Pakistan Blocks You Tube

A man watches a clip on the popular video-sharing website YouTube. Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials have said.

First, it was the Mohammed Cartoons and international newspaper censorship and riots in the Muslim world. Now, it is the government of Pakistan censoring electronic media, You Tube, in the name of religion.

Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials said Sunday.

An inter-ministerial committee has decided to block YouTube because it contained “blasphemous content, videos and documents,” a government official told Agence France-Presse. “The site will remain blocked till further orders.”

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told the country’s 70 Internet service providers Friday that the popular website would be blocked until further notice, the Associated Press reports.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release an anti-Koran movie portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The PTA official, who asked not to be identified because he was not an official spokesman, said the PTA also blocks web sites that show controversial drawings of the prophet Muhammad.

Flap supposes that this site is blocked in Pakistan as well because of Flap’s refusal to NOT display the Mohammed Cartoons.

Freedom of speech becomes merely words unless it is supported by the rule of law. Shame on Pakistan.

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