(CNN) -- Pakistan is blocking access to Facebook in response to an online group calling on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed, officials said Wednesday.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued the order a day before "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," scheduled by a Facebook group with the same name, because of "the objectionable material" on the social networking site, said Khoram Ali Mehran of the telecommunication authority.
"We have blocked it for an indefinite amount of time. We are just following the government's instructions and the ruling of the Lahore High Court. If the government decides to unblock it then that's what we will do," he said.
The organization has not received any complaints from internet users about the Facebook group so far, he said. Devout Muslims consider it offensive to depict Mohammed.
There were riots around the world in response to a series of cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in 2005, and at least two European cartoonists live under police protection after publication of their drawings of the Muslim prophet.
Mimi Sulpovar, who started the Facebook group, said she read about the idea on a blog after Comedy Central bleeped out part of an episode of "South Park" that mentioned the prophet.
"This is meant to be in protest," said Sulpovar, who is American. "This is something I have felt strongly about for a long time: Bullying by certain Muslim groups will not be tolerated in a free country."
Sulpovar said Pakistan's decision to block Facebook was ridiculous. Her group and a similar one had attracted about 7,000 fans between them Wednesday. Groups opposing the idea had about 68,000.
A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the idea behind the group was offensive.
"Islam discourages any visual representations of the prophets of God -- Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, anybody -- because we believe it can lead to a form of idol worship," Ibrahim Hooper said. "The majority of Muslims worldwide object to any representation of a prophet of God."
The idea of "Draw Mohammad Day" originated with a cartoonist who has since distanced herself from the idea, Sulpovar and Hooper said.
"The whole campaign has been taken up by Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes," Hooper said.
Sulpovar denied being anti-Muslim.
"This extends beyond being able to draw Mohammad," she said. "If it's offensive to you, that's fine, but I don't feel it's right to impose your belief on others through intimidation.
"This is nothing to do with hate or bigotry," she said. "Nobody is inciting violence or preaching open hatred towards individuals."
Sulpovar said she is not a Muslim but added that she had received "hundreds of e-mails from people trying to explain this to me."
One group member said she saw anger and fear on both sides of the controversy but felt that free speech could not be compromised.
"This is a hot-topic debate, but so is abortion, illegal immigrants, gay marriage and politics. If we allow even a small compromise for one group, then the free speech on topics like abortion, illegal immigrants and politics can also be censored based on accusations that they cause violence or hate," Autumn Meadows said on CNN's iReport.
"Hate speech is wanting a group eradicated, physically harmed or dead. I don't think drawing Mohammed falls under that category," she said.
"Islam is not above criticism or cartoons. I believe in equality, and censoring Mohammed while we can draw every other figure in the world does not equal equality," she said.

Muslim anger prompts Pakistan to block Facebook

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistan's government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook on Wednesday amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The page on the social networking site has generated criticism in Pakistan and elsewhere because Islam prohibits any images of the prophet. The government took action after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order Wednesday requiring officials to block Facebook until May 31.
By Wednesday evening, access to the site was sporadic, apparently because Internet providers were implementing the order.
The Facebook page at the center of the dispute — "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" — encourages users to post images of the prophet on May 20 to protest threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of "South Park" for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.
In the southern city of Karachi, about 2,000 female students rallied demanding that Facebook be banned for tolerating the page. Several dozen male students held a rally nearby, with some holding signs urging Islamic holy war against those who blaspheme the prophet.
"We are not trying to slander the average Muslim," said the information section of the Facebook page, which was still accessible Wednesday morning. "We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammad depictions that we're not afraid of them. That they can't take away our right to freedom of speech by trying to scare us into silence."
A series of cartoons of the prophet published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 sparked violent protests by Muslims around the world, including Pakistan, and death threats against the cartoonists.
Facebook said Wednesday it is investigating.
"While the content does not violate our terms, we do understand it may not be legal in some countries," the company said in a statement. "In cases like this, the approach is sometimes to restrict certain content from being shown in specific countries."
It remains to be seen how successful the move will be at keeping people in Pakistan from accessing the site. Some countries, such as China, permanently ban Facebook. But citizens often have little trouble working their way around the ban using proxy servers and other means.
In an attempt to respond to public anger over the Facebook controversy, the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the page Tuesday, said Khurram Ali, a spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority.
But the Islamic Lawyers' Forum asked the Lahore High Court on Wednesday to order the government to fully block Facebook because it allowed the page to be posted in the first place, said the deputy attorney general of Punjab province, Naveed Inayat Malik.
The court complied with the request and ordered the government to block the site until the end of May, Malik said.
Lawyers outside the courtroom hailed the ruling, chanting "Down with Facebook."
Later in the day, the telecommunications authority ordered all Internet service providers to block Facebook, it said in a statement.
Pakistan's minister of religious affairs, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, said the country's ban was only a temporary solution and suggested the government organize a conference of Muslim countries to figure out ways to prevent the publication of images of the prophet, which have caused backlashes among Muslim populations.
On Tuesday, an alleged al-Qaida militant detained in Iraq said he had talked to friends about attacking Danish and Dutch teams at the World Cup in South Africa next month.
"We discussed the possibility of taking revenge for the insults of the prophet by attacking Denmark and Holland," Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani told The Associated Press in an interview arranged by Iraqi authorities. "The goal was to attack the Danish and the Dutch teams and their fans."
In the Netherlands, an anti-Islam party has become the country's fastest growing political movement. Its leader, Geert Wilders, calls the Quran a "fascist book" and wants it banned in the Netherlands. His 2008 short film offended many Muslims by juxtaposing Quranic verses with images of terrorism by Islamic radicals.