E Egypt co ourt orde ers YouT Tube bloc cked for a month

CA AIRO (AP) A Cairo court on Sa aturday orde ered the gov vernment to block acces ss to the vid deo-sharing web bsite YouTu ube for 30 days d for carr rying an ant ti-Islam film m that caused d deadly rio ots across the e world. Jud dge Hassou una Tawfiq ordered YouTube Y blocked for carrying th he film, wh hich he described as "of ffensive to Islam and th he Prophet (M Muhammad d)." He made e the ruling in the Egyp ptian capital l where the firs st protests against the film fi erupted last Septem mber before spreading t to more than n 20 countri ies, killing mo ore than 50 people. p The e ruling how wever can be b appealed, and based d on precede ent, might n not be enfor rced. A spok keswoman for r YouTube's parent com mpany, Goog gle, said in a statement that the firm m had "rece eived nothin ng from the jud dge or gover rnment relat ted to this matter." m The e 14-minute e trailer for the movie "Innocence of Muslims s" portrays Islam's Prophet Muham mmad as a reli igious fraud d, womanize er and pedo ophile. It was w produced d in the Un nited States by an Egy yptian-born Christian who''s now a U.S S. citizen. Egy includes a ban on in ypt's new constitution c nsulting "rel ligious mes ssengers an nd prophets. ." Broadly wo orded blasph hemy laws were w also in effect unde er former Pr resident Hos sni Mubarak k prior to hi is ouster in a popular revolt two years s ago. Sim milar orders s to censor pornograph hic websites deemed o offensive ha ave not bee en enforced d in Egypt bec cause of hig gh costs as ssociated wi ith technica al applicatio ons. Blockin ng YouTub be might be e easier to enf force, thoug gh it also can n be circumv vented by ac ctive Interne et users. Rig ghts activist ts say Egypt's ministr ry of comm munications and inform mation tech hnology has s appeared unw willing to en nforce such bans. The Cabinet C spok kesman cou uld not be im mmediately r reached for comment. Hu uman rights lawyer Gam mal Eid said d the decisi ion to ban Y YouTube st tems in larg ge part from m a lack of kno owledge am mong judges about how the Internet t works. Act tivists say th his has led t to a lack of courtroom discussion on technical as spects of di igital techno ology, leavi ing cases ba ased solely on threats t to national sec curity and de efamation of religion. "Th his verdict shows that judges' und derstanding of technolo ogy is weak k," Eid said d. "The judg ges do not rea alize that one e wrong pos st on a webs site does not t mean you have to bloc ck the entire e website."

Eid, who is executive director at The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said the government should file an appeal and make it clear to judges that, at most, only specific pages on websites should be blocked. His group released a statement saying that the decision to block YouTube is counterproductive, citing thousands of videos that seek to promote a better understanding of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad on the website. Google declined requests to remove the video from the website last year, but restricted access to it in certain countries, including Egypt, Libya and Indonesia, because it said the video broke laws in those countries. At the height of the protests in September, YouTube was ordered blocked in several countries, including Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah issued an order blocking all websites with access to the anti-Islam film in the conservative kingdom. Lawyer Mohammed Hamid Salim, who filed the case against the Egyptian government, alleged the film constitutes a threat to Egypt's security, adding that YouTube refused to remove the film despite its offensive content. Protesters in Cairo scaled the U.S. Embassy's walls and brought down the U.S. flag in the first demonstration against the film last year. Two other cases filed against the government and Google are pending in Egyptian courts. One lawsuit calls for a complete ban on Google's search engine and demands the company pay a $2 billion fine. Last year, an Egyptian court convicted in absentia seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, who allegedly promoted the film, sentencing them to death on charges linked to the anti-Islam film. The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants were outside Egypt and unlikely to ever face the sentence. The cases raise concern by some seculars and liberals that Islamist lawyers, emboldened by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups' rise to power, are seeking to curb freedom of speech. However, the most widespread curb occurred under Mubarak when his government blocked all access to the Internet for several days during the 18-day uprising that ousted him from power in an attempt to disrupt communications among activists. Protests have continued to roil Egypt in the two years since Mubarak was toppled, with the latest bout of violence directed against President Mohammed Morsi's rule. Friday's protests were ignited partly by the apparent torture-death this week of activist Mohammed el-Gindy, whose body showed marks of electrical shocks on his tongue, wire marks around his neck, smashed ribs and a broken skull, according to an initial medical examination and one of his colleagues. However, on Saturday the justice minister told the state-run Ahram Arabic website that an official medical report showed el-Gindy died in a car accident. The autopsy report was not immediately available.