After Facebook,YouTube,Pak restricts Twitter access

After blocking Facebook and Youtube,Pakistani authorities on Friday further widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to popular social networking website Twitter and blocking of Blackberry services.

Wikipedias English-language site and the Flickr photo-sharing site were also sporadically unavailable. Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site. When users tried to log into site,there browsers displayed a message that said this site is restricted.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA has blocked websites like Facebook and Youtube,citing sacrilegious contents on the websites as the reason. The crackdown began after the Lahore High Court issued an order for blocking Facebook over a page hosting a contest for caricatures of Prophet Mohammad. Over 450 URLs have been blocked. PTA on Thursday said that YouTube had been blocked due to sacrilegious content but did not point to specific material on the website.

However,not all Pakistanis are happy. Raza Rumi,editor of an ezine,said banning Blackberry services was madness.

Pakistan acknowledged the suffering caused by its bans on Facebook and YouTube,but said it would only consider restoring the websites if they take down pages considered offensive to Islam,the information technology ministry said Friday.

Meanwhile,A South African weekly The Mail amp; Guardian on Friday published a cartoon of the Prophet,angering Muslims and raising fear of reprisal attacks during next months World Cup.