India’s Muslims angered over school book showing the Prophet, online users anti-Islam attacks.
NEW DELHI: An Indian political leader has said he will push Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to bolster policing of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to crackdown on “offensive” postings on the sites.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday said that he would raise the question of “anti-Islamic” material with the PM push for stricter laws against posting such “objectionable material on social networking sites.”
“Mulayam Singh has said that he will talk to Prime Minister over the issue of anti-Islam obscene material on Facebook and ask him to frame a strict law to prevent it,” said a statement from the ruling Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh.
The issue would also be raised in Parliament, the statement added.
He also requested the Uttar Pradesh chief minister “look into the matter and use his clout to check anti-Islam activity on Facebook,” the statement said.
His push comes after the country’s Muslim population became angered over the recent portrayal of Prophet Mohamed in a primary school book. Muslims are demanding the text be barred from schools and have called on the government to intervene.
The result saw a number of online users post other pictures and statements on Facebook and Twitter the Muslim community deemed inappropriate and defaming to Islam.
“Islam prohibits pictorial representation of Prophet Muhammad,” Md Burhanuddin, president of Pangal Students Organization (PSO), told Daily News & Analysis on Monday.
The book for kindergarten students in the northeastern state of Manipur portrays a bearded man said to be the Prophet wearing turban and holding a book-like object.
One page of the book also carries pictures of the Prophet along with five other gods.
Though it was not prescribed by the Manipur government, the book is used at a number of private schools, OnIslam.net reported.
The controversial book, Prime General Knowledge, is published by Prime Publications and printed at Sangai Offset Printers in Imphal.
Once published, protests erupted in Manipur demanding withdrawal of the book and punishing the publishers and the author.
The protests were led by PSO as well as Manipur unit of Popular Front of India (PFI), who burnt copies of the book.
The PFI has demanded an immediate ban of the book.
The PSO said it would ban all books of Prime Publications if it failed to visit its office and apologize by Monday.
“They have made a grave mistake,” PSO advisor H Rahman said.
“But adopting violent means against them will be against Islam. We want them to come to us and apologize.”
BM
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