Pakistan restores Twitter after block over Prophet cartoons

May 21, 2012 |

Islamabad

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Pakistan restored access to Twitter on Sunday, just hours after blocking the site over posts related to a contest involving caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, the telecoms authority said.

"Twitter service has been restored," said Mohammad Younis Khan, spokesman for Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). It had been cut off around 12 hours earlier.

The spokesman said the telecoms authority had been ordered to restore access by the ministry of information technology, but he did not know the reason for the decision. No one from the ministry was immediately available for comment.

The posts on Twitter deemed offensive promoted a competition on Facebook involving caricatures of the Prophet.

Speaking earlier Sunday before the ban was lifted, Khan said that "Facebook and Twitter were involved. We negotiated with both. Facebook has agreed to remove the stuff but Twitter is not responding to us."

The IT ministry had ordered Twitter to be blocked, he said.

Twitter and Facebook were not reachable for comment.

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