Last Friday, Pakistan blocked Youtube from the eyes of Internet surfers in its own country for several hours, and even blocked access to the site in other countries, as well. The flap emerged over a Dutch film trailer that was deemed by Pakistani religious authorities as “totally anti-Quranic … very blasphemous”.
Pakistanis can now view YouTube again, but this was not the first time YouTube has been banned.
Read Paul Marshall’s piece in the winter issue of inFOCUS on how claims of Islamaphobia or blasphemy are deleterious to free speech and democracy in the Muslim world.
