LOS ANGELES: A California judge rejected a request by an actress on Thursday to remove the anti-Islam film from YouTube.
Actress Cindy Lee Garcia had sought to have the film removed in a suit against YouTube parent company Google and a California man linked to the film, saying she was duped into taking part and had since received death threats.
“The request for a temporary restraining order is denied. The plaintiff has not shown a likelihood to prevail on the merits,” Los Angeles superior court judge Luis Lavin said.
Garcia’s is the first known civil lawsuit connected to the making of the video that has angered the Muslim world.
Garcia accused the producer of the movie, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, of duping her into appearing in a “hateful” film that she had been led to believe was a simple desert adventure movie.
“There was no mention of (Prophet) Mohammed (pbuh) during filming or on set. There were no references made to religion nor was there any sexual content of which Ms Garcia was aware,” the lawsuit said.
Garcia, who said she had received death threats after the video was posted on YouTube, accused Nakoula of fraud and slander.
Garcia also named Google and its YouTube unit as defendants in the suit she filed on Wednesday. She said her right to privacy had been violated and her life endangered, among other allegations.
An attorney for Google said the rights of an actor do not protect that person from how a film is perceived. “If we viewed it that way we’d say that Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg in `Terminator’ was a factual statement about Arnold Schwarzenegger,” lawyer Timothy Alger argued.—Reuters
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