Pakistan "unblocks" YouTube

Pakistan said Tuesday that it has lifted a ban
on YouTube after the website removed cartoons of
the Prophet Mohammed, adding that an earlier
worldwide outage sparked by its actions was unintentional.

Telecommunications officials told AFP that the popular
website was up and running again in the conservative Muslim
nation after YouTube removed "highly profane and
sacrilegious footage" that was offensive to Islam.

"We have issued instructions to all Internet service
providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific
content has been removed by the website," Pakistan
Telecommunications Authority (PTA) spokesman Khurram Mehran
told AFP.

YouTube was not immediately available to confirm whether it
had removed the material, which the PTA said was
controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that were
republished by Danish newspapers earlier this month.

Authorities ordered the blocking of the website at the
weekend in protest at what it said was blasphemous material
but the move prompted worldwide problems with access for a
few hours.

YouTube said Monday that an Internet service provider
complying with Pakistan's ban on the website routed many
worldwide users to nowhere for a couple of hours over the weekend.

Some Pakistani users have expressed doubts over the official reason for Pakistan's YouTube ban, saying that authorities wanted to block access to footage of alleged rigging in last week's parliamentary elections.

"Some Internet users are sceptical that the government banned YouTube because it contained clips from a private television station which showed election rigging," said Wahaj us Siraj, chief of the Pakistan Internet Service Providers Association.