File photo of Rehman Malik. PHOTO: APP/FILE
On Thursday, Malik tweeted from his verified account:
"Dear All; I can only make recommendations to open the UTube and I did so. Accordingly the U tube was unblocked but was re-blocked by the Govt."
It is the same account from which Malik had tweeted almost a month ago that people should expect a notification on YouTube being unblocked.
That joy was short lived as hours after the site was reopened, it was blocked again.
The orders for that block came from the office of the same person who had ordered it shut on September 18, 2012 - Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.
Background to the ban
Pakistan had banned YouTube over clips from a film hosted on the website that sought to ridicule Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).
The amateurishly produced film, Innocence of Muslims, caused furore across the Muslim world precipitating into mass street protests in Egypt, Libya and in Pakistan among other Muslim countries. US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi were stormed. The US Ambassador in Libya was assassinated in a militant attack in the midst of the protests.
To quell public fury which threatened to spill over in Pakistan, the prime minister banned YouTube after the website and its parent company Google refused to pull the video from its server or to block access to the content in the country.
Blocking the website, Pakistan joined Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sudan to block YouTube after it failed to honour requests from the respective governments to restrict access to the content or to pull it off the site.
YouTube though unilaterally blocked access to the clips in Egypt and Libya while it blocked the content in India, Indonesia and Malaysia after requests from their respective governments. It took a threat from the government of Saudi Arabia and a court order in Brazil to get YouTube to block access to the video in those two countries.
The White House twice requested Google to take the film off its sites, but the Internet giant refused on both counts, maintaining that the film did not violate its rules or regulations.
COMMENTS (16)
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I Like you tube for knowldge; Like music;About research programmes;Connectivity with social community & all others--I also request to GOVT OF PAKITAN release & unblock the TUBE
leave you tube a side,,,14 Feb is approaching wt are the plans Mr Rehman Malik???
Blocking mobile phones' services,social websites,banning motorcycle riding and pillion-riding have been the trend for Interior ministry and PTA because PTA and Interior Ministry truly believe that these steps we take are the solution of overcoming/controlling terrorism and ending blasphemous contents but in fact these are the totally temporary steps which are taken and our leaders show satisfaction on taking just such these types of temporary steps instead of finding permanent solutions of the terrorism and blasphemy......
@gp65
When there are so many issues with national security in both countries, we have one one interior minister who spends so much of his time trying to unblock youtube (and eventually fails!) and his counterpart in India who is busy shooting his mouth while tilting at windmills!
@Ahmed: Seriously dude? Get a life
PPP HAVE NOBODY ELSE IN PAKISTAN ,THIS MAN SHOULD BE KICK OUT FROM PAKISTAN.
@Gratgy: India and Pakistan both sadly have interior/home ministers who are incompetent and suffer from foot in the mouth syndrome.
@shahid:
Why Pakistanis need youtube in the first place. Its a positive step, and such time-waster website should remain shut-up. If you want youtube so eagerly, then go to india or anyother such country.
The person who made the blasphemous movie says he didn't slept a single night because Pakistan blocked YouTube. Great work Pakistan.
After months of effort, sending out innumerable tweets, setting up a special committee and raising the matter in the cabinet and even enjoying four hours of success in the campaign, Interior Minister Rehman Malik finally admitted defeat in having video sharing website YouTube unblocked in Pakistan.
Am the only one here who thinks the Interior Minister has got his priorities mixed up?
It is a self defeating and self isolating policy. Google will never remove it from its site so Pakistanis will never have access to youtube.
So which government is he part of, or is he now planning to joing pMLN, PTI, MQM, JI, JUI, etc
"YouTube though unilaterally blocked access to the clips in Egypt and Libya while it blocked the content in India, Indonesia and Malaysia after requests from their respective governments. It took a threat from the government of Saudi Arabia and a court order in Brazil to get YouTube to block access to the video in those two countries."
All the countries cited have a localised version of youtube in their countries. The film was removed from the localised country version by youtube.
Pakistan does not have youtube local version and the only way would be to remove the film from youtube's global version which it is unwilling to do since the movie is not against US laws where google - youtube's parent company is registered and not inconsistent with their own internal guidelines.
The ban on youtube and on all social forums must be revoked instantly as the elections are coming and these forums could play a major role is decisive electoral campaigns.
"“Dear All; I can only make recommendations to open the UTube and I did so. Accordingly the U tube was unblocked but was re-blocked by the Govt.”"
HE talks as though he is not part of the government but outside it.