Asif Ali Zardari walks into a bar...

... and we can't tell you the punch line, sorry:

Pakistanis who send jokes about Asif Zardari by text message, email or blog risk being arrested and given a 14-year prison sentence.

The country's interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been asked to trace electronically transmitted jokes that "slander the political leadership of the country" under the new Cyber Crimes Act.

Obviously Zardari is very confident about his administration. I'm not quite clear on how you enforce this law; if the joke isn't funny, does it still count?

Let's hope this doesn't catch on in the Arab world, because its citizens are usually pretty adept at skewering their leaders. As a Cairo cab driver once joked to me, "What is Egypt's greatest export? Jokes about Mubarak."