Pakistan blocks YouTube for 'blasphemous' content: officials

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 AFP.

"The site will remain blocked till further orders," he said.

Other officials said the site had been blocked because it contained controversial sketches of the Prophet Mohammed which were republished by Danish newspapers earlier this month.

One major service provider, Micronet, said in an email to subscribers that the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority had directed all ISPs to block access to YouTube "for containing blasphemous web content/movies."

"Meanwhile Internet users can write to YouTube.com to remove the objectionable web content/movies because this removal would enable the authorities to order un-blocking of this website," the email said.

At least 17 Danish newspapers republished the controversial drawing, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after Danish police said they had foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist.

In the latest in a series of demonstrations over the cartoons in Pakistan, hundreds of hardline Islamists in the southern city of Karachi torched effigies of the Danish prime minister and the cartoonist on Sunday, witnesses said.

"Death to cartoonist," the demonstrators chanted before burning the effigies, as well as US and Danish flags, outside a mosque.

Supporters of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan's small opposition party also staged a small protest in Karachi.

In the southwestern city of Quetta, activists from a hardline Islamic organisation burned a Danish flag. Witnesses said they also demanded the government close Danish missions in Islamabad and end diplomatic relations.

"It is a deliberate attempt to malign Islam and hurt the feelings of Muslims," Habib Shah Kerani told the protesters from the Anjman-e-Islam (Organisation of Islam) group.

Some 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper sparked bloody riots in the Islamic world.

Five people died in Pakistan in February 2006 during protests against the cartoons, while a Pakistani cleric offered a reward of one million dollars and a new car for anyone who killed any of the cartoonists.

 

1,000,000 US dollars or Pakistani currency?

 

people died over shit on youtube?

 

And the US is the crazy country

 

You could still make that case. These are our "allies" and we have given them $10 billion. It's the next country Obama wants to invade.

 

He never said he would invade them, he said he would go after confirmed reports of terrorists hiding there without waiting for goverment approval. If we could of prevented 9\11 by bombing Afghanistan without "permission" would you of agreed or disagreed?

Politics as usual, spinning the spin. Sad.

 

OMG, but I think people can still visit it thru proxy.

 

I am thankful your views of what is best for America was rejected by the people.

Here is the source for the article

 

Semantics. What gives him the right to violate another country's border, or to put troops on the ground in a sovereign nation?

Seriously dude, imagine if the Chinese did that to us, under the premise that we have terrorists hiding in the US. You ok with them cluster bombing Idaho?

It's a ridiculous question. Not much different than, "if you could kill 100 muslims to save 1 American" or "if you could kill 1 muslim to save 100 Americans". We could have stopped 9/11, we had the intel. Bombing other countries wasn't the problem. Not being tough enough on terror was not the problem. Clinton downgrading military preparedness was not the problem.

The problem was, we knew the terrorists were here, and they were training, and our holy government did NOTHING to stop them, arrest them, question them, whatever.

They had all of the intel they needed, and much much more.

What's sad, is that the once beautiful and creative minds of free people have been warped into political messiah worship, and the self-righteousness that bombing anyone for any reason, even on the shakiest and most speculative of proof (which later turns out to be bogus) is justified. That torturing people, is justified. That curbing civil liberties, and setting up a surveillance state, is justified. That undeclared, illegal and immoral war, is justified. That Madeleine Albright said that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children under Food for Oil, was justified.

Sad indeed. Sad to see you endorse this.

 

Then you must be thankful for 9/11, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the Patriot Act. You must be thankful for warrantless searches, wiretapping, and secret prisons. You must be thankful for Abu Gahraib, and Fallujah. You must be thankful for the millions of Iraqis who are refugees.

The 4,000+ dead soldiers, the 2,000+ dead on 9/11. The 20,000+ injured or wounded, the millions of Iraqis who have had to face genocide or ethnic cleansing.

You must be thankful for the $12 billion that went missing in Iraq, or the $2+ trillion lost by the Pentagon.

You must be thankful for the Haliburton profits, and soldiers without adequate body armor or vehicles.

You must be thankful for the dead soldiers, the children without fathers, the mother without sons, and the suicide bombers, in a country with no history of suicide bombing. You must be thankful that the Bush Administration lied about WMDs and Iraq's connection with 9/11.

You must be thankful that women now have to wear the veil in Iraq, or that the government has members of the same group that bombed the US embassy in Kuwait.

You must be thankful for the consequences of people rejecting "my" views of what is best for America.

 

Just because I don't agree with your views on foreign policy does not mean I agree with everything you are against.

Most of what you list are horrible failures by the US government. I agree with that wholeheartedly. Where we disagree is the solution.

I guess it is easier to toss up a stawman so you can knock it down and feel like you made some big point.

"These are our "allies" and we have given them $10 billion. It's the next country Obama wants to invade."​

I have no problem giving Pakistan money to assist us in a fight against terrorist know to want to attack America and American interests - but I am not opposed to the concept of foreign aid.

Is there any foreign aid you are for?

As for Obama wanting to invade anywhere, you are just being silly. However, I would fully support a unilateral attack anywhere on the Pakistan Afghanistan border if it was to target Bin Laden.

 

Is it just me, or is that pretty funny? Seriously.

 

I understand the Pakistani government is also asking Youtube to remove what it deems to be objectionable content:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/25/pakistan.youtube/index.html

This is nothing different from the Wikipedia Issue - pp. 10 et seq.

Rebecca, it seems you felt Guerilla made a convincing argument for Wiki bowing to those who would tell it what it should or shouldn't do with its website's content:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=6203127&postcount=10

(Never knew what the "points, presented in an extremely convincing manner" were, since every point raised was refuted, until it all boiled down, eventually, to a personal bias):

Anyway - Rebecca - and any others that feel this way - should Youtube now also strip content from its website, because it is objectionable to some people?

 

My question is this, is it expressed in the Constitution anywhere that we are supposed to be aiding countries all over the world??

Mind you, all while our dollar is crashing and we're arguing over health care coverage - our people aren't even aided in this country, why are we spending billions in other countries?

Why are we the #1 contributor to the UN? What good have they done us?

 

youtube is blocked to prevent any riots in the country.

 

Let the cry babies throw their little tantrum. They have to realise nobody gives a shit about their precious, fragile feelings.

 

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. The problem isn't Youtube, it's the would-be rioters. Your logic is the same thing as saying that anything that offends someone, somewhere, is removed to prevent that person from acting out. Ridiculous.

Here - I'm really offended by the color red. It gets me in a lather. Anytime I see it, I just have to lose my shit, and bust some heads. Accept my personal issue, or face the consequences.

Yep, brilliant.

 

How else would the countrys goverment be able to keep control if the citizens didn't