Pakistan blocks YouTube over anti-Islamic content
Last Updated: Sunday, February 24, 2008 | 11:06 AM ET
The Associated Press
Pakistan has banned access to the video-sharing website YouTube because of what it says are anti-Islamic movies that users have posted on the site.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 internet service providers on Friday that the popular website would be blocked until further notice.
The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a telecommunications authority official said the ban concerns a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders. Wilders has said he plans to release an anti-Qur'an movie portraying the religion as prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority also blocks websites that show controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The drawings were originally printed in European newspapers in 2006 and were reprinted recently by some papers.
In January, a Turkish court blocked YouTube because some video clips allegedly insulted the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Last spring Thailand banned YouTube for about four months because of clips seen as offensive to the nation's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Moroccans last year were unable to access YouTube after users posted videos critical of Morocco's treatment of the people of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco took control of in 1975.
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