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Pakistan Lifts Ban on YouTube Web Site

26 February 2008

A Pakistani Internet user surfs the YouTube Web site at a local Internet cafe in Islamabad, Pakistan, 26 Feb 2008
A Pakistani Internet user surfs the YouTube Web site at a local Internet cafe in Islamabad, Pakistan, 26 Feb 2008

Pakistani officials have lifted a ban on the YouTube video-sharing Web site, saying that material deemed offensive to Islam has been removed.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered Internet providers to unblock the site Tuesday.

Pakistani officials banned local access to YouTube Friday, because of a trailer for a Dutch film portraying the Koran as a fascist book. The move disrupted worldwide access to YouTube for a few hours on Sunday, after instructions from Pakistan were transmitted globally by mistake.

In a statement Tuesday, YouTube confirmed the Web site was again accessible in Pakistan. Company spokesman Ricardo Reyes says YouTube took down the particular link on Saturday, after receiving flags from the YouTube community and determining the content violated the Web site's terms of use.

A search of YouTube Tuesday found other clips of the Dutch film available on the Web site, along with a television interview with the Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders criticizing Islam and the Koran.

Also Tuesday, Pakistan's upper house of parliament adopted a unanimous resolution condemning the re-publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in the Danish media, which it called blasphemous.

The original publication of the cartoon in 2005 and its reprinting this month sparked protests in Muslim countries, including Pakistan.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

 

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