(CNSNews.com) - More people in Indonesia than in any other country have used the Internet's Google search engine to look for a provocative film linking the Koran to terrorism.

According to Google's own trend-tracking software, the search term "Fitna" -- the title of the film -- has been entered by a far greater number of Internet users in Indonesia than anywhere else. The next highest level of interest came from the Netherlands, home to the controversial lawmaker who made the film, followed by Malaysia and Denmark. The U.S. ranked ninth.

In an attempt to prevent Indonesians from seeing Geert Wilders' film, the government has ordered Internet service providers in the country to block some of the Internet's most popular file-sharing and social networking sites. The steps have drawn strong criticism.

According to Google's trend tool, Indonesian Web surfers started searching for Fitna in ever increasing numbers on March 27, the day Wilders posted it online. The graph climbs to a high point on April 1, the day Jakarta announced that it would block access to YouTube unless the video-sharing site removed Fitna.

The search term's popularity then declined somewhat until April 4, when it began to climb again.

Because the tool's graph runs a few days behind, it's not yet clear what the effect has been, if any, of this week's moves by Indonesian ISPs to block YouTube and a handful of others Web sites.

According to Internet World Stats, a leading market researcher, the Internet has a low level of penetration in Indonesia -- only about 8.5 percent of the population. With a total population of 234 million, that means about 20 million Indonesians access the Internet.

(By comparison, Internet penetration in the Netherlands is almost 88 percent, but the country's overall population is small. About 14.5 million people are online.)

An Indonesian student who initiated an online petition urging his government to reverse the censorship attempts said Friday they were unwarranted and harmful.

"Indonesia is a democratic country, and websites such as YouTube are essential for learning as well," said Defrio Nandi, an 11th grade student at a leading high school on the outskirts of Jakarta.

\ldblquote"I do not open YouTube just for plain entertainment, but for education purpose as well."

Nandi said he found the government's decision to block the sites "bizarre."

"Rather than moaning to myself about this stupid rule," he decided to launch an online petition, in the Indonesian language, and posted the link on several local message boards.

The reaction was startling, he said -- 8,000 signatures in 24 hours. As of Friday morning, more than 12,400 people had signed up. "I have no idea how the word spread so quickly."

Indonesia's attempts to ban "Fitna" almost certainly cannot succeed, because the film has been uploaded onto so many sites across the Web. And -- as some Indonesian bloggers are advising their compatriots -- using anonymous proxy servers such as youhide.com can bypass the restrictions anyway, whether users are looking for Wilders' film or not.

Still, Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) on Thursday slammed the blocking of the sites, likening it to "destroy[ing] a restaurant to kill a fly."

The organization's president, Heru Hendratmoko, said the action contravened a 2002 amendment to Indonesia's constitution that dealt with human rights, and appealed to ISPs to ignore the government order.

Maintaining freedom of thinking, expression and information was as important as "efforts to uphold ethics and morality" among Indonesians, he said.

Indonesia, an electoral democracy, is the world's fourth most populous country, and the biggest in the Islamic world.

Wilders' film intersperses verses from the Koran with images of the aftermath of terrorist attacks and footage of radical Islamic figures inciting violence. It has drawn criticism from international organizations and numerous governments around the world.

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