Egypt court bans YouTube over blasphemous film

Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court upheld on Saturday the a lower court’s verdict to require the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to block Google’s video file-sharing site YouTube for one month over a video that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad, and ban all links that show it. 

The initial verdict had been issued in 2013, but the case was appealed. Though, the Saturday ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed. The ministry of communication previously said it would be impossible to enforce the ruling without also disrupting Google's Internet search engine, incurring potentially huge costs and job losses in the country. 

Mohamed Hamid Salem, a lawyer who filed the case in 2013, said he has demanded to block and ban YouTube site inside Egypt until it removes the blasphemous video and any other anti-Islam videos. He added that such blasphemous videos can lead to sectarian strife and frequent violence. 

Salem pointed out that this video targets Muslim children to distort the image of the Prophet Muhammed in their minds. 

The video called, "Innocence of Muslims" was made in California with private funding. It provoked a wave of anti-American unrest in Egypt and other Muslim countries when it was first released in 2012. 

Egypt’s top administrative court ordered authorities Saturday to block video-sharing website YouTube in the country for a month, after a years-long appeals process over a blasphemous film, a judicial official said. A lower court had ordered the video sharing site be blocked in 2013 after it carried the video, but the case was appealed by Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and its ruling was stayed. The ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed. As of Saturday afternoon, YouTube was still accessible in Cairo. Washington sought to keep a lid on the demonstrations by saying the controversial film was made privately with no official backing.US officials said freedom of speech laws prevented them from stopping the production of inflammatory material.
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