YouTube ban goes

A screenshot of YouTube homepage taken after the authorities lifted the ban they had imposed in September last year.

The telecom regulator lifted the ban on popular video sharing website YouTube Wednesday afternoon.

Posts continued to pour on different social networking websites, especially Facebook, as hundreds of netizens welcomed the move immediately after the website became available around 5:00pm.

"People will be able to access YouTube later in the day,” Sunil Kanti Bose, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, said around 3:45pm in an exclusive interview with The Daily Star.

The decision was taken following discussion with the government, he said.

“We are sending instructions to the Internet gateways in this regard,” Bose added.

The telecom regulator blocked YouTube in Bangladesh on September 17 to prevent people from watching the 14-minute trailer on a film titled 'Innocence of Muslims' which sparked deadly protests from the Middle East to Southeast Asia claiming many lives.

The trailer depicts the prophet as a fraud and philanderer.

The BTRC blocked the YouTube website 24 hours into its request to the Internet giant Google to block the controversial anti-Islam movie trailer.