Pakistan bans YouTube for ‘blasphemous content’
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Pakistan’s 70 ISPs have been ordered by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to ban Google’s YouTube until further notice because of “blasphemous content,” says the Pakistan Daily Times.
GooTube was, “carrying cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have sparked protests by Muslims across the world,” says Times Online, going on:
The cartoons were published by Danish newspapers in 2005 and reprinted earlier this month. “They asked us to ban it [YouTube] immediately … and the order says the ban will continue until further notice,”said Wahaj-us-Siraj, the convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.
Islamic extremists recently launched an online petition to try to force the Wikipedia to remove pictures of the Prophet. Some 329,277 people had signed by 5:41 am Pacific.
“Because he is a Holy prophet same like Jesus or Moses, and I don’t think that any one can accept to put comic pictures about them,” says one of the posters today.
“Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that strives to represent all topics from a neutral point of view, and therefore Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group,” says a FAQ, going on:
“So long as they are relevant to the article and do not violate any of Wikipedia’s existing policies, nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida, where most of Wikipedia’s servers are hosted, no content or images will be removed from Wikipedia because people find them objectionable or offensive.”
On the GooTube debacle, “There have been similar protests around the world since at least 17l Danish newspapers reprinted one of the cartoons earlier this month when police in Copenhagen uncovered a plot by two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan origin to kill the cartoonist,” says Times Online.
“In the latest protests over the cartoons in Pakistan, hundreds of Islamists in Karachi set fire to effigies of the Danish Prime Minister and the cartoonist yesterday. ‘Death to cartoonist,’ the demonstrators chanted before burning the effigies, as well as the American and Danish flags, outside a mosque. ‘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.”
The story refers to “cartoons” and “the cartoonist” without naming anyone, but Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who’d caricatured Mohammed, has received threats to his life.
“How ironic that in response to cartoons depciting [sic] Islam and Mohammed as violent – the protestors issue death threats,” says Tony Gosling in a comment post.
“All the protestors have done is show that Islam is violent and the cartoonists are right.”
Also See:
Pakistan Daily Times – `YouTube` blocked for blasphemous web content, February 23, 2008
Times Online – YouTube cut off over offensive cartoons, February 25, 2008
caricatured Mohammed – New Mohammed image controversy, February 11, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe
to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.phpNet access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
February 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
It’s MORE than just filtering
blackhole youtube routes are leaked to the global routing tables via BGP and ALL youtube traffic from the entire world is redirected to Pakistan
http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=547
February 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg06299.html
specific message about BGP route leak
February 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am
My opinion on what’s OK to joke about is simple:
If it’s too important/serious to joke about, it’s too important/serious to talk about.
February 25th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
BGP and Internet routing tables > Islam
THe former does not offend me, but the latter does
February 25th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
What you get when you give crazy religious nuts access to technology.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Hey! What about all those pictures of Jesus in the whole world? Someone should get on that. (The real one didn’t even have long hair.)
February 26th, 2008 at 11:03 am
RELIGON IS A PAIN IN THE ASS. TO GO THAT DEEP MEANS U HAVE SOMETHING MISSING IN YOUR LIFE.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Every web site on the net should put copies of those cartoons on their front page. Then all the middle east ISPs will ban the entire internet and we won’t have to worry about them any more.