NYT: Pakistan Widens Online Ban to Include YouTube

[BurtWorm]

Hey hey, ho ho, fundamentalist religion has got to go.

What never ceases to amaze me is how weak the vehemently religious are against temptations from the source of their spiritual strength, so weak they need the government to protect their delicate desires, no matter whose freedoms get stomped on to do it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/world/asia/21pstan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss




Asif Hassan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A protest in Karachi on Thursday against the published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook.


By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: May 20, 2010


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani authorities broadened a ban on social networking sites on Thursday, blocking YouTube and about 450 individual Web pages over what it described as “growing sacrilegious content.”


The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority blocked YouTube after a special Internet monitoring unit within the agency determined that “objectionable content” was increasing, according to a spokesman, Khurram Mehran.

“Earlier we were blocking the links,” he said of YouTube, “but when content increased we had to block the whole Web site.” The ban, which also included certain pages on the Flickr and Wikipedia sites, occurred a day after access to Facebook was suspended on orders from a Pakistani court. An Islamic lawyers group won that injunction, arguing that a contest started by users for drawings of the Prophet Muhammad — whose depiction is considered blasphemous by some Muslims — was offensive.

The ruling demonstrated the power of hard-line Islamic groups in Pakistan. Although they rarely garner many votes in elections and represent a minority of this country’s population, the groups are often able to impose their will on the more peaceful majority by claiming a defense of Islam.

[Tailormyst]

1. Soon Pakistan will be banning singing, dancing, kite flying and being female!

Sounds like the Taliban are tightening their hold there.