VARIOUS: Indonesia restores access to YouTube after Google blocks links to Dutch anti-Koran film

Record ID: 560587

  • Title: VARIOUS: Indonesia restores access to YouTube after Google blocks links to Dutch anti-Koran film
  • Date: 12th April 2008
  • Summary: PROTESTERS STANDING IN FRONT OF NETHERLANDS EMBASSY PROTESTERS WITH BANNER READING "GEERT WILDERS IS A BIG SATAN" PROTESTERS OUTSIDE NETHERLANDS EMBASSY
  • Embargoed: 27th April 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Communications
  • Reuters ID: LVAAA1H1N5KB2J2N7HOGZZPOHC4X
  • Story Text: Indonesia's Internet service providers have restored access to Google's YouTube and other Web sites after blocking links to a Dutch lawmaker's film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence.
    Indonesian Information and Communication Minister Muhammad Nuh has announced that local Internet service providers have restored access to YouTube and other Web sites that carried Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders' film "Fitna".
    Nuh said that access to the movie clip site was granted after YouTube's owner Google agreed in a letter to block access to all pages carrying the movie clips which alternate images of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and other Islamist bombings, accompanied by quotations from the Koran.
    Holding up the letter to the media, Nu said: "This letter says, Google as the owner of YouTube respect on law which implemented in Indonesia and also freedom of expression. Google will not remove the Fitna video from YouTube and other sites, but as consequences for respecting Indonesian law, Google to block access from Indonesia".
    Titled "Fitna," a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife", the film also shows an image of the Prophet Mohammad primed to explode and says the rising number of Muslims in Europe threatens democratic values.
    Wilders' film urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts andwith a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by a ticking sound.
    Defending his film, Wilders told media in late March that "Fitna" served as a warning.
    "I am a politician. I think that Islam and the Koran is a danger to freedom in The Netherlands and I must warn against it," he said.
    Nuh on Friday (April 11) apologised to Indonesians for the temporary Web blockade, adding that the action was a consequence of a process designed to protect the state.
    Web users protested against the ban saying they were disadvantaged by the blocking of YouTube, as well as other sites like Multiply and My Space.
    The Web sites were fully blocked on Monday (April 7) and Tuesday (April 8).
    "Fitna" has sparked protests in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony.
    In late March the country's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, urged his predominantly Muslim nation not to resort to violence during protests against the film.
    Yudhoyono has banned both the anti-Koran film and Wilders from Indonesia.
    "The Indonesian government firstly bans the broadcast of the Fitna film in Indonesia. Two, we appeal to the Dutch government and parliament to stop the film's broadcast," Yudhoyono announced hours after protesters gathered outside the Dutch embassy in Jakarta in late March, following the film's Internet release.
    The Dutch government has distanced itself from Wilders' views and the Dutch upper house of parliament has condemned what it calls efforts to denigrate Islam and promote hatred.
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