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Pakistan partially lifts ban on YouTube

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CIOL Bureau
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ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN: A week after blocking video sharing website YouTube for hosting "objectionable content", Pakistan has issued an order to restore access to YouTube.

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However, several hundred pages on the video sharing website will remain blocked because of "blasphemous" content, said an AFP report, citing Pak officials.

It is said that Pakistan authorities have issued a list of 200 URLs, which they say, should be kept blocked while the whole site needs to remain open.

"YouTube has been unblocked, but the links to sacrilegious content would remain inaccessible in Pakistan," Khurram Mehran, a spokesman for Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said on Thursday.

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An Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK) spokesman confirmed that the blanket ban had been lifted on YouTube, said AFP.

Internet users in Pakistan are now able to access YouTube for the first time since the entire website was banned last Thursday in the wake of public outrage about caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared on Facebook.

Last week, a Lahore High Court, ordering to block Facebook till May 31, had directed the Foreign Ministry to raise the issue of the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed at international forums.

Just a day before blocking YouTube, Pakistan had blocked Facebook over a blasphemous caricature of prophet. But when Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik joined Twitter because of the ban on Facebook, it was very much clear how dependent the leaders and people of that country on online social media.

(Do you think Pakistan should lift ban on Facebook also? Please give your opinion in the comment box below.)

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