Bangladesh blocks Facebook

BANGLADESH has blocked the social networking website, Facebook, over a page urging people to draw images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, joining Pakistan to become the second south Asian nation to ban the popular site over religious concerns.

Chief telecommunication regulator Zia Ahmed said yesterday that access to the site has been temporarily blocked because it was publishing caricatures that may hurt the religious sentiments of people in the Muslim-majority nation.

Ahmed said the government had asked local internet service providers to block the objectionable content, and that access to Facebook would be restored if the offending material was removed.