Washington, Sep 15 (IANS): As anti-American protests over an anti-Islam video spread to some 20 nations across the Muslim world, the US sternly warned them to stop the violence, but Google declined to block the offending clip.
Calling YouTube clips from the film "Innocence of Muslims" as an "awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked the nations to act and seek justice against those attacking its diplomatic missions, or else the United States will.
"The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob," she said Friday during a ceremony in which the bodies of the four killed in Benghazi, including US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, returned to the United States.
Reports of anti-American protests -- some peaceful, some violent - came in Friday from Tunisia, where two people were killed and more than 20 wounded, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon among others.
There also were protests in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey England, Israel, Nigeria, Malaysia, Bangladesh and India.
CNN citing sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya said the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was most likely carried out by a pro-Al Qaeda group.
Meanwhile, Google said Friday that it would not comply with a White House request to reconsider the anti-Islam video in light of its rules banning hate speech on YouTube, which it owns.
The National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor Friday acknowledged that the White House had asked YouTube "to review whether it violates their terms of use."
The New York Times cited Google as saying it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech, because it was against the Muslim religion but not Muslim people. The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.
The action came after Google temporarily blocked the video Wednesday in Egypt and Libya "in response to the delicacy of the situation," but it is still accessible in the rest of the world.
YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.