PTA blocks 753 anti-Islam film YouTube links

Move comes on SC's orders; DG PTA says almost 100 new clips of film are proliferated on YouTube every day.

ISLAMABAD: Following the Supreme Court’s orders, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Monday blocked 753 links to a recently released anti-Islam film on YouTube that has sparked anti-US protests across the Muslim world, Express News reported.

The chief justice had directed PTA to take down all sacrilegious material that disrespects Islam or Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in any way and had directed the Director-General PTA to submit a report.

The DG PTA said that almost 100 new clips of the anti-Islam film are 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 saying that it does not have any such agreement with the government of Pakistan.

Justice Chaudhry had directed the Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (Pemra) 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 IT ministry had blocked 122 anti-Islamic websites during 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 on 080055055 or emailed to [e-mail].

The government had clarified that it was not blocking popular websites YouTube and Facebook, only anti-Islamic material. It had added that obscene material shall be blocked on case to case basis.