The move comes after the Lal Masjid issued a 'fatwa' against a female minister pictured hugging a foreigner following a charity paragliding trip.
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government said on Tuesday it had blocked the website and radio station of a radical mosque that has launched a Taliban-style morality campaign in the heart of the capital.
The move comes after the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque in Islamabad issued a "fatwa" against a female minister pictured hugging a foreigner following a charity paragliding trip, and also threatened to carry out suicide attacks.
"We have blocked the website of Lal Masjid and also blocked the radio station," Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem said.
"We will block anything that promotes religious hatred, calls for suicide attacks -- this cannot be tolerated," he added. Azeem said the government blocked the website and the illegal FM radio station under laws brought in five years ago by President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally and proponent of moderate Islam.
"The law says that no such activity can be allowed. This website was projecting what was prohibited by law," he said.
The mosque's clerics were not immediately available for comment.
Top cleric Abdul Aziz said on Friday that the mosque was setting up a self-styled Islamic court and warned that his students would carry out suicide attacks if the government tried to clamp down on him or his followers.
Two days later the court issued the "fatwa" against Tourism Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar for posing in "obscene" pictures with a French instructor after going paragliding to raise money for earthquake victims.
Female students from a religious school attached to the Red Mosque in March kidnapped an alleged brothel owner and made her publicly repent. Their male counterparts briefly abducted two policemen at the same time.
The mosque's baton-wielding devotees have also set up so-called morality patrols telling shops at popular local markets not to sell "un-Islamic" music and movies.
They have occupied a nearby children's library since January in protest at plans to demolish several illegally-built mosques in Islamabad.
The government has said it wants to negotiate with the mosque's staff before trying to crack down on it, despite concerns that its behaviour represents a creeping "Talibanisation" of Pakistani society.
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