Egyptian court orders one-month ban on YouTube
Cairo, May 27: Egypt's top administrative court ordered on Saturday 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 Saturday 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 U.S. 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 Saturday 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."
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Bhopal gas tragedy: Effects of leak seen in next generation of survivors, says ex-forensic doctor
Bhopal (PTI): The effects of poisonous gases that leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal 40 years ago were seen in the next generations of those who survived the tragedy, a former government forensic doctor has said.
At least 3,787 people were killed, and more than five lakh were affected after a toxic gas leaked from the pesticide factory in the city on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984.
Speaking at an event held by organisations of gas tragedy survivors on Saturday, Dr D K Satpathy, former head of the forensics department of Bhopal's Gandhi Medical College, said he performed 875 post-mortems on the first day of the disaster and witnessed 18,000 autopsies the next five years.
Sathpathy claimed Union Carbide had denied questions about the effects of poisonous gases on unborn children of women survivors and said effects would not cross the placental barrier in the womb in any condition.
He said blood samples of pregnant women who died in the tragedy were examined, and it was found that 50 per cent of poisonous substances found in the mother were also found in the child in her womb.
Children born to surviving mothers had the poisonous substances in their system, and this affected the health of the next generation, Sathpathy claimed and questioned why research on this was stopped.
Such effects will continue for generations, he said.
Satpathy said it was said that MIC gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant, and when it came in contact with water, thousands of gases were formed, and some of these caused cancer, blood pressure and liver damage.
Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action said Satpathy, who carried out most autopsies, and other first responders in the 1984 disaster, including the senior doctors in the emergency ward and persons involved in mass burials, narrated their experiences during the event.
Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, a poster exhibition covering every aspect of the disaster will be held till December 4 to mark the 40th anniversary of the tragedy.
An anniversary rally will be organised, with focus on global corporate crimes such as industrial pollution and climate change, she said.
