Bangladesh lifted the YouTube ban sometime yesterday. However, I was waiting for an on the record quote from a government official before posting on it. Now we have it:
Bangladesh has lifted a ban on the video-sharing site YouTube after it hosted a recording of an angry dispute between the premier and army officers over a mutiny, an official said Thursday.
Several similar sites were also blocked on Sunday after the recording, purportedly an argument between the army chiefs and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, was uploaded onto the Internet.
In the recorded conversation, the military bosses are heard yelling at the premier for her handling of the mutiny, in which at least 74 people were killed, 56 of them senior officers.
“The ban has been withdrawn,” Ziaul Islam, the head of the telecommunications regulatory commission, told AFP.
“Things are cooling down and everything is settling. We will not be interfering with what is on the site,” he said, adding the content originally considered “subversive to the state” was still available to download.
Bloggers had criticised the government’s actions as heavy handed.
I am glad the Bangladesh government has walked back its ill-conceived and short-sighted tryst with censorship.
