Block the film on YouTube in Bangladesh

The telecom regulator has requested the Internet giant Google to block in Bangladesh a controversial anti-Islam movie trailer on YouTube, a video-sharing website owned by Google.

Md Giashuddin Ahmed, chairman in charge of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, yesterday said the commission had sent a letter to Google to this end.

Google is accessed in Bangladesh through its Indian office and so the letter has been sent to Google India, said a BTRC official.

According to the existing laws of Bangladesh, one cannot do anything that hurts people's religious sentiments, he added.

The government has no intention to block YouTube in Bangladesh, he said, adding that if, however, Google does not block the trailer in Bangladesh, BTRC may block YouTube itself.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday condemned the making of the controversial film by a United States producer and urged the US government to immediately stop the film's sale and projection.

"No Muslim can tolerate such defamation of Prophet Muhammad (SM)," she said, adding, "We have already taken necessary steps to prevent the trailer from being accessed from Bangladesh."

Earlier Google refused a White House request to pull down the YouTube movie trailer that has triggered widespread anti-American protests. The trailer, based on a longer film Innocence of Muslims, depicts the prophet as a fraud and philanderer.

Google said it was censoring the video in India and Indonesia, and has already blocked it in Egypt and Libya, where US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed inside the US embassy in Benghazi.

Google stopped short of taking down the video entirely, though, saying it would rather work with local law enforcement than respond to political pressure, according to Reuters.