The government in Bangladesh has blocked YouTube to prevent people from viewing an anti-Islam video produced in the U.S. ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad.

Independent and Somoy television stations said the government blocked the popular video search engine late Monday.

On Sunday, the chief of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission said the government sent a letter to Google, which owns YouTube, urging it to remove the video. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made the same request.

Google has blocked access to the video in Libya and Egypt following violence there, and in Indonesia and India because it says the video broke laws in those countries.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people but is governed by laws based on British common law.

By Sapa-AP/Jacaranda News