Indonesia Topics

Indonesia’s government finally unblocks the giant vide-sharing website YouTube after blocking the site for one week. This happens after a letter cloming to the Minister’s desk from Google, YouTube owner.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication Muhammad Nuh apologizes of the blocking. The government done this to prevent the access of FITNA movie.

“We didn’t mean to block the whole access to YouTube. We were meant to block some cautious content in there,” Says Nuh in his office.

From now, Youtube is officially unblocked from Indonesia. But Nuh hopes that YouTube gives their best effort to prevent FITNA in Indonesia, as Google promised in their response.

ISPs in Indonesia are obeying the instructions of Minister of Communication & Information Muhammad Nuh. Not just YouTube, MySpace and Multiply, some of the most accessed websites in Indonesia are also banned.

Minister Nuh’s official letter were not explicitly contained about banning those website. But apparently, the major ISPs are doing beyond the instructions.

Some of the news are here. This is a reaction of Indonesia’s government over the Movie, Fitna, made by Dutch politician’s Geert Wilders.

APJII or Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association eventually blocked Youtube access through Indonesia Internet Exchange. Thus, majority of Indonesians who use this line will be unable to open Youtube. This has been an official command from Indonesia’s Minister of Information & Communication Muhammad Nuh.

However, APJII cannot guarantee that the access over Youtube is fully blocked from entire Indonesia. APJII head Sylvia Sumarlin says,”Because there are also several other lines, ISPs are usually have redundancy”.

This action is a response towards official letter from the Minister of Information and Communication to block Youtube over the distribution of Fitna the movie which can harm the unity and tolerance between believers in Indonesia.

On April 2nd, Indonesia government have asked Youtube to remove several Fitna videos for 2 days. However, there are still no response.

Sumarlin states that APJII will also coordinate with Mastel, Imoca, Awari and others regarding mechanism on blocking some other harmful sites. “We don’t want to be discriminative to Youtube, we will also consider others,” says Sumarlin.

Indonesia said Tuesday it would block access to YouTube unless the video-sharing Web site removes an anti-Muslim film by a Dutch lawmaker within 48 hours.

Communications and Information Minister Mohammad Nuh said the government sent a letter to the site informing it of its demand on Tuesday.

“The deadline is two days. If (the film) is not removed by that time, we will block YouTube under cooperation with the Internet service providers,” Nuh told reporters in the capital, Jakarta.

Anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders posted the 15-minute film on LiveLeak.com on Friday. It has since been available on other blogs and file-sharing sites, including YouTube.

Last year, Thailand blocked YouTube for four months because of clips it deemed offensive to the king. The ban was lifted after YouTube’s owner, Google Inc., agreed to not allow videos that break Thai laws or offend the Thai people.

In February, YouTube was inaccessible globally for several hours after the government of Pakistan blocked it, citing what it said were clips in which Wilders made denigrating remarks about Islam.

Wilders’ film intersperses scenes of recent terror attacks with versus from the Quran, Islam’s holy book, and speeches from Islamic extremists calling for attacks on non-Muslims. It has been condemned as racist and misleading by governments around the world.

Earlier Tuesday, about 50 people rallied outside the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta calling for Wilders to be put to death.

“Islam is a holy religion,” Shodiq Ramadan told about 50 protesters who shouted in agreement. “Those who have insulted it deserve to be sentenced to death.”

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but its government is secular and hard-line interpretations of the faith generally do not attract much support.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who relies on the support of several Islamic parties in parliament, has condemned the film and urged protesters in Indonesia - a former Dutch colony - to stay calm. (courtesy: The Jakarta Post)