This was a widespread topic on the Internet and with a few people who raised the issue in person with me.
Nobody I spoke to agreed with the ban and what was most surprising is that more radical Islamist countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia did not take similar actions to my knowledge.
My answer to the question was the ban justifiable? Simply yes. There are many reasons to this and the most important is that it is to keep the Islamists satisfied.
Keeping the Islamists satisfied means protecting precious public property from being destroyed, innocent people getting hurt or killed etc.
The Islamists might be ethically immoral and their restrictions on freedoms may be too. Obeying them is not always a good idea and giving them a free pass to dictate your lifestyle to you is also not a good idea either. Though that has clearly not happened ie. women in Pakistan not having to wear burqas or hijab by law.
But at the same time as I wrote in another post of mine, defying them outright is a bad idea and can have a severe backlash.
For Pakistani elites and expatriates who are mostly unaffected by the influence of the mullahs, it's rather easy for them to complain about censorship, not knowing the damage these influential people can inflict, especially on more vulnerable targets.
The government and judges who imposed these bans probably know the threat they themselves specifically would face from the powerful religious radicals had they showed defiance.
So to point blame at our leaders as we normally do is the easy part. But looking at the reality of the situation is neither easy nor fun.
Speaking of situation, now is no time to seek further conflicts with religious radicals than the government already has. Their silence to the battle against the Taliban or their endorsements -either one- is extremely important.
The religious radicals can easily simplify the job of the Taliban carrying out more terrorism in the rest of Pakistan.
Then there are the other reasons of Western double standards. I have discussed this in my world history and politics blog. Why is a society that is jailing people for denying a historical event/incident (the holocaust) dictating the terms of free expression?
Westerners concerned with the issue of censorship in Muslim countries, especially on religious lines, need to take a second look much closer to home.
Also today, I saw a talk show in Pakistan that discussed banning the burqa in some Western European countries, while defending publishing material considered offensive towards Muslims.
Firstly, I agree with the ban on burqas because I do believe in restrictions on public expression. But I can guarantee those Islamophobic atheists on YouTube who continuously bellow the drum of "free expression," or better their definition of free expression, will endorse burqa banning and banning of religious symbols.
People need to review the social and political circumstances in Pakistan and the world before making judgments.
One should also study the different scenarios of censorship, especially the Islamophobic defenders of "free expression" and then conclude weather they actually defend the idea or just their own messages which fall into their own definition of "free expression."
For the time being Pakistan's government has made the right decision. The way to teach our people into accepting other people's opinions is not by shoving it in their faces, but gradually over time they themselves getting used to the idea that they do not have to view offensive images or other material if they don't want to.
It also means that people who oppose censorship in the West need to speak against censorship in all forms- including topics that Western society is sensitive to. And only after viewing the situations on all sides and all cases can we complain about censorship.
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