LAHORE, Pakistan — A Pakistani court has ordered the authorities to block access to nine websites including Google, Yahoo and YouTube for allegedly offending Muslims with blasphemous material.
Judge Mazhar Iqbal ordered Pakistan's Telecommunications Authority to block the websites due to "material against the fundamental principals of Islam and its preaching," according to a copy of the judgement obtained by AFP.
Pakistan shut off Facebook for nearly two weeks last month in a storm of controversy about a competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad and has restricted access to hundreds of online links because of blasphemy.
Iqbal announced a short version of the order in the eastern city of Bahawalpur on Tuesday and released a written detailed order on Wednesday, lawyer Latif ur-Rehman who brought the petition for the ban, told AFP.
But while the PTA quickly implemented the earlier ban against Facebook in May, regulators told AFP on Thursday that they had yet to receive the latest order.
"We have not yet received any directives from the ministry of information technology. The ministry is the decision-making authority," Khurram Mehran, a PTA spokesman, told AFP.
The ministry was not immediately reachable for comment.
Iqbal called on the PTA and information technology ministry to submit detailed reports to the court next Monday.
Retired civil servant Siddique Mohammad had petitioned the court through Rehman for the ban on nine websites -- Google, Yahoo, Amazon, MSN, Hotmail, YouTube, Islam Exposed, In The Name of Allah and Bing.
A spokesman for the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan warned that the order could strangle Internet access for millions.
