YNOT –Al-Nour, the arch-conservative Egyptian political party devoted to fundamentalist Islamic principles, on Monday called for an “urgent” meeting of the country’s legislature in order to hear the party’s demand for a ban on pornographic websites.

The news broke on Al-Nour’s Facebook page, which revealed Egyptian People’s Assembly member Younis Makhioun presented the request.

Reaction from both the media and the general public was mixed, according to reports, with about half feeling such a blockade is necessary and the other half fearing such a move could allow conservative censorship to creep over other individual liberties.

A previous attempt to corral internet material that offends some Egyptians ended in defeat for the conservatives in 2009. In May of that year, a court ruled porn potentially harmful to families and ordered communications regulators to block such material on the internet, only to have the ministry of communication refuse to comply. Responsibility for family welfare and individual morality lies with each internet user, the ministry said.

A Google Trends report for 2011 placed Egypt fifth globally in a list of countries whose residents searched for the keyword “sex.” Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Viet Nam led the list, in that order.

The same report listed Arabic, Egypt’s official language, as the third most-often used language to search for the term. English came in at No. 8.