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Pakistan’s Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has reportedly ordered the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block YouTube after the video-sharing website failed to remove a controversial anti-Islam film, The Innocence of Muslims. “Blasphemous content will not be accepted at any cost,” Prime Minister Ashraf is reported to have said. Earlier today officials said over 700 links to the film on YouTube were blocked following orders issued by the Supreme Court. The film has triggered anti-US protests across the Muslim world over the past week.
Anti-Islam film: Padraig Reidy asks if this time is different from previous blasphemy rows
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The protests against controversial film “Innocence of the Muslims” follow a pattern familiar since the days of the Satanic Verses fatwa, says James Kirchick. And so do the reactions of many western liberals
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Reducing the backlash over “The Innocence of Muslims” to a hysterical reaction to blasphemy ignores deep unease at the US’s role in the Arab world, says Myriam Francois-Cerrah