Pakistani authorities broadened a ban on social networking sites on Thursday, blocking and about 450 individual Web pages over what it described as “growing sacrilegious content.”
The Telecommunication Authority, or P.T.A., blocked YouTube after a special Internet monitoring cell within the agency determined that “objectionable content” was increasing, according to a spokesman, Khurram Mehran.
“Earlier we were blocking the links,” he said of YouTube, “but when content increased we had to block the whole Web site.”The ban, which also included certain pages on the Flickr and sites, occurred a day after access to Facebook was suspended on orders from a Pakistani court. An Islamic lawyers group won that injunction, arguing that a contest started by users for drawings of the Prophet Muhammad — whose depiction is considered blasphemous by some Muslims — was offensive.
The ruling demonstrated the power of hard-line Islamic groups in Pakistan. Although they rarely garner many votes in elections and represent a minority of this country’s population, the groups are often able to impose their will on the more peaceful majority by claiming a defense of Islam.
Social networking sites are extremely popular in Pakistan, a country of 170 million, where more than 60 percent of the population is under the age of 25. Pakistan has about 25 million Internet users, almost all of them young, according to Adnan Rehmat, a media analyst in Islamabad.
The Telecommunication Authority said in a statement that the ban was “in line with the constitution of Pakistan, the wishes of the people of Pakistan.”
On Wednesday the court said its ruling would remain in effect until May 31, but Mr. Mehran said on Thursday it would continue until the administrators of sites removed the offending material.
Cartoons of the prophet published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 sparked violent protests by Muslims around the world, including in Pakistan.
Pakistan is not the only country to ban access to Web sites. In Turkey, authorities have imposed a sweeping ban for months at a time on YouTube, because of what authorities described as material offensive to the founder of the Turkish Republic, . The authorities in Thailand also blocked YouTube in 2007 over video content that officials said was disrespectful of the king.
But Internet users in Turkey get around the ban by using special addresses called proxies. That might also happen in Pakistan.
, another networking site, remained open, and people used it to express their views of the suspension.
“One day,” one user said, “they will ban breathing in Pakistan.”
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