A 3D-printed YouTube icon is seen in front of a displayed YouTube logo in this illustration taken October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Ilustration

CAIRO - 26 May 2018: The Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal on Saturday against banning YouTube in Egypt for one month.The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) have appealed against the Administrative Court’s decision to ban YouTube in Egypt for one month upon a lawsuit filed by lawyer Mohamed Hamed Salem.Salem had requested banning YouTube in Egypt, as he objected to viewing a video insulting to Prophet Muhammad.In its appeal, NTRA emphasized the difficulty of banning the video-sharing website in Egypt.The court’s ruling was suspended pending adjudication.It is not the first time the NTRA was unable to ban an internet platform, as it couldn’t ban the White Whale app due to technical difficulties.</s>CAIRO, Egypt – Egypt's top administrative court ordered authorities on Saturday, May 26, to block video-sharing website YouTube in the country for a month, after a years-long appeals process over a film denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammed, a judicial official said.

A lower court had ordered the video sharing site be blocked in 2013 after it carried the video "Innocence of Muslims", but the case was appealed by Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and its ruling was stayed.

The 2012 amateurish film depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a buffoon and a paedophile, and sparked a wave of angry anti-American protests across the Middle East in which more than 30 people were killed.

Washington sought to keep a lid on the demonstrations by saying the controversial film was made privately with no official backing.

US officials said freedom of speech laws prevented them from stopping the production of inflammatory material.

The ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed.

As of Saturday afternoon, YouTube was still accessible in Cairo. – Rappler.com</s>Egypt’s top administrative court on Saturday ordered authorities to block video sharing website YouTube for a month over a film that allegedly denigrates Prophet Muhammad, reported AFP.

The ruling on Saturday ends a seven-year-long appeal process over the release of Innocence of Muslims, a 14-minute video produced by by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. In 2013, a lower administrative court had ordered that the website be blocked, but the case was appealed and its ruling stayed during the appeal process, reported Reuters. The ruling was then appealed before the a higher administrative court which issued the latest verdict.

The video sparked a wave of protests in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, in which more than 30 people were killed. Since then, demonstrations have erupted in more than two dozen countries, including a protest at the US consulate in Chennai.</s>Egypt's top administrative court has ordered authorities to block the video-sharing website YouTube for a month for hosting a short film that denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.

The ruling on Saturday ended a years-long appeals process over the 2012 film, Innocence of Muslims, which depicts the prophet in a negative light.

Mohamed Hamid Salem, a lawyer who filed the case in 2013, told the Reuters news agency the court's decision also ordered all links that broadcast the film be blocked.

A lower administrative court had ordered YouTube be blocked in 2013 over the video, but Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority appealed and it remained available during the appeal process.

Innocence of Muslims, a low-budget 13-minute video, was billed as a film trailer and made in California with private funding.

It provoked a wave of anti-American unrest that turned deadly in Egypt and other Muslim countries when it appeared in 2012.

Washington sought to keep a lid on the demonstrations by saying the controversial film was made privately with no official backing.

US officials said freedom of speech laws prevented them from stopping the production of inflammatory material.

The top administrative court's ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed.</s>Since its inception over a decade ago, a number of countries have placed temporary bans on YouTube, usually due to objections over certain content. Joining this list is Egypt, which is about to block the video streaming site for a month—a punishment for showing the controversial 2012 video “The Innocence of Muslims.”

The 14-minute clip, which a consultant said was a “trailer” for a full-length film that was only shown once at rented theatre in Hollywood, caused outrage in Arab and Muslim nations when it arrived on YouTube in 2012. The US-made video's portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad as a pedophile and buffoon resulted in anti-American protests around the world that resulted in injuries and even deaths.

Law experts said the government could not prosecute the film’s producers because of US freedom of speech laws.

In 2013, Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was ordered to block YouTube by a lower administrative court over the video, but the case had been stuck in the appeals process ever since.

Reuters reports that the ministry said at the time such action would disrupt Google's search engine and could incur potentially huge costs and job losses in Egypt. Now, the country’s top administrative court has ordered the month-long ban.

Pakistan was another country to ban YouTube as a result of the video. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered access blocked in 2012. The block wasn’t officially lifted until 2016 when YouTube launched a local version of the site. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sudan also blocked the service over YouTube’s failure to remove the clip.

Most of the video’s anti-Islamic content was dubbed over the original cast's spoken lines. Those involved with the film have disavowed it.

The Egyptian ban is considered final and cannot be appealed. The ruling states that all links to the film also be blocked. As of Saturday afternoon, YouTube was still accessible in the country’s capital city, Cairo.</s>Egypt's top administrative court ordered on 26 May to block YouTube streaming website for one month over hosting a video that denigrates Prophet Muhammad of Islam, the Egyptian lawyer who filed the lawsuit said.

"The ruling is final, unappealable and enforceable," Xinhua quoted lawyer Mohamed Hamed Salem as saying.

A lower administrative court has previously ordered the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to do so, but the latter appealed against the ruling, citing it was hard to implement.

The top administrative court rejected the NTRA appeal on 26 May and upheld the temporary ban as a final, unappealable ruling.

The lawsuit dates back to 2013 when the Egyptian lawyer demanded to ban YouTube in Egypt until the offensive clip on Prophet Muhammad and other anti-Islamic videos are removed.

"The ruling is a punishment for YouTube website that will cost it massive economic losses," Salem said.

Privately funded and produced in California, the controversial video first appeared on YouTube in 2012, raising a wave of anti-American outrage in the Muslim world where Prophet Muhammad is highly revered.

The lawyer said that "the offensive video" led some fanatic Islamists to assault the US and British embassies in Cairo at the time.

It is unclear how the temporary ban will be implemented, as YouTube was still working in Egypt until 26 May evening.

"The NTRA is responsible for implementing the ban and there is no technical difficulty to do so," the lawyer said, warning "I will file a lawsuit against the NTRA chief if the ban is not implemented."</s>A lower court had ordered the video sharing site be blocked in 2013 after it carried the video “Innocence of Muslims”, but the case was appealed by Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and its ruling was stayed.

The 2012 amateurish film depicts the Prophet Mohammed as a buffoon and a paedophile, and sparked a wave of angry anti-American protests across the Middle East in which more than 30 people were killed.

Washington sought to keep a lid on the demonstrations by saying the controversial film was made privately with no official backing.

US officials said freedom of speech laws prevented them from stopping the production of inflammatory material.

The ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed.

As of Saturday afternoon, YouTube was still accessible in Cairo.</s>CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt’s top administrative court ruled on Saturday that regulators must block the video file-sharing site YouTube for one month over a video that denigrates the Prophet Mohammad, a lawyer who filed the case told Reuters.

A lower administrative court had ordered that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology block YouTube, owned by Google, in 2013 over the video, but the case was appealed and its ruling stayed during the appeal process.

The ministry at the time said it would be impossible to enforce the ruling without also disrupting Google’s Internet search engine, incurring potentially huge costs and job losses in the Arab world’s most populous country.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was not immediately available for comment. YouTube appeared to be working in Egypt on Saturday as of 1250 GMT.

The film “Innocence of Muslims”, a low-budget 13-minute video, was billed as a film trailer and made in California with private funding. It provoked a wave of anti-American unrest in Egypt and other Muslim countries when it appeared in 2012.

Mohamed Hamid Salem, a lawyer who filed the case in 2013, said the ruling also orders that all links that broadcast the film be blocked.

The ruling is considered final and cannot be appealed.</s>Egypt’s highest administrative court ordered authorities to ban YouTube for a month Saturday, following a 2012 anti-Islamic video on the self-broadcasting platform that denigrated Prophet Muhammad.

The decision came as part of a verdict, pending for the last five years, after a case was filed against YouTube in 2013. The lawsuit was filed after the online video streaming site allowed a short film called “Innocence of Muslims,” which showed Prophet Muhammad as a buffoon and a pedophile, the Guardian reported.

Apart from YouTube, all the online links through which Egyptian people can view the video in question, were ordered to be blocked as well.

The controversial film triggered a wave of anti-American protests in the Middle East, resulting in the deaths of more than 30 people. Protesters filed a case against YouTube, calling for a ban – a case that has hung in limbo for the last five years due to repeated appeals.

Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) was the first to appeal against the verdict given in the case after a lower court ordered the video-sharing site to be blocked.

Prosecuting lawyer Mohamed Hamed, who had filed the lawsuit, said that the NTRA will not be able to stop the verdict this time as the “ruling is final, unappealable and enforceable.”

“The ruling is a punishment for YouTube website that will cost it massive economic losses," he added, Khaleej Times reported. “The NTRA is responsible for implementing the ban and there is no technical difficulty to do so. I will file a lawsuit against the NTRA chief if the ban is not implemented.”

It is not clear from when the ban is scheduled to go into effect.

In order to be sensitive to the violent demonstrations that erupted in various parts of Egypt, following the anti-Islamic video, as well as to uphold the rights of citizen and media to express themselves, the White House chose to walk a middle path at the time.

Governmental official clarified that the video was privately funded and produced in California, with no official backing. They also tried to request Google to pull the low-budget movie from YouTube, a request that went unheeded.

"We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these two countries," Google's simply said in a statement at the time. "This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007."

According to Engadget, the ruling might not have the same effect as it could have had back in 2013. Although the verdict is final and cannot be appealed or overturned, it has been reduced to almost a symbolic punishment at this point, rather than a bid to make YouTube change its ways.

YouTube itself has amended its ways, revising its policy multiple times to be stricter in vetting out offensive or inappropriate content. For example, between October and December 2017, YouTube removed 8.3 million videos, according to the platform's community guidelines enforcement report.

The company said that it was releasing the quarterly enforcement report in order to "show the progress [it's] making in removing violative content from [its] platform,” after facing considerable criticism from users about the type of content masquerading as kid-friendly on its website.</s>In 2012, a 14-minute trailer named "Innocence of Muslims" was uploaded on YouTube. Lawyer Mohamed Salem filed a case to an Egyptian lower court to block the website, as he claims the video insult Muslim beliefs. He also urged to ban all Anti-Islam websites. In 2013, the court ruled to ban YouTube.

The 14-minute trailer to "Innocence of Muslims" attracted little attention until September 2012, when portions of the movie were broadcasted by the local television network in Egypt.

The privately produced in the US movie "Innocence of Muslims" has triggered widespread protests in the Muslim world. In Libya, they led to an attack on the US consulate that left US Envoy Christopher Stevens and three other American embassy staff dead.
Egypt's top administrative court upholds a 2013 lower court ruling on the short film Innocence of Muslims. The court orders authorities to block YouTube for a month. An official says the movie denigrates Islam's prophet Muhammad.