Access to YouTube may be blocked in Russia over Innocence of Muslims trailer

Moscow - Russian Internet users may lose access to YouTube which carries a trailer to the scandalous Innocence of Muslims movie trailer, after the law on black-listed websites takes effect on Nov. 1.

This will happen if this video is qualified as extremist in Russia and if Google, which owns YouTube, does not limit Russian users' access to the video.

"You may laugh at it but the whole of YouTube may be blocked in Russia completely over this video on Nov. 3-5," Russian Mass Media and Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said in his Twitter blog.. Amendments to the law on the protection of children from damaging information takes effect on November 1, he said.

A list of links and web addresses will be formed under this law that will help identify the websites posting banned information, he said.

If the website owner does not delete the web page containing banned information, his net address will be blacklisted and all Russian Internet providers will be obliged to limit users' access to this website, Nikiforov said.

Although Google said it will not remove the film that has angered the Muslims from YouTube, it agreed to deny access to video to users in individual countries at their governments' request or under court orders.

Google has limited access to this video in India and Indonesia, and banned it from being viewed in Egypt and Libya. The restrictions were imposed in compliance with local laws.

But Google did not block access to this scandalous film in Pakistan, which was followed by Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf's telling the local Internet providers to block the Pakistani Internet users' access to the video.

Russian Senator Ruslan Gatarov referred an inquiry to the Prosecutor General's Office on Monday requesting that the film be examined for signs of extremism.

Made in the United States, the film provoked a wave of attacks on U.S. embassies in Mulsim countries.

It portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a vile rogue who invents Allah's laws in his own interests and engages in promiscuous sexual relations.