Monday April 14, 2008

Indonesia Unblocks Access to YouTube and Other Sites

new4.JPGThe ban imposed by the Indonesian government on websites such as YouTube, MySpace has been lifted.

The Indonesian ISPs were ordered to block access to the web sites that hosted the controversial movie, “Fitna‿, created by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has personally ordered the ban of the movie for disturbing social harmony in Indonesia. He also urged the Indonesian citizens to not use violence in their protests against the movie.

But after the citizens have protested against the ban the ISPs decided to block individual pages instead of banning the entire service.

“Access to YouTube and several other sites has been re-opened after Internet providers received overwhelming protests from users,” said Heru Nugroho, of the Indonesian Internet providers’ association, quoted by AFP.

The movie was first posted last month on Wilder’s Freedom Party website, but, as the site crashed due to heavy traffic, it soon appeared on the LiveLeak website, and then on YouTube and DailyMotion and several other shared-video sites.

The controversial film is marked as mature content, containing graphic images such as beheadings, violence against women in Islam and terrorist attacks. The scenes are separated by Koran verses, which promote violence against believers from other religions. “Fitna‿ was surrounded by controversy before its release.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in a statement that he disapproved of Wilders’ idea. He said he regretted that the vast majority of Muslim, who are against violence, were offended by the release of the film.

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