Numerous Web users in Pakistan reported problems in trying to access YouTube on Sunday evening. When the website returned an hour later, one video had mysteriously disappeared - a clip showing President Asif Ali Zardari shouting "Shut up!" at a rally crowd.
The incident having gone unreported in Pakistan, we were unable to verify the exact date and location of the rally. It is thought that the footage was recorded in mid-January when Zardari staged exceptional (he seldom leaves the high-security presidency) rallies in the Sindh province (southeast) and Punjab province (east). Posted online at the end of January, the video had been watched around 45,000 times by the time it was blocked on the evening of Sunday Feb. 7.
[flv:vlht437k]http://www.france24.com/static/observers/video/100209%20shutup.flv[/flv:vlht437k]
This order probably came from either the presidency itself or a minister high up
One of our Observers, dentist Awab Alvi from Karachi, was monitoring the situation on YouTube on Sunday.
Screengrab of the blocked site, posted by one of Observers in Pakistan, Huma Imitaz, on her blog, "The World Has Stopped Spinning".