The Turkish government said it has started a legal process to ban access via the Internet to an amateurish American-made anti-Islam film that has sparked protests across the Muslim world.
"A legal procedure has started to remove the video content from URL addresses... due to the uneasiness caused in our country and in the world by the film insulting Islam and Muslims and which contains provocative elements," the communications ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
A ministry official told AFP the government was seeking to ban links to the video but not block video-sharing websites themselves.
"The access to the videos in question has been blocked to a great extent through Internet providers," the ministry said.
Turkey has also applied to Google Inc, the owner of YouTube, for the removal of the video from the portal, it added.
A wave of anti-American protests erupted across the globe earlier this month over the "Innocence of Muslims" film which has offended many Muslims because of its insulting depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.
The protests also spread to predominantly Muslim but strictly secular Turkey, with hundreds of people in Istanbul setting fire to US and Israeli in a demonstration on Sunday.
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