YouTube blocks anti-Islam video in India

Video-sharing website YouTube has blocked access in India to an anti-Islam film that surfaced in the United States and has since sparked deadly protests in the Muslim world, Google said on Friday.

US-based search engine Google, which owns YouTube, did not say whether it acted on its own or was asked to remove the content by the Indian government.

'We do, at times, block content in response to a court order or other valid legal process. We have blocked access to the YouTube page in the Indian domain,' a Google executive, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

YouTube had earlier this week offered to 'temporarily' restrict access to the film in Libya and Egypt, the hotbed of protests, because of the 'very difficult situation' in both the countries.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have already blocked access to the movie, which was condemned as 'inhuman' and 'provocative'.

Indonesia, where most of the 240 million population practise a moderate form of Islam, has also demanded that YouTube remove the film from its website.

Protesters have targeted US embassies for the film, which portrays followers of the Islamic faith as immoral and gratuitously violent.

Four people died in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Thursday as violence flared outside US embassies over the low-budget film.

The deaths followed the killing of US diplomat and three colleagues in Syria Tuesday, after a mob stormed the consulate in Benghazi.

India is home to a Muslim population estimated at about 150 million, according to census data.