ISLAMABAD - The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on Monday directed Internet Service Providers to unblock the video sharing website YouTube.
According to a top official, the decision of re-opening the site was made after the website management developed a local version for the users of Pakistan. “There were some copies of the controversial movie on the local version also but we requested the management and they offloaded all contents related to the film, (Innocence of Muslims),” the top official told. He said that the management has agreed to offload all the materials from website immediately found against the laws of the land.
The world’s largest video-sharing website, YouTube, has been accessible throughout the country from last week with a new PK trademark.
It has been operational since some weeks, in different parts of the country but officially we have directed ISPs today to open it for general public after YouTube management offloaded the movie from its local database, official insisted.
The video-sharing website was blocked in September 2012, after it refused to offload a controversial movie “Innocence of Muslims”.The movie sparked furious protests around the world and has been identified as a possible catalyst for a deadly attack on the US embassy in Libya and protests in countries such as Egypt, India and Bangladesh. Pakistan requested the YouTube management to offload the movie but it denied on the plea of freedom of speech. At that time, the superior court of Pakistan, while hearing a case that the movie was hurting the sentiments of the Muslims, ruled the site should be banned until a way was found to block all blasphemous contents. Since 2012, YouTube is officially banned in Pakistan.
The telecom regulator had repeatedly said that it has no expertise to filter the contents as per local laws and the required equipment is very expensive. The website was opened after Pakistan government and website management reached an agreement to filter the contents.
The news received an overwhelming response from social media users and they lauded the decision.
