JAKARTA: YouTube has begun restricting access to videos of an anti-Islamic film in the world's most populous Muslim nation, a government official said Sunday.

“Google, which is YouTube's parent company, emailed us on Thursday evening to say it had blocked Indonesia's access to 16 URLs related to the “Innocence of Muslims” videos on the site,” Communications and Information Ministry spokesman Gatot Dewa Broto said.

Extracts of the film were still available on the video-sharing website on Sunday, but Broto said Google was “making special effort” to prevent the film from being watched in Indonesia.

“We understand that it takes time for Google to block everything as people continue to upload those sensitive videos. We appreciate Google's cooperation,” he said.

Broto said the government also wrote to Blackberry maker Research In Motion on Friday to filter the videos on its smartphones.—AFP