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Indonesia blocks YouTube over “Fitna” the movie

Categories: Indonesia
Update (Fri Apr 11, 2008): Indonesia has lifted the ban [1]on Youtube.com. Internet service providers “would only block access to pages carrying the film by Geert Wilders” The vice chairman of the Indonesian Internet Providers Association said.

Youtube
The Indonesian government has ordered the country’s internet service providers to block YouTube [2] for publishing the 15-minute anti-Muslim film “Fitna”, made by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV). Some of the country's ISPs followed the block order, but “Fitna” could still be viewed through other providers.

“A letter was sent to Internet providers asking them to block any site or blog posting the film Fitna (…) Not only YouTube has uploaded the film, so it is up to the ISPs’ discretion to block these sites,” a Communications and Information Ministry Official is quoted as saying [3].

Earlier this week, Indonesia had threatened [4] to block YouTube unless the video-sharing web site removed the aforementioned movie.