By Erika Icon

YNOT – A Cairo court has ordered the Egyptian government to block access to YouTube for a month. The move is designed to punish the Google-owned video site for refusing to remove the anti-Islamic video Innocence of Muslims, which a lawsuit blamed for the death and destruction visited upon much of the Arab world during reactionary rioting last year.

Judge Hassouna Tafiq ordered the YouTube suspension on Saturday, referring to the film as “offensive to Islam and the Prophet [Muhammad].” The independent film’s depiction of Muhammad as a fool and social deviant sparked protests in the Egyptian capital last September. Violence spread through 20 countries, resulting in more than 50 deaths.

Mohammed Hamid Salim, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit in Cairo, said YouTube refusing to remove the film despite its offensive content “fueled the fire” of violence. He called the film a security threat to Egypt.

YouTube refused to remove the video, but did restrict access in Egypt, Libya and Indonesia because the material violated laws in those countries.

Egypt is not the first country to block YouTube for refusing to remove anti-Islamic material. Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia blocked the massive video-sharing site along with any other sites that posted Innocence of Muslims.

In 2012, an Egyptian court convicted seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a pastor from Florida on charges they were linked to the film. The defendants were sentenced to death in absentia, as all of them were in the U.S. at the time. They do not plan to return to Egypt.

Also in 2012, a Coptic Christian blogger who shared the film on several social networking sites was convicted of blasphemy and contempt of religion and sentenced to three years in jail. He was released on bail.