Pakistan on Thursday blocked popular video sharing website YouTube for hosting "sacrilegious content",a day after severing access to social networking site Facebook over a page featuring blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. In a statement,the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that YouTube had been blocked due to "sacrilegious contents" but did not point to specific material on the website that prompted the authorities to block it. The government acted against both Facebook and YouTube after it failed to persuade the websites to remove the "derogatory material," the statement said. The government yesterday blocked Facebook after Lahore High Court ordered to restrict access to the site until May 31,depriving the access to social networking site to Pakistan's nearly 20 million Internet users. "We strongly condemn the publication of blasphemous caricatures of our holy Prophet on Facebook," foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters in the capital Islamabad. "Such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the feelings of Muslims around the world," he said. The PTA directed Internet service providers to block YouTube. By late afternoon,most Internet users were unable to access the site. It was unclear if the ban against YouTube also would be temporary. The court had directed the Foreign Ministry to raise the issue of the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed at international fora. It also asked the Foreign Secretary to register a protest with the concerned countries. Acting on the court's order,the Information Technology Ministry directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block Facebook and all "other Internet links displaying sacrilegious caricatures" of Prophet Mohammed. The ministry also directed PTA to "remain alert and watchful and block all such links displaying the profane caricatures immediately",an official statement said on Wednesday. The ministry asked people to inform it about "objectionable caricatures" at any website. Pakistan blocked access to YouTube for two days in 2008 because of what it said was unIslamic content. Turkey,Thailand,Indonesia and Morocco have all blocked access to YouTube in the past for various reasons.
