JihadWatch:

Pakistan, in fury over Draw Muhammad day, shuts down Facebook, YouTube

War on Free Speech -- and remember, the OIC and Co. are trying to bring it to the West. "After Facebook, Pakistan shuts down YouTube," by Kamran Haider for Reuters, May 20 (thanks to dsinc):

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website
YouTube indefinitely in a bid to contain "blasphemous" material, officials said
on Thursday.

The blockade came hours after the Pakistan TelecommunicationAuthority (PTA) directed Internet service providers to stop access to social network site Facebook indefinitely on Wednesday because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad.

Any representation of the Prophet Mohammad is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous by Muslims.

Wahaj-us-Siraj, the CEO of Nayatel, an Internet service provider, said PTA issued an order late on Wednesday seeking an "immediate" block of YouTube.

"It was a serious instruction as they wanted us to do it quickly and let them know after that," he told Reuters.

YouTube was also blocked in the Muslim country in 2007 for about a year for what it called un-Islamic videos.

PTA spokesman, Khurram Ali Mehran, said the action was taken after the authority determined that content considered blasphemous by devout Muslims was being posted on the website.

"Before shutting down (YouTube), we did try just to block particular URLs or links, and access to 450 links on the Internet were stopped, but the blasphemous content kept appearing so we ordered a total shut down," he said.

He regretted that the administrators at the Facebook and YouTube had not taken the content off despite Pakistan's protests.

"Their attitude was in contravention to international resolutions and their own
policies advertised on the Web for the general public," Mehran said.

The PTA issued a statement Thursday saying, "PTA would welcome the concerned
authorities of Facebook and YouTube to contact the PTA for resolving the issue
at the earliest which ensures religious harmony and respect."

The PTA decision to block all of Facebook also cut Pakistanis off from groups and pages dedicated to opposing the competition, which have thousands more supporters than the competition does.

Along with the ban, some popular websites, including Wikipedia and Flickr, have been inaccessible in Pakistan since Wednesday night. But the spokesman said it happened purely due to a technical reason and no orders were passed against them.

He said the authority was monitoring other websites as well....