A US court has overturned the ban on an anti-Muslim film that had caused deadly riots in Islamic nations. The court ruled that 'Innocence of Muslims', which was barred last year, can be shown on Youtube again.
Citing the First Amendment, a federal appeals court in the US overturned an injunction by its own panel made last year, when it had called 'Innocence of Muslims' a 'blasphemous video proclamation against the Prophet Mohammed'.
The court order asking Google and Youtube to take down the film "gave short shrift to the 1st Amendment values at stake", the court said on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"The mandatory injunction censored and suppressed a politically significant film — based upon a dubious and unprecedented theory of copyright," the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said.
"The panel deprived the public of the ability to view firsthand, and judge for themselves, a film at the center of an international uproar," it said.
Actress Cindy Lee Garcia, who appears in the film, had sought its removal from Youtube after she reported threats to her life and said that she had the copyright authority to prevent 'Innocence of Muslims' from being shown.
Her voice was dubbed over with anti-Islam comments, and the court said that 'she was duped by an unscrupulous filmmaker and has suffered greatly from her disastrous association with the 'Innocence of Muslims' film'.
The film made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-American, portrays Prophet Mohammed as a paedophile and had sparked anti-American protests in the Middle East, including a fatal attack on US Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya.
A fatwa had also been issued calling for the killings of those involved in the film.
"The film, featuring a crude production, depicts the Prophet Mohammed as, among other things, a murderer, paedophile, and homosexual," the court had said last year.
