Pakistan Monday blocked over 700 links to an anti-Islam film on YouTube
that has triggered anti-US protests across the Muslim world, including
Pakistan, officials said.
The decision was taken after the
Supreme Court issued orders to the state-owned Pakistan
Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block links to the movie, reported
Xinhua.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry directed the
PTA to take down all sacrilegious material that disrespects Islam or
Prophet Mohammad in any way. He asked the PTA chief to submit a report
about the action he will take following the directives.
The PTA
director general told the apex court that almost 100 new clips of the
anti-Islam film proliferated on YouTube every day.
He said that
the PTA had written a letter to YouTube, requesting the removal of such
clips, but the video-sharing website replied that it does not have any
such agreement with the government of Pakistan.
Justice Chaudhry
directed the Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority to set up
"standards of modesty" and submit a reply in this regard within two
weeks.
The government earlier had claimed that the PTA and the
information technology ministry had blocked 122 anti-Islamic websites
over the past few days.
The authorities had also told the public
that any blasphemous material that comes to their attention must be
reported immediately to the PTA through phone or email.
The
government clarified that it was not blocking popular websites YouTube
and Facebook, but only anti-Islamic material would be blocked. Officials
say that obscene material will be blocked on case-to-case basis.
Links
to the anti-Islam movie were blocked amid series of protests across
Pakistan over the past few days. One person was killed and dozens were
injured in clashes between the police and protestors in Karachi Sunday
after the demonstrators pelted stones at the US consulate in the city.
Pakistan blocks anti-Islam YouTube links
