Pakistan authorities blocked access to Twitter in the several parts of the country on Sunday after it failed to take action on the publication of material considered offensive to Islam.
The material was promoting a contest on Facebook (FB: Quote) to post images of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication's Authority.
The move came hours after Interior Minister Rehman Malik himself tweeted early this morning that no restrictions would be imposed on the popular micro-blogging site.
The ministry of information technology said repeated calls made to Twitter authorities over the matter remained unanswered.
"We have been negotiating with them until last night, but they did not agree to remove the stuff, so we had to block it," said Yaseen.
Users from different parts of Pakistan reported that they were unable to access the site on their computers and mobile phones since the afternoon.
Twitter has grown in popularity in the last few years and it is estimated that six million people use Twitter in Pakistan.
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by RTT Staff Writer
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