Pakistan stands by its YouTube ban

Iain Mackenzie
Newsbeat technology reporter

Pakistan is being blamed for crashing YouTube.

Pakistan blocked YouTube to prevent riots

The site was closed for several hours at the weekend.

Earlier, authorities in Pakistan decided to block access to users in that country.

It's believed that caused problems with the routing of worldwide internet traffic.

Pakistan claims YouTube is hosting clips which are offensive to Islam. It is particularly angry about a video by Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

The trailer for his film, Fitna, features criticism of the prophet Muhammad.

Newsbeat spoke to the man responsible for enforcing the ban.

Major General (Retired) Shahzada Alam Malik runs the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

'Uncontrollable'

NEWSBEAT: Why are people in Pakistan not allowed to look at YouTube?

MAJ GEN MALIK: There are so many sites talking anti-government or anti-state, but we don't block them. This particular situation is extremely offensive and derogatory.

It may flare up the sentiments of Pakistanis and Muslims. Therefore I think there was no choice but to block it.

NEWSBEAT: What would happen in Pakistan if people there could see these videos?

MAJ GEN MALIK: They would come out on the roads, on the streets. They could damage government property and public property. It could be very, very difficult and uncontrollable.

NEWSBEAT: Google, which owns YouTube, believes this move caused the site to be blocked around the world.

MAJ GEN MALIK: We are responsible only for Pakistan and we have taken that step only for our country.

I don't know about the other people, but this was very well considered, discussed, debated and a deliberate decision was taken.

NEWSBEAT: And you will block access to YouTube for people in Pakistan until when?

MAJ GEN MALIK: The moment it is removed, we will unblock it.