Banned in Pakistan

Al Arabiya News Channel carried this headline.

Pakistan scours websites for anti-Islam content

After telling about a plan to monitor Yahoo, Google, MSN, Hotmail, YouTube, Amazon and Bing, for "offensive links" , they get down to the good stuff.

An example of one of the 17 sites being blocked include islamexposed.blogspot.com,
Mehran said. That site features postings with headlines such as "Islam: The Ultimate Hypocrisy" and links to anti-Islam online petitions.

My blogs have not been nominated for any awards, and are unlikely to be nominated or voted up, but to receive condemnation from the Pakistani Information Agency is the highest honor my work will ever receive. I can not imagine any better testimony for my facts, opinions and presentation than this banning! To be named in company with Jihad Watch, Faith Freedom International and The Prophet of Doom is a high honor indeed. I may need to find a larger hat.

Islam: the Ultimate Hypocrisy

was published June 21,'10. It was inspired by a post at Barenaked Islam, which included an embedded video of a recent demonstration in England. One of te demonstrators uttered a quote which I dissected and refuted by reference to Islam's canon.

Pakistan is blocking seventeen sites, but they only name one of them in this article. After further searching, I discovered an article at the Daily Times which lists one dozen banned sites.

1. http://www.islam-exposed.org,
2. http://www.jihadwatch.org,
3. http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com,
4. http://www.middle-east-info.org
5. http://www.faithfreedom.org
6. http://www.thereligionofpeace.com
7. http://www.abrahamic-faith.com
8. http://www.muhammadlied.com
9. http://www.prophetofdoom.net
10. http://www.worldthreats.com
11. http://www.voiceofbelievers.com
12. http://www.walidshoebat.com

Now we know the identities of 13 banned sites, but what are the other four? I seem to be in good company, so far. I have no clue how other sites were affected, but I do know that the publicity had an effect. Sunday--Tuesday, Islam Exposed had an average of 17 hits per day. That spiked to 104 Wednesday, 154 Thursday and 10,258 on Friday.

The effect is not isolated to that one blog. While my blogs share much content and are interlinked, search engines rank them differently. My vox blog doubled to 53 hits, most of them seeking Islam: The Ultimate Hypocrisy. The Crusader's Armory blog, which had been running 4-7 hits, spiked to 34.
Visitors from the U.S. Postal Service, Department of Homeland Security and Department of State, visiting between noon and 1, were probably surfing on their lunch hour. But DHS from Centerville, at 1:35, was probably working or stealing time. Likewise the Navy Network Information Center, visiting from both coasts. For some unknown reason, none of those visitors left a search engine trail.

The Crusader's Armory web site also spiked, from 3 - 4 visits to 70. Most of those visits are click thrus from Islam Exposed. Freedom Ain't Free spiked from about 29 - 40 to 806. Outlaw Islam!, the petition inspired by Pedestrian Infidel's proposed 28^th Amendment, had 741 hits. Its previous best day was 47 hits. There were 779 click thrus from Islam Exposed. It is obvious that most of those came from clicks on the Outlaw Islam! petition link in the sidebar. There were 22 click thrus to the actual petition at petition on line.

The International Qur'an petition accrued 18 new signatures. The Petitions page at Crusader's Armory, which had one hit Sunday, spiked to 41 thanks to click thrus from the banned blog.