Anti-Islami film: YouTube blocked in Pakistan

On directives of the Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) has blocked video sharing website YouTube after it declined to the remove the anti-Islam video.

A statement issued by the premier said, “The block will remain in place until the anti-Islam film is removed. Blasphemous content will not be tolerated at any cost”.

PM Ashraf while taking cognizance of presence of blasphemous material available on the social media network issued strict instructions to the ministry to block the services of YouTube with immediate effect.

Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court had ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block links to all blasphemous content including those on YouTube to the anti-Islam movie.

Over directives of the apex court, the PTA said it had directed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) throughout the country to block links of the blasphemous film.

According to a statement issued by the PTA, 934 links of the anti-Islam film had already been blocked after several complaints were received.

The YouTube expressed inability to remove the video saying, “This can be a challenge because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere.This video – which is widely available on the web – is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube”.

It added, “However, we’ve restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these two countries. This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007.”

Earlier, the PTA had earlier sent a list of anti-Islamic secured links to Facebook management, which had been blocked from viewing.

A number of complaints had been reported stating that clips of the blasphemous anti-Islam film were still available on the internet, especially on YouTube.

The PTA urged the nation to inform the authority of any viewable links of anti-Islamic websites promptly.

The movie entitled ‘Innocence of Muslims’, believed to have been produced by a small group of extremist Jews, has sparked a week of furious protests outside US embassies and other American symbols in at least 20 countries.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=32797

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 18 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.