides, MFB had privacy settings which made it impossible for friends and co-workers to access the users’ family members’ data, etc.
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Rival ‘Islamic’ social media site calls for Facebook boycott
LAHORE:
The creators of a locally-based, ‘Islamic’ social networking website launched in 2010 have called on Muslims to delete their accounts on the “blasphemous” Facebook and switch to Millat Facebook.
Speaking at a conference on the topic ‘Blasphemy by Facebook and Role of Muslim Youth in Social Media’, MFB founder and CEO Umar Zaheer Mir said that world’s biggest social networking website had hurt millions of Muslims when it hosted a competition of blasphemous drawings in 2010.

Mir said that all Muslims should delete their Facebook accounts and switch to MFB to strengthen Islam and guard the Holy Prophet’s (peace be upon him) honour. This suggestion was later endorsed by the participants at the conference in the form of a resolution, which also demanded that the government ban all websites that offended religious sentiments.
Mir said Muslims were not against the use of modern technology, but against its misuse. He said liberty did not mean having the freedom to hurt others’ feelings. He said they had launched MFP just two days after the Lahore High Court had temporarily banned Facebook in 2010.
Asked why he was accusing Facebook of blasphemy now when the site had not hosted blasphemous caricatures and almost two years after the competition, Mir told The Express Tribune that their opposition to the website would continue.
“First, it is almost Eid Miladun Nabi. Secondly, Facebook is about to launch its initial public offering (IPO) soon and we want to send them a message, that we will be there at every step to counter it,” he said.
He said MFB had registered 300,000 users within 10 days of launching and now had 500,000 users. “MFB has more features than Facebook. All Muslims should not only use it but also delete their accounts on Facebook,” he said, adding that MFB was a non-commercial website dedicated to Islam. “We are spending about Rs3.5 million per annum running the site but we are not taking donations or hosting ads,” he said.
He said MFB was being supported by Global IT Vision, a software house and IT consultancy. Global IT Vision was behind recent advertisement campaigns for Tehreek-i-Insaf in which residents of Lahore and Karachi received voice messages from Imran Khan inviting them to party rallies.
Other prominent participants in the conference included Advocate Waleed Iqbal, grandson of Dr Javed Iqbal, PTI Secretary General Ijaz Chaudhry, Mufti Muhammad Khan Qadri, Vice Admiral (r) Javed Iqbal and Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique.
Mufti Qadri said the linking of Islam with terrorism and extremism was a conspiracy against a peaceful religion. He said Facebook had deliberately provoked Muslims by hosting the blasphemous caricatures competition. He said the United Nations should take action against Facebook.
Advocate Iqbal said he was in favour of the use of modern technology, but within limits.
Ijaz Chaudhry said Muslims should play their role to protect the Holy Prophet’s (pbuh) honour. He said all political parties should contribute in this regard. He appreciated MFB and its team.
Siddique said Facebook had hurt millions of Muslims by declaring blasphemy as allowed under the right to freedom of expression.
On May 19, 2010, the LHC banned Facebook from being accessed in Pakistan, after Siddique filed a petition accusing it of hosting the blasphemous caricatures competition. MFB was launched on May 25, 2010. Five days later, the ban on Facebook was lifted. The site had over six million registered users in Pakistan as of February 2012.
Published in The Express Tribune,

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