Thursday, 6 March 2008
'Substantial' Dutch terror risk

The Netherlands has raised its terrorism alert level to "substantial", partly due to the expected release of an anti-Islam film.
It is the second-highest alert level, although the justice ministry said "there is no concrete evidence" that the country faced possible attacks.

The move comes as far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders prepares to air his film, which has already angered Muslims.

Mr Wilders has said the film is about the Koran, but gave few details.

Defiance

He has revealed that his 15-minute film is entitled Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe strife or discord, usually religious.

The project has already been condemned by several Muslim countries, including Iran and Pakistan.

The lawmaker has said his work will show how the Koran is "an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror".

According to a Dutch daily which has seen some of the footage, the film has the Koran opening.

Inside the pages of the book are shown images of atrocities in Muslim countries that the film-maker thinks are inspired by verses of the Koran.

Last month, Mr Wilders said he expected that his work would be shown in the Netherlands in March and also released on the internet.

He said he was determined to release the film, despite government warnings that this would damage Dutch political and economic interests.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7281746.stm

Geert has become the catalyst in the onset of this new holy war, forcing those who would have preferred to continue with the status quo of appeasement to take a stand.

Obviously the pragmatists and cowards are turning on the collective pressure against Wilders as is evidenced by reports like these , but thanks God for the infidels who have allways stood against the might of the establishment. 

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

CAIRO, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Danish and Dutch filmmakers are barred from an international children's film festival in Egypt because artists in those countries insulted Islam, a report said.

Diplomats from the Netherlands are trying to negotiate terms for the country's entries in the festival to be shown.

The immediate causes of offense are Danish newspapers' decision to reprint 12 caricatures of Mohammed after three men were charged with plotting to kill one of the cartoonists in November and a Dutch film that attacks the Koran.

Fawzi Fahmi, the festival director, told Radio Netherlands that the ban is "a symbolic gesture toward all those who have insulted and degraded monotheistic religions."

++++

THE NETHERLANDS AIDS IN EGYPTIAN WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT Al-Alam Al Youm, January 23, 2007

The Dutch government has donated 4.2 million euro to Egypt for the carrying out of the second stage of a national plan for water resources which will last until 2017 and will cost 19.52 billion euro.

++++

July 11, 2006 update: By a showing of hands on July 10, the Egypt parliament graciously but narrowly approved the acceptance of €60 million in loans from the Danish taxpayer for such projects as provising drinking water, setting up an electricity generation wind farm, and building grain silo.

One member of the ruling party member, Mustafa el-Katatny, explained his attitude: "I feel bitter in my heart towards Denmark but I accept the agreement if it is in Egypt's interest."

++++

$50 billion later, taking stock of US aid to Egypt
CAIRO – Aid is central to Washington's relationship with Cairo. The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975."

++++

How does Egypt feel about the western tax payers?

Egypt State Information Service - check this out.

Thursday, Septemper 28, 2006

"Those who hate Islam please stand up!

I am one of those who strongly believe that world conflicts today, or any other day for that matter, are inherently political and have nothing to do with religion - any religion.

Those conflicts mistakenly attributed to religion are caused by the struggle for power and wealth.

Nevertheless, there are too many politicians who find it convenient to exploit and abuse religion as part of their agenda to dominate a political conflict; it becomes an easy tool to gain mass public support, to dehumanise the “enemy” and, more, importantly to ultimately avoid resolving the conflict at all.

Take Islam, for example. Muslims today are victimised everywhere, because the rich and powerful in the West want to control one of the world's most important natural resources - oil. It just so happens that predominantly Muslim states are sitting on most of it. Those same Muslim states also occupy strategically vital geopolitical locations, as most the world's commercial air and sea channels pass through or over them. Additionally, with a collective population of some 1.5 billion, the Muslim world also represents a huge market - both actual and potential - for Western goods.

It's no wonder that Islam is hated by the rich and powerful in the West who do not have control over the vast natural and commercial resources that belong to Muslim countries. That hatred - fuelled by greed - becomes the principal motivation for sustaining the current political propaganda war.

Those who hate Islam and Muslims thus link every political conflict to Islam. This, they believe, will advance their political agenda and block any rational analysis that might otherwise lead to conflict resolution. Therefore, if a conflict is related to Islam, then what's the use of trying to discuss it? If Islam is the root cause of that conflict, then the victimisation of Muslims, all Muslims, can be easily justified.
In their zeal to smear a major world religion that embraces 1.5 billion adherents, these haters of Islam also display other troubling characteristics. Here are the top ten:

1. They are anti-immigrant:
Because most Muslim countries are still developing, both politically and technologically, and because the standard of living has increased in countries like China and India - once a major source of Western immigration - Muslim countries are now the main origin of immigrants to countries like Canada. Those who hate Islam advocate that Canada does not need more immigrants.

2. They are anti-native/aboriginal:
Because Muslims in many parts of the world struggle for self-determination, the anti-Islam crowd is also against giving indigenous Canadian First Nations people their rights.

3.They are anti-multiculturalism:
Because multiculturalism promotes increased tolerance and understanding, which would benefit Canadian Muslims, they are eager to eliminate any government policies supportive of multiculturalism, the sooner the better.

4. They are anti-civil liberties:
They are regressive when it comes to civil liberties and work hard to curtail the extension of, and awareness of, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience to the “Other” elements (i.e. visible and other minorities) in our society.

5. They are anti-democracy:
At the national level, they promote an extreme right wing agenda which is geared to dismissing social justice values; at the international level, they bash the UN and its reform efforts to make it a more democratic international organisation.

6. They support American exploitation of Latin America:
They believe that the US has the right to dominate the world and to use any means to that end - blackmailing, intimidation, exploitation, and military might.

7. They are pro-Israel, regardless of the cost:
Some Palestinians are Christians and all are opposed to the Israeli occupation. Some use armed resistance to end the occupation. But most of the hatred expressed by pro-Israel groups in the West is reserved for Islam. They are against the democratically elected governments in Palestine and Lebanon. They support Israeli aggression and the daily killing of Palestinian civilians. They never criticise Israel, but seem to act wholly on feelings of collective Western guilt over the historical mistreatment of European Jews; therefore they feel Israel “can do no wrong.”

8. They are pro-war:
Islam-haters are also hawks, believing that war is the best option - anywhere, anytime - especially when it comes to invading countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon. They support George W. Bush's lies about the American war on Iraq. They believe military might alone can solve the world's problems.

9. They call every self-hating Muslim “moderate”:
The amount of printer's ink and broadcast air time used to promote self-hating Western Muslims is staggering. Their superficial and trivializing views are giving overwhelming prominence in the Western media.

10. They try hard to silence their critics:
Islam-haters routinely use smear tactics and label their critics as leftists, radicals, fundamentalists, extremists, anti-Semites, etc."

Here the traitorous scumbag Balkenende walks away from the only man courageous enough to stem the tide of Islam in Holland.

As Ayn remarked in Galts Speech, tlas Shrugged

"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your break or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who shoves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube.

"You, who are half-rational, half-coward, have been playing a con game with reality, but the victim you have conned is yourself. When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it's picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil

We all knew the Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende is a pathetic worm, a
wuss, a DhimmiWuss. To read his pathetic speech he just released, you
may realize he has no spine at all? He states 'everyone' is against
Wilders. Uh no that isn't true Prime Minister. A lot of the Dutch see
what you and your kind have done to the Netherlands. All these years,
Chrisitianity has been humiliated and took it, never threatening to
kill and destroy. Yet you plead not to mock, not to insult Islam
because they will kill us. Do you not see the foolishness of your
words? You are correct, better to placate; after all it ensures you
will be eaten last and isn't that enough?

Read the full story here 

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

scanning services 

from Geert Wilder's new movie "Forbidden", featuring Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch.

After kowtowing to the Chinese Government, it looks like Google who own youtube have down the same with the Pakistan Government.
....................................................

Pakistan Lifts YouTube Ban
STEPHEN GRAHAM | February 26, 2008

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told Internet service providers to restore access to the site after the removal of what it called a "blasphemous" video clip, authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood said.

Pakistan ordered the site blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he planned to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

Mahmood said attempts to access the offending clip on Tuesday afternoon brought up a message explaining that it had been removed on ethical grounds.

She said the authority had posted a complaint through the Web site _ a facility open to any registered user _ but had not been in contact with the administrators of YouTube.com, which is owned by Internet giant Google, Inc.

While several other videos featuring the politician, Geert Wilders, would remain visible to Pakistani Internet users, Mahmood said the one which was removed had been "totally anti-Quranic" and "very blasphemous."

She said it promoted Wilders' upcoming movie, but provided no details about its content.

The authority aimed to restrict the site only in Pakistan, but the move inadvertently cut access for many of the world's Internet users for up to two hours on Sunday.

YouTube said the next day that it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

"We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again," YouTube said in an e-mailed statement.

Mahmood said the Pakistani regulator carried no responsibility for "technical hitches" which may have lead to problems elsewhere. She said it was not clear how that occurred.

Pakistani officials hope to prevent a repeat of violent anti-Western protests that erupted in early 2006 after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad regarded by many Muslims as offensive.

Danish editors reignited the controversy earlier this month by reprinting a cartoon that shows the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

On Tuesday, about 300 students rallied at a university in the Pakistani city of Multan carrying banners denouncing Denmark, the United States and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. It was the latest in a series of small protests by Islamic students in the country.

Umer Abbasi, a leader of the protest, urged all Muslim countries to follow Pakistan in blocking offensive material on the Internet.

"If you look deeply, America can be seen behind all anti-Muslim moves around the world," Abbasi told the crowd, who later burned Danish and American flags.

Abdullah Riar, Pakistan's minister for information technology and telecommunications, said authorities wanted to prevent Islamic hard-liners from seizing on the Wilders clips.

"We are already in the spotlight on the issue of intolerance and extremism and terrorism and this is something that somebody is doing by design to excite and insinuate Islamic sentiments," Riar said.

He said the indirect effects were "very sad, very unfortunate. We have nothing against the YouTube site itself."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/26/pakistan-lifts-youtube-ba_n_885...

Excellent. Good on these few brave Dutch and Danes, showing the world one way to beat this Neanderthal creed of Islam, is simply to live our lives as we want, and not be cowed into slavery.

And contemptible, as well as pitiable, that it can be so dangerous to do so.

Responding to Verhagen, Wilders who is the founder of the
right-wing Freedom Party announced that his film will be broadcast in
the coming days and added that the Dutch minister could "get lost."

BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!

Dutch pussies wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth in fear of reprisal rather than supporting the courageous Geert Wilders in his quest to beat the bastards back

As Churchill noted, "An appeaser is a someone feeding a crocodile hoping it will eat him last."

Dutch
Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen calls on legislator Geert Wilders not
to broadcast a movie, which is heavily critical of Islam.

Verhagen said that the movie might "endanger the lives of Dutch
nationals" worldwide and harm Dutch business in Muslim countries. "I am
very concerned about the wellbeing of Dutch nationals abroad," Verhagen
said, speaking in a Dutch current affairs program.

The faction leader of Verhagen's Christian Democrats in parliament,
Pieter van Geel, also joined in the public request, DPA reported.

Earlier on Thursday, the Taliban threatened to harm Dutch military
targets in Afghanistan and beyond if Wilders persists in his plans to
release the movie criticizing the Islamic religion.

Al-Qaeda for their part also threatened to hurt Dutch targets if the movie is broadcast.

Responding to Verhagen, Wilders who is the founder of the
right-wing Freedom Party announced that his film will be broadcast in
the coming days and added that the Dutch minister could "get lost."

SM/HAR

For full story

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.- - Robert Green Ingersoll

Microfilm reader

BBC News

Protesters and politicians are concerned about Mr Wilders' film

Thursday, 28 February 2008

Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders has said that this week he will finish a film about Islam which has already triggered Muslim outrage.

Mr Wilders said he was determined to release the film despite government warnings that this would damage Dutch political and economic interests.

Mr Wilders says the film is about the Koran, without giving details.

In the past, he has called for the Koran to be banned and likened it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

The project has already been condemned by several Muslim countries, including Iran and Pakistan.

'Death threats'

"It is very good news. the film will definitely be finished this week, that is to say before 1 March," Mr Wilders told Reuters.

The lawmaker said he expected that his 15-minute work would then be shown in the Netherlands in March and also released on the internet.

On Wednesday, the Dutch justice and foreign ministers discussed the issue with Mr Wilders, urging him to drop the project.

The ministers expressed concerns over the damage the film could unleash politically, economically and for Dutch businesses and individuals living abroad.

Last month, Mr Wilders said the Dutch authorities had let him know that he may have to leave the country for his own safety amid reports of death threats to him from Islamic militants.

'Inspiration for murder'

Mr Wilders' film is entitled Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe strife or discord, usually religious.

According to a Dutch daily which has seen some of the footage, the film has the Koran opening.

Inside the pages of the book are shown images of atrocities in Muslim countries that the filmmaker thinks are inspired by verses of the Koran.

Mr Wilders has said his film will show how the Koran is "an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror".

Van Gogh murder

Mr Wilders leads the Freedom Party, which has nine seats in the Dutch parliament.

He says Dutch culture is superior to what he describes as a retarded Islamic culture and believes immigrants must assimilate by getting rid of what he calls the intolerant and fascist parts of the Koran.

Mr Wilders has had police protection since Dutch director Theo Van Gogh was killed by a radical Islamist in 2004.

Mr Van Gogh's film Submission included verses from the Koran shown against a naked female body.

As well as the killing of Mr Van Gogh, Dutch politicians are mindful of the widespread protests by Muslims that followed the publication of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad in newspapers in Denmark and other European countries in 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7268618.stm

It just wouldn't be the same without input from the Iranians, would it?
...........................................

Iranians urge Dutch to ban film
By Elettra Neysmith
BBC News

The Iranian government has intervened to try to stop the screening of a film in the Netherlands about the Koran.

The Iranians say that the film, by the Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders, is offensive.

The Iranian justice minister, Gholam Hussein Elham, wrote to his Dutch counterpart, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, calling for a ban.

Mr Hussein Elham said freedom of speech should not be used as a cover for attacking moral and religious values.

'Freedom of expression'

Mr Wilders says his film will show the Muslim holy book is an inspiration for murder.

But the Iranian justice minister says it is an unnecessary attack on what Muslims regard as the holiest of things.

He said the motivation behind the film was satanic and urged the Dutch government to stop its screening.

Mr Wilders has already been advised that he may have to leave the country for his own safety.

But the government has so far refused to intervene, saying the issue is one of freedom of expression.

In 2004, the Dutch film director, Theo van Gogh, was killed by a Muslim extremist in an Amsterdam street after bringing out the film Submission.

It dealt with the issue of abused Muslim women and included scenes of nearly naked women with Koranic texts engraved on their bodies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7248629.stm

I missed this story last year on sept 11. But it appears the battle-lines between Islam and the west have indeed been drawn in the Netherlands/ Denmark.
......................................................

From The Times
September 11, 2007

Young Muslims begin dangerous fight for the right to abandon faith

David Charter in The Hague

Ehsan Jami rejected Islam after the 9 11 terror attacks. He wants Muslims to be able to give up their religion

A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam.

The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance.

The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.

The threats are taken seriously after the murder in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, an antiimmigration politician, and in 2004 of Theo Van Gogh, an antiIslam film-maker.

Speaking to The Times at a secret location before the committee’s launch today, the Labour Party councillor said that the movement would declare war on radical Islam. Similar organisations campaigning for reform of the religion have sprung up across Europe and representatives from Britain and Germany will join the launch in The Hague today.

“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

Mr Jami, 22, who has abandoned his studies as his political career has taken off, denied that the choice of September 11 was deliberately provocative towards the Islamic Establishment. “We chose the date because we want to make a clear statement that we no longer tolerate the intolerence of Islam, the terrorist attacks,” he said.

“In 1965 the Church in Holland made a declaration that freedom of conscience is above hanging on to religion, so you can choose whether you are going to be a Christian or not. What we are seeking is the same thing for Islam.”

Mr Jami, who has compared the rise of radical Islam to the threat from Nazism in the 1930s, is receiving only lukewarm support from his party which traditionally relies upon Muslim votes. His outspoken attack on radical Islam has led to a prelaunch walk-out from fellow committee founder Loubna Berrada, who herself rejected Islam.

She said: “I don’t wish to confront Islam itself. I only want to spread the message that Muslims should be allowed to leave Islam behind without being threatened.”

There have been suggestions that Mr Jami might defect to the right-wing Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, the most outspoken politician in the Netherlands, who has called for the Koran to be banned. But Mr Jami said: “I have respect for Wilders but we do not have the same ideology. I am for the freedom of religion.

“Banning something is not going to help. I am the opposite – everyone should read the Koran.” Mr Jami is being compared to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali refugee who became a prominent Dutch politician campaigning for the reform of Islam but who left eventually for an academic career in the United States.

Jannie Groen, a writer for De Volksrant newspaper, said: “[Among Muslims] he is getting the same reaction as Ayaan Hirsi Ali that he is too confrontational but you are seeing other former Muslims now coming forward. So he has been able to put this issue of apostasy on the agenda, even though they do not want to be in the same room as him and he has had to pay a price.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2426314.ece

Maybe poor Knorbert can somehow be integrated into our SOLO Muslim Idol competition? If only I can get the hang of that paint program
....................................................

February 23, 2008

Piggy banks are given the chop as bank tries to attract young Muslims

David Charter, Europe Correspondent

Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims.

The decision has been viewed in the Netherlands as the ritual slaughter of a popular pig by political correctness. To some, it is the latest sign of uncertainty in Europe's most tolerant country about how far it should go to accommodate the sensitivities of minorities. It comes as the country is braced for a backlash against the plans of Geert Wilders, a right-wing politician, to release a critical film about the Koran.

Pigs are considered an unclean animal by Muslims and Jews, and Knorbert was culled after seven years as the Fortis mascot. A spokesman told the Dutch media that “Knorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on us”. The bank added that there had been “a number of reactions to the pig” and that a new gift and character were being developed that would be “fun for children of any persuasion”. Children who had received a Knorbert piggy bank for opening a EuroKids account will be given a junior encyclopaedia instead.

The bank, which is based in the Netherlands and Belgium, was keen to play down the influence of cultural concerns on its decision. Lilian Tackaert, a spokeswoman, said that Knorbert had reached the natural end of his product life cycle. “The piglet was indeed being given to children opening a savings account but we ran out of stock, although some branches still had some,” she said. “Now we are looking for something else.”

Ms Tackaert said that the bank was in tune with the openness and welcoming nature of Dutch society. She repudiated the statement that multiculturalism meant that Knorbert's luck had run out.

“Of course we want to reach a wide audience of customers and what the kids like is important — they are changing very quickly in terms of taste,” she said. “We will be looking for a new product that will fit the wider target audience.”

The Muslim population of the Netherlands is put at about one million, or 6 per cent of the total of 16 million. Most are of Moroccan or Turkish origin.

The Government rejected calls in 2006 to ban women from wearing a veil, but it is due to consider plans to outlaw the burka in schools and to ban head-to-toe Islamic robes among government employees.

Mr Wilders, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, is preparing a ten-minute film which he has said will show “the real face of Islam”.

Mainstream politicians fear that the film could trigger a wave of violence against Dutch interests overseas or an attack similar to the one that killed the film-maker Theo Van Gogh in 2005 after his film Submission accused Islam of condoning violence against women.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3419706.ece

Sigh, I watched the Fox news interview With Geert several times now and every time I am impressed with the basic open and honest answers of the man. Nice to see someone make a point without braking out in a ranting name-calling foul mouthing episode.

Global warming is a hoax carbonhoax.org.nz and spread the word.

"There is no doubt, that one consulting the quran, the haddith, the teachings of the prophet mohammed, the sura and the 8 teachings of all the laws of islam, and the quran itself, that the islamic social order MUST REIGN SUPREME over the world.

It does not allow for equality of non muslims in islamic societies and it does teach that this supremacy must BE SPREAD THROUGH WARFARE as well as by other means and one of those other means, as we are seeing now is intimidation as well as subversion and both of these are playing out in various ways in the cartoon controversy.

What they are trying to establish, what they are trying to do with this cartoon rage and these riots all around the world, is to compel western societies to adopt islamic law. In particular, is putting islam ABOVE criticism and that will allow jihad terrorists who are allied and in many cases the same people as those who are rioting now, to operate with impunity in western socities because nobody will be able to speak openly about their motives of their goals because it will be crimianlised to do so."

(I have crossed referenced your post to my censorship thread.)

Aha. That explains why I couldn't access youtube on sunday evening.

Also other reports claim the Pakistan ban is over the Danish Catoons.
.........................................................
From the BBC
Sunday, 24 February 2008

YouTube outage blamed on Pakistan

Pakistan's attempts to block access to YouTube have been blamed for a near global blackout of the site on Sunday.
Google, the owner of YouTube, blamed the outage on "erroneous internet protocols", sourced in Pakistan

BBC News has learned that the nearly two-hour long blackout was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and internet service provider PCCW.

The country ordered ISPs to block the video-sharing website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

The BBC News website's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan's citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom "hijacked" the web server address of the popular video site.

Those details were then passed on to the country's internet service providers so that anyone in Pakistan attempting to go to YouTube was instead re-directed to a different address.

But the details of the "hijack" were leaked out into the wider internet from PCCW and as a result YouTube was mistakenly blocked by internet service providers around the world.

The block on the servers was lifted once PCCW had been told of the issue by engineers at YouTube.

A statement from Google said that the problems lasted for "about two hours".

"Traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous internet protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site," it said.

"We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again."

PCCW said it was aware of the occurrence and was "reviewing the event with the appropriate internal and external parties."

A leading net professional told BBC News: "This was probably a simple mistake by an engineer at Pakistan Telecom. There's nothing to suggest this was malicious."

IP hijacking involves taking over a web site's unique address by corrupting the internet's routing tables, which direct the flow of data around the world.

Cause of ban

Reports said Pakistan made the move because YouTube content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.

But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.

"They [Pakistan's telecommunications authority] asked us to ban it immediately... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice," said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.

The government decision has caused uproar in Pakistan, according to Wahaj-us-Siraj:

"Users are quite upset. They're screaming at ISPs which can't do anything.

"The government has valid reason for that, but they have to find a better way of doing it. If we continue blocking popular websites, people will stop using the internet."

Other countries that have temporarily blocked access to YouTube include Turkey and Thailand.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7262071.stm