Twitter Bows Down To Pakistani Blasphemy Laws: Critics Of Radical Islam Including Imam Tawhidi Receive Notices

Twitter has issued a notice to Canadian columnist Anthony Furey, Saudi-Canadian activist Ensaf Haidar and Imam Mohammad Tawhidi who are critics of extremism in Islam, The New Indian Express has reported.

Furey and the other two critics were ‘shocked’ to receive such notice from Twitter as neither of them had a connection to the Islamic Republic in South Asia. "I'm somewhat alarmed that Twitter would even allow a country to make a complaint like this, as it almost validates their absurd blasphemy laws," quoted Furey.

Furey has been accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammad, which is a crime punishable by death in Pakistan. While Ensaf Haider- wife of jailed Saudi writer Raif Badawi- was sent a notice for being charged for apostasy as she tweeted where a woman was shown wearing the full Islamic veil, and it was captioned “retweet if you are against niqab”.

Furthermore, the third critic, Imam Tawhidi, was sent a notice on account of flagging a tweet that asked the Australian police to carry out an investigation regarding extremism in mosques following a deadly knife attack in Melbourne in November.

In 2010 Pakistan had banned Facebook for two weeks, on account of reportedly hosting ‘blasphemous content,’ and also made YouTube unavailable from 2012 to 2016 for hosting an amateur film on Prophet Mohammad.