The Telecommunications Authority decided to close the website that allows the sharing of videos. Behind the decision, the transfer from Facebook to YouTube of material that offends the prophet Muhammad. Some Wikipedia pages also obscured.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) - After the "temporary" ban on Facebook agreed yesterday, Pakistan has blocked access to YouTube, the popular website that allows the sharing of videos among its users. The local Dawn newspaper cited "official sources" that the decision will "reduce the spread of blasphemous material", as happened yesterday in the case of social networks. Islamabad’s crackdown on Internet in the name of defending the values of Islam and prophet Mohammed is getting tighter.

Khurram Mehran, spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), told AFP that "we blocked [YouTube] because it contains objectionable material”. He adds that "we have blocked started to block the URL [containing the offending material], because of complaints received” which later became a total ban. The spokesman declined to explain the reasons behind the decision in detail.

The closure of YouTube came only a few hours after the ban on the social network Facebook, which will remain inaccessible until May 31. Behind the decision, the nationwide protest sparked by a page where users are invited to "publish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad." A sort of online competition, from which the "best" will be chosen, a move that was also condemned today by many media throughout the Arab world.

Wahaj-us-Siraj, Director General of Nayatel, a Pakistani internet provider told the daily Dawn that the PTA issued an order late yesterday imposing an "immediate" block on YouTube. An official of the Telecommunications Authority, on condition of anonymity, said the measures are linked "to the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, that they ended up on YouTube from Facebook."

The general manager of Nayatel went on to explain that shutdown of two giants like Facebook and YouTube involves a "cutting up to 25% of the total traffic of Internet in Pakistan, which is about 65 giga-bytes in total.

According to the latest information, including some Wikipedia pages are also inaccessible. The blasphemy law, a pretext to attack religious minorities in the country and violently resolve local conflicts, has extended its tentacles to the world-wide web, of which freedom of thought and expression is its strength.

 

• pakistan
• blasphemy
• law
• facebook
• youtube
• internet
• ban
• prophet
• muhammed
• islam
• freedom
• of
• expression
• cartoon