From The Evening Echo

The German state of Bavaria today announced a ban on the use of mobile phones in schools to prevent students from viewing images of pornography and extreme violence.

Students can still carry their phones, but will have to leave them switched off during school hours, including during breaks, state education minister Siegfried Schneider said: School is no place for phoning and certainly not for distributing concoctions that endanger youth, Schneider said.

The ban comes after police recently found pornography and violent images on mobile phones seized from students at schools in the Bavarian towns of Augsburg and Immenstadt.

From Prison Planet

For the first time in what some fear will signal a growing trend, Google Inc. has banned and removed a mainstream news website from all its worldwide search engines, seemingly due to the website's reports on China's geopolitical affairs and military technology.

Space War is a reasonably tame mainstream website that focuses on geopolitical affairs and satellite and military technology advancements. It is based in Australia and carries articles from AFP and United Press International.

In a statement posted on its website today, the President and Publisher of Space.TV Corporation Simon Mansfield released the following comments: Google Inc. has banned SPACEWAR.COM, a news site covering military space. Reasons for the ban by Google are unclear. The company did not communicate with Space.TV Corp., the owner of SPACEWAR.COM, prior to its action, and Google representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Google Inc.'s preferred method of banning a site is to delist its primary domain URL - www.spacewar.com - from the Google search index. Google also can reduce a site's page rank, or eliminate it entirely, as it has done to SpaceWar.com. Google Inc in the wake of pressure from the Chinese government has begun blocking access to various websites deemed unfriendly to the "Boys From Beijing"

At this stage we have no evidence to suggest this is the reason why Google has banned SPACEWAR.COM. The lack of any forewarning that SPACEWAR.COM was operating in violation of Google's increasingly strict search engine compliance requirements, however, leads us to suspect the ban is politically motivated.

It is important to stress that Space War is not even outright hostile to the Chinese government, it simply reports on publicly available information about its military progression and relations with other countries.

Update: After a complaints campaign, Google has agreed to re-index the Space War website mentioned in this article.

Based on an article from Asia Media

When questioned by an American reporter about the Chinese government's censorship of the internet, the premier defended the mainland's record by quoting Irish Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw, who once said: Liberty means responsibility. [That's why most men dread it].

Premier Wen Jiabao said: Every citizen can exercise their right and freedom to use the internet. BUT... every citizen must also abide the law, and safeguard our national, social and collective interests.

Former Bingdian Weekly editor Li Datong, who was sacked over the appearance of a controversial article in the newspaperin late January, said the premier's argument was flawed. It's absolutely right for Mr Wen to say that citizens have the freedom of speech which is guaranteed by the constitution. But do we really have the freedom?First of all, no individual or organisation in China is allowed to run their own newspaper or publication. All media is owned and controlled by the government. Liberty means responsibility. But who should decide what is good and what is wrong? If a person said something untrue and illegal, he should be punished by the law. At present, the officials can arbitrarily close any public discussion simply because they don't like it.

Freedom of speech put to brutal test By Chow Chung-Yan

Grandmothers were pinned to the ground for petitioning outside the Great Hall of the People, while journalists were detained just minutes after Premier Wen Jiabao defended China's record on free speech.

Wen also talked about the freedom of speech guaranteed to every citizen by the constitution. However, for the petitioners who managed to breach the tight police blockades yesterday to voice their grievances outside the Great Hall, the only thing they tasted was the dirt on the ground.

Beijing mobilised thousands of police officers during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress to keep order and prevent public petitions. The streets around Tiananmen Square were filled with uniformed and plain-clothes officers who regularly checked passers-by.

But to their embarrassment, about 10 petitioners managed to sneak past and tried to voice their concerns on the stairs of the Great Hall at the end of the press conference. The petitioners protested against corruption, illegal land requisitions and rampant crime. But they were quickly pinned to the ground and whisked away by police.

Two Spanish reporters, an Australian television crew and two South China Morning Post reporters were also detained for covering the incident. The police later released the journalists.

Based on an article from The Daily Star

Adaptation of the anti-obscenity law in parliament in January revives nutter hopes of bringing back 'golden days' to the film industry as the makers and those involved in pornographic films have gone into hiding.

Parliament on January 31, adopted the anti-obscenity law that can land any 'pornographic'/ vulgar filmmaker in prison for three years. Action can be also taken against the artists, crew, officials, exhibitors and any person involved with the vulgar film.

Producers of vulgar films have stopped their ongoing projects realising perhaps they would be in trouble if they continue.

Producers themselves halted the making of around 30 films after the adaptation of the new law, said Kamruzzaman Babu, staff reporter, daily Prothom Alo: Producers of these low grade films fear that their movies would not run and they will not be able to be make any profits.

According to different newspaper reports, the law-enforcing authority has shutdown three cinema halls for screening uncensored and vulgar Bangla movies. Another 16 cinema halls known to be screening pornographic films are marked to face the same fate if the allegation against them is proved.

With such initiative from the government, we hope to see more family oriented movies, that would increase the number of viewers, said Chashi Nazrul Islam, director and member Bangladesh Censor Board.

Cinema hall owners, too, are very careful in picking the right movies to avoid punishment since the new law took effect. Makers of these films are not ready to admit that showing obscenity in films is a crime. Because they that adult scenes shown in the movies do not depict vulgarity, rather it's a demand of the day.

From IWPR

Civil rights activists and movie buffs have hailed a decision to show a harrowing film in Belgrade about a Bosnian rape victim. They greeted the premiere as a sign that Serbs are becoming more willing to acknowledge the extent of war crimes committed in Serbia's name in the Nineties.

By contrast, nervous distributors in the Bosnian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, RS, refused to show the film at all, citing fears of uproar.

Grbavica, by the Sarajevo director Jasmila Zbanic, and winner of this year's Berlin film festival, had its first screening in Belgrade on March 6.

The film about a Bosnian Muslim who gave birth to a child after being raped in a Serbian detention camp won a standing ovation in the Serbian capital, in spite of its deeply controversial theme.

Zbanic made no apologies for the unequivocally political message of her film, saying she hoped it would remind moviegoers of the fate of thousands of Bosnian women raped during the 1992 to 1995 war.

After winning the Berlin prize, she expressly pointed out that the two men in charge of the Bosnian Serb war effort, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remained at large. Zbanic's comments created more uproar in the RS capital Banja Luka and in Belgrade than the film's provocative script.

Oscar Film Private Enterprise, the only film distributor in the RS, decided not to show Grbavica. The company's director, Vlado Ljevar, said after the film was shown to a test audience of about 40, they concluded that a screening would be counterproductive and would not be economically viable. We don't want to screen a film that would provoke Serbs and cause a revolt, while we would stand to make no money from it, said Ljevar.

Dragica Banjac, a professor in Banja Luka's economics faculty, said she was angry she would not be able to judge the film's merits for herself: I feel offended as a citizen, just as I am offended that no one has spoken out against this form of censorship.

By contrast, a defiant atmosphere attended the first screening in Belgrade, where filmgoers, civil society activists, actors and filmmakers gathered in force. A clutch of hard-line nationalists who tried to disrupt the projection, shouting "Serbia" and "traitors", was quickly ejected. When Svetlana Petrusic, a former journalist, attempted to read out a written statement condemning the film, security guards whisked her off.

From Stelios

I thought I like to comment on the story about Serbia and what's been reported on the press. I must say the report is biased and I thought I share some links with you. I in no way support dictators but I do believe in both sides of the coin and unfortunately what I been reading about Serbia is one sided trash cooked up by the corporate media owned by the likes of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch and the BBC controlled by Blair's elite these days.

I thought I share some links with you to get a better understanding in the Balkans.

• www.slobodan-milosevic.org a site based on the dictator however there are some things that I think you should see what the media over has not shown yet
• www.tenc.net The emporers new clothes by Jared Israel
• www.kosovo.com What's become of the province of Serbia which is their Babylon now in ruins due to Al Queda backed Albanian terrorists
• www.truthinmedia.org/truthinmedia/index.html by Bob Djodjevic
• http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/01-03-2006/76667-ksovo-0 This is an article I think you should definitely see since when I saw the story, it turns out it is about Kosovo's mineral wealth like oil and rare metals the territory contains that is why Albania wants that land
  so badly with the backing of the USA.

All I am saying is see the links and judge for yourself since I believe there is more than meets the eye.

As a Greek Cypriot with Greek ancestry, Kosovo of Serbia and Cyprus share a common problem and that is the expansion of a state to control another country's land. Turkey with Cyprus by trying to add Cyprus to its own. Albania by trying to add Kosovo to its own and worse still add Skopia (FYROM) and parts of Northern Greece.

Both Greeks and Serbs have been demonised by the media in the west and I think it is high time people know the truth what is really happening in the Balkans for a change since there is so much ignorance about the region.

Also what do I think about Cyprus rejecting the 'Annan Plan' backed by Blair and Bush you might ask? Obviously the plan is scam it is about the oil and is about controlling the continental shelf of the Mediterranean and that the plan breaches human rights and international law so stuff their so called solution on Cyprus Blair and Bush can get lost.

Again a link on the matter: http://ahiworld.org/press_releases/072805.html

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has expressed concern over recent censorship by Arab governments in North Africa and the Middle East.

According to a Press Statement, the Egyptian website www.masreyat.org has been blocked for a the past week and various other sites, including the famous website "Modern Discussion" (www.rezgar.com), which defends secularism and women's rights, campaigns against capital punishment, and defends other journalists and writers, have been banned in many countries including Tunisia. The websites have also been threatened with a lawsuit by a Saudi business man who alleges that they carry unacceptable writings about Muslims.

In Egypt, security authorities have recently been blocking websites calling for reform, such as the "Save Egypt Front" and "Masreyat" sites, in addition to continuously blocking the sites of the "Al-Shaab" newspaper and the Al-Amal (labour) party.

Religious scholars and businessmen affiliated to the Saudi government are launching campaigns against the freedom of Internet use and of information exchange. Religious scholars have issued a "fatwa" prohibiting women from using the Internet unless in the presence of a "mahram" (a close relative they are prohibited to marry). The announced fatwa was followed by a call from Saudi businessmen to sue websites that call for freedom of thought and secularism.

From Aftenposten

A unified Storting (Norway's parliament) wants the government to implement measures that will allow children to be protected from exposure to society's increasing obsession with sexuality.

On the day before Women's Day, the Storting's justice committee announced one of the first cross-party stances against the pornography industry in several years.

A proposal from the Christian Democrat Party said that a broad majority from the Progress Party, Conservatives, Labor, and Socialist Left parties have asked the government to act on the matter of sexual focus in everyday life, and keeping pornography in particular away from children.

Politicians have asked that what children find offensive be included in an eventual expansion and redefinition of pornography, and also want the government to consider a ban on the production of pornography in Norway.

The group also wants laws and guidelines that protect the individual's rights to be free from seeing publicly displayed images of nudity or sexual acts, for example pornographic magazines on display in shops.

From The Sydney Morning Herald

The issue of whether or not the world needs a virtual red-light district will be on the agenda when ICANN's meets again this month in Wellington, New Zealand.

ICANN stands for the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers, and is a US non-profit organisation that oversees top level domain names like .com on behalf of the US government.

The creation of an .xxx domain was proposed in recent years to take the place of .com in move strongly promoted by the adult entertainment industry in the hope of improving traffic flow to legitimate adult sites and dramatically easing filtering requirements for other domains.

However the online red-light district has suffered a number of setbacks under growing opposition. Those contesting it have concerns over the legitimisation of pornographic material, especially in countries where standards might substantially differ from norms in the western world.

Although ICANN's board originally voted in favour of creating the .xxx domain in August last year, a final decision was put on hold after the reciept of a letter from Michael Gallagher, Assistant Secretary at the US Commerce Department, saying he had received nearly 6000 letters and emails expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children and urging further debate.

Approval for the domain was then deferred to a board meeting of ICANN last December, however it was again delayed to allow more time for consultation.

Some have declared this evidence that ICANN is bowing to pressure from the US government, a topic that was loomed large at the recent World Summit on Information Society in Tunis late last year where governance of the Internet was the subject of strong debate.

The .xxx issue will be firmly back on the agenda in Wellington with a Government Advisory Committee expected to present its findings at the conference and "further discussions" among international delegates to follow.

From AVN

A bill introduced on March 16 in the U.S. Senate seeks to require all commercial websites that provide “material that is harmful to minors” to register and operate within a Top Level Domain set aside specifically for that purpose.

Sponsored by Sens. Max Baucus (Democrat) and Mark Pryor (Democrat), the “Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006” mandates that the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers establish the new international TLD and have it operational within 90 days of the enactment of the bill. The Secretary of Commerce will be empowered to devise and enforce regulations for the operation of the TLD, and will be responsible for imposing civil penalties on any Web publishers who do not abide by the regulations. Under the legislation, companies that fail to register in the new domain within six months of the establishment of the new TLD would be subject to civil penalties.

According to the bill, which is not expected to be addressed by the Senate until after it returns from a weeklong recess that begins March 20, The term ‘material that is harmful to minors’ means any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that a reasonable person would find…with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest; depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive manner with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and taking the material as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Although the bill does not specifically use the term “pornography,” it’s clear from the language that online adult entertainment is exactly what the bill seeks to control. It’s also clear from the language that it is an attempt to approach certain now-enjoined requirements of the Child Online Protection Act from a different angle, according to First Amendment attorney J.D. Obenberger.

From The Age

The United States Government has blocked a plan to create a red-light district in cyberspace.

Icann, the worldwide body that manages the internet, had been expected to approve website addresses ending in ".xxx" at an international meeting under way in Wellington, but it is understood it will not now vote on the proposal.

Canadian firm ICM Registry has spent five years and $US2.5 million campaigning for the right to manage.xxx web addresses, for which it would charge $US60 each.

Chairman Stuart Lawley said he was disappointed, but it was not realistic to expect a decision on.xxx in Wellington.

The US Commerce Department - which created Icann as an independent body to take over its management of the domain name system - raised concerns about proposed mechanisms for managing .xxx websites. But Lawley said he believed it was a "deliberate delaying tactic". Lawley said this was the third time the US Government had delayed .xxx addresses, and blamed the influence of religious conservatives in the US that appear to have access to the powers that be.

Lawley estimates there are four million adult websites, owned by 100,000 webmasters.

ICM Registry is not directly involved in the adult Internet industry, but has made no bones that it wants to make money selling .xxx addresses.

The company has won some support for its argument that setting up the red-light zone in cyberspace would make it easier to filter out adult websites so they could not be seen accidentally or by children.

Liz Butterfield, executive director of New Zealand's nonprofit Internet Safety Group, said .xxx was potentially positive and saw no reason why such addresses should not be allowed. But she said she doubted the addressing system would stop many adult website owners using other Internet addresses, such as .com. I think you have got to be realistic about what it would achieve

Based on an article from the New Zealand Herald

A party pill company has withdrawn posters featuring two Mr Potato Head characters because of supposed concerns it could mislead children.

The posters, which had an R18 rating, carried the heading "Sit on the couch and get mashed!". One of the potato characters had lost its eyes and nose to the bottom of the picture and the other's eyes had slipped below its nose and mouth.

The concerns were taken to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board, which has backed the complaint. In a decision just released, the board noted that while the company, Energy Products Ltd, had voluntarily withdrawn the posters, the incident raised some serious matters.

The complainant, J Dean, said that while the posters were inside a shop for people over 18, they were visible from the street in shops in Dunedin and Oamaru. The complainant felt the use of the Mr Potato Head character "to promote mind-altering substances is entirely inappropriate".

Energy Products said its use of the potato figures was "simply a play on words" for the product, called Mash: We would not have thought there would in any way be a belief we are targeting [under-3 year olds] with a product that is clearly R18 and sold in R18 premises."

But the Advertising Standards Complaint Board said posters ran the risk of being visible to a wide range of age groups.  It considered the ad in the light of advertising codes for children and therapeutic products and found it did not live up to high standards required for therapeutic products.

It also noted that the current ban on advertising party pills in some media did not extend to posters.

From IOL

A Cuban dissident who has been on a hunger strike for 36 days to demand unfettered Internet access is refusing medication and his health is deteriorating rapidly, fellow dissidents said on Wednesday.

Guillermo Farinas, a 41-year-old psychologist, went on a hunger strike on January 31 to press Cuba's Communist authorities to respect his right to freedom of information and allow him Internet access, which is controlled by the government.

The hunger strike continues. He has been isolated in intensive care since Thursday, said Niurbis Diaz, who worked with Farinas as an independent reporter: We call on authorities to respect his rights, agree to his petition immediately.

Cuba, like China, controls access to the Internet. Direct access to the World Wide Web is generally only available to government-approved individuals, but passwords can be purchased on the black market.

The postal service offers an email service, but users can only surf Cuban websites. International websites run by exile groups are routinely blocked by Cuba's state-run servers.

The US state department, in its 2005 human rights report published on Wednesday, said Cuba was a "totalitarian state" that represses dissents, has jailed 333 people for political reasons and severely curbs freedom of speech and information: The government controlled all access to the Internet and took steps to censor all electronic mail, disallowing any attachments.

From the  World Socialist Web Site

In a letter circulated to journalists in mid-February, a group of former senior Chinese officials called on the Beijing government to ease its rigid media censorship, particularly of political news and commentary. The appeal is another sign of a broader debate in Chinese ruling circles on how to deal with the extreme tensions being generated by the country’s deepening social inequality.

Written on February 2, the letter criticised the decision of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Propaganda Department on January 24 to shut down Freezing Point, a popular supplement to the official China Youth Daily. The journal was widely regarded as a thought-provoking publication that featured articles challenging the official line on controversial topics, including historical issues, policy on Taiwan and rural unrest.

The letter declared: At the turning point in our history from a totalitarian to a constitutional system, depriving the public of freedom of speech will bring disaster for our social and political transition and give rise to group confrontation and social unrest. Experience has proved that allowing a free flow of ideas can improve stability and alleviate social problems. The regime could no longer keep the public locked in ignorance, it stated.

When he came to power in 2002, President Hu expressed interest in limited reforms. Faced with growing unrest, however, he soon shelved the idea and opposed any significant easing of restrictions, including of media censorship. Taboo topics include discussion of the growing social inequality produced by market reforms and criticism of Beijing’s falsification of China’s modern history. The Chinese leadership is particularly sensitive to any ideological tendencies with the potential to transform the widespread, but localised, protests into a broader anti-government movement.

The attempt to shut down Freezing Point highlights the dilemmas confronting Chinese authorities, even in relation to conventional print media. As part of the policies of market reform, funding to state-controlled publications has been cut, forcing editors to rely more heavily on revenue from circulation and advertising. However, if newspapers simply repeated the official line, no one would buy them and the publications would soon go out of business.

As former Freezing Point editor Li Datong told the New York Times on February 15: Every serious publication in China faces tough choices. You can publish stories people want to read and risk offending the censors. Or you can publish stories that the party wants published and risk going out of business.

From Starpulse News Blog
From eitb24

The Chinese media heavily censored Ang Lee's Oscar acceptance speech during the broadcast of the Academy Awards, omitting any references to his native Taiwan or homosexuality.

The Asian nation has hailed Lee as a national hero following his triumph at the Sunday ceremony, where he was named Best Director for Brokeback Mountain.

In his speech, Lee said, They taught all of us who made Brokeback Mountain so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself.

Chinese state television decided to edit the gay references from his address, because homosexuality is still frowned upon in society and was considered a mental disorder as recently as 2001.

Chinese TV also removed Lee's closing sentence, in which he thanked, everybody in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.

The Beijing government sees Lee's self-ruled Taiwan as sovereign territory and the director was described as Chinese or Chinese-American by many national press.

The China Daily enthused, Ang Lee is the pride of the Chinese people all over the world, and he is the glory of Chinese cinematic talent.

The Chinese government, while glorying in the director's achievement, has prohibited the film from general release in the country because of its controversial content. Government censorship of the media prohibits the display or reference to homosexuality as: going against the healthy way of life in China.

People on the streets of Beijing  questioned the decision to ban the movie. It's the 21st century now. It's not appropriate for the government to prohibit this movie. Everybody wants to watch it, said one .

Yet the cinema ban is symbolic as consumers can already buy copies of Brokeback Mountain on DVD. The DVDs, many of which are pirated, can be bought for one US dollar or less, often in the back of legitimate shops or on street corners.

It has only been in the last decade that the Chinese government announced that it would no longer treat homosexual relations between consenting adults in private a crime, and as recently as 2000 the government stated that homosexuality was to be considered a mental illness.

Based on an article from Islam Online

The Indonesian government has introduced a new regulation to scrutinize the content of TV programs to coincide with the  much derided pornography bill.

Before this, all TV stations ignored our warnings on their inappropriate broadcast content, saying there were no grounds for legal action, said Ade Armando of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI). But it is different now, we can report them to the police if they are proved to have broadcast violence and sexual (content).

The new regulation empowers the KPI to report TV stations airing programs containing violence, sexual content and occult themes to police. It also gives the information and communication minister the right to revoke a TV station's broadcasting license if the station violates program standards and guidelines issued by the KPI.

Local television programming is notorious for horror and occult shows, violence-packed movies and supposedly sexually suggestive content in soaps and music shows.

The KPI will work together with the Film Censorship Institute to identify programs with graphic sexuality and violence. Stations submit 10 to 20% of their programs for approval, Titie Said, the institute's head, said.

Ade said handling violators will be done on stages: We will send three warning letters, with the first letter asking for clarification. If they do not clarify and pay no attention to the other two letters, then we will go to the police. By reporting the matter to police, Ade added, legal procedures for revoking the license could begin. To be valid, the revocation process requires a court ruling.

From China View

Foreigners in China may be ordered to leave the country if they violate a new set of regulations coming into force today.

Compared with the version that has been in place for 19 years, the new law stipulates a total of 238 illegal practices an addition of 165 offences and raises the maximum fine from 200 yuan (US$25) to 5,000 yuan (US$617).

The Law on Public Security Administrative Penalties, which takes effect today, applies to all Chinese citizens and foreigners in the country, including those with diplomatic immunity, the Ministry of Public Security told a press conference yesterday in Beijing.

Cases involving diplomatic immunity would be handled through diplomatic channels and the rest dealt with directly by Chinese police, said Ke Liangdong, director of the ministry's legislative bureau. Ke said the law targets new illegal practices in society.

Instances of new illegal practices include:

• Repeatedly sending pornographic mobile-phone messages
• Disturbing public order at sports or cultural events
• Raising pets that harass neighbours
• Causing disturbance by making too much noise.

Punishment ranges from warnings, fines, and revoking licences to detention of up to 15 days. For foreign violators, the law adds the deportation clause.

Ke would not say what kind of illegal behaviour would attract the severe penalty of deportation: It depends on the circumstances. But no matter which article foreigners violate, there will be risks of being deported.

He said local police stations have to seek approval from the ministry or authorized provincial police authorities for deporting foreigners. But if the penalty is detention, county-level police authorities would have the final say.

Wu Mingshan, deputy director of the ministry's public security management bureau, said a large number of violations involving foreigners relate to prostitution, frequenting brothels, theft and assault.

He added that the ministry would soon issue an English copy of the law.

I am sure that declaring two thirds of films to be 18 rated will achieve nothing except getting censors' age recommendations even more widely ignored.

From Stuff

A New Zealand anti-smoking lobby group, Ash,  wants  a ban on smoking in kid-rated movies. Ash NZ director Becky Freeman claims two-thirds of child-rated Hollywood movies contain smoking or tobacco product placement, endangering the health of young New Zealanders.

The DreamWorks studio was said to be the worst offender, with all its 2002 child-rated movies containing smoking or tobacco placement, followed by MGM on 80%. What really makes me angry is when you see children's cartoons with smoking in them, like Shark Tale, Freeman said.

Ash was calling for all new movies with smoking references to be rated R18, or for movie makers to voluntarily remove smoking from their youth movies, Freeman said.

However, a spokeswoman for the Classifications Office said the Government would have to legislate to allow smoking to be considered in a film's classification. Under existing, law films can only be restricted because of sex, torture, crime, cruelty, violence or dehumanising behaviour.

Sounds like we are on some sort of moral high horse mocking the freedom challenged Chinese and Americans.

I don't think the UK can boast that the Rolling Stones have been granted full freedom of speech though. I seem to remember the BBC refusing to play Starfucker even after it had hastily been renamed Star Star.

From The Guardian

Stones forced to axe sexually explicit songs for China concert. For the second time in a matter of weeks, the Rolling Stones are having to cut back on the brown sugar rather than leave a sour taste in the mouth of morally indignant censors.

First there was the Superbowl, where organisers silenced Mick Jagger's microphone during the sexually explicit song Start Me Up in the half-time concert in Detroit last month. Now China is set to follow suit. When the Stones make their Chinese debut next month, they will succumb to government pressure by dropping Brown Sugar, Let's Spend the Night Together, Honky Tonk Woman and Beast of Burden from their playlist.

Promoters say the Stones will play live in Shanghai on April 8 as part of their A Bigger Bang tour. It has been a long time coming. The British band has been in talks about playing in China since the late 1970s, when a concert was denied by a government concerned about "spiritual pollution" from western culture.

But fears of spiritual pollution have not entirely subsided. According to one insider, promoters must provide lyrics and a video of past performances to the ministry of culture for approval before permission for a concert is given.

From CNN

A court has banned the screening of a film inspired by the case of a self-confessed cannibal, less than a week before it was due to open in German movie theaters.

A state court in Kassel upheld a complaint against the film, Rohtenburg, by the man at the center of the case. It found that Armin Meiwes' personal rights were infringed by the movie, and that outweighed the value of artistic freedom.

Rohtenburg, directed by Martin Weisz and starring Thomas Kretschmann in the main role, was due for release in Germany March 9. Anyone defying Friday's court ruling to screen the film anywhere in Germany could face a fine or up to six months in prison.

Meiwes is currently being retried by a Frankfurt court for the March 2001 killing at his home in the central town of Rotenburg of a man who answered his Internet posting seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption." He has said he would not have killed his victim had the man not asked to die.

The film's makers have argued that the case, which has fascinated and appalled Germans, did no more than provide inspiration for the movie.

From The Guardian

Armed police officers wearing masks shut down a Kenyan television station, disabled a printing press and made a public bonfire out of thousands of copies of a pro-opposition newspaper yesterday after a dispute over a story about the president, Mwai Kibaki.

Police carrying AK-47 rifles seized computers, cut power cables and beat up security guards during midnight raids on the joint headquarters of the Standard, Kenya's oldest newspaper; KTN, a private TV station; and the newspaper's printing press. The raids followed the arrest of three Standard journalists over a story in Saturday's paper which claimed Kibaki had secretly met an opposition leader.

It is the first time a Kenyan government has shut down a major media company and drew a stunned response from journalists used to operating in a relatively liberal environment. We believe this is a direct and blatant attempt to undermine the freedom of the press in this country, that is guaranteed by the constitution, said Tom Mshindi, the chief executive officer of the Standard Group. It is also intended to paralyse our business.

The story which triggered the dispute claimed that Kibaki had held a secret meeting with opposition leader Kalonzo Musyoka to discuss how the former minister could rejoin the government. Both sides have denied this.

Three journalists - the weekend managing editor, Chacha Mwita; the weekend news editor, Dennis Onyango; and reporter Ayub Savula - were detained on Tuesday and questioned in connection with the report. They remain in police custody.

The Kenyan government has admitted responsibility for the raids, which were condemned last night by the British and American embassies. Adam Wood, the British high commissioner, said: Last night's actions mark an unprecedented attack on the freedom of the media in Kenya and are in contradiction to the positive line taken by the government on the issue of freedom of expression since the 2002 elections.

The US embassy in Nairobi called them "acts of thuggery that have no place in an open democratic society". The UN expressed alarm and the European Union called for an investigation.

The international community's relations with Kibaki's three-year-old administration have become strained in recent months over corruption scandals. Three ministers have stepped down under a cloud of corruption allegations in the past month and the president faces growing calls for further resignations. Frustration within Kibaki's inner circle has increased with continued media criticism of his handling of the crisis.

From the Jakarta Post
Also see the campaigning website at http://jiwamerdeka.blogspot.com,

About 1,000 protesters here greeted a visiting delegation of legislators deliberating the Indonesian pornography bill by threatening to organize acts of civil disobedience if it becomes law. We designed the rally to underline the open and tolerant nature of Balinese culture. That's the reason why the rally is filled with traditional art performances and music concerts, the rally's chief organizer, I Gusti Ngurah Harta, said.

A regional youth leader, who met with the House group, also warned that Bali would secede from Indonesia if the bill took effect. If this bill is passed, we won't hesitate to leave the Republic of Indonesia, Bali branch head of the Indonesian National Youth Committee, I Putu Gede Indriawan Karna, said to applause as quoted by detik.com.

Protesters came from all walks of life, numbering community activists, academics and ordinary citizens. There has been widespread opposition to the bill, which critics say goes too far in taking a moralistic approach to clamp down on pornographic materials and obscene acts, which would also include public displays of affection. Women's rights activists fear women are particularly vulnerable to its misuse, while some ethnic groups, such as the Balinese and Papuans, have nudity as part of their cultural displays.

Balinese arts and religious beliefs have never considered sensuality and sexuality as an impure, morally reprehensible thing. Instead, sensuality and sexuality are treated as natural, integral parts of our lives as human beings, another rally organizer, Cok Sawitri, said. In the past, Balinese women never wore a bra, yet the custom did not turn the society into a sex-craving, pornographically demented community.

A participant in the meeting with the legislators said they reminded them that Indonesia was not a monolithic state where one group could impose its values on the rest.

The bill has blatantly ignored the fact that Indonesia comprises hundreds of ethnic groups with different cultural values and religious beliefs. The bill, which represents the moral values and belief of one single group, has the potential to cause the disintegration of the state, I Gusti Putu Artha said.

Women's rights activist Luh Anggraeni said the bill discriminated against women. It is as if the woman is the only party responsible for the nation's moral decadence. Most of the prohibitive articles in the bill are directed at women.

Participants also said the passage of the bill would inflict irreparable damage on the local tourism industry, the island's economic backbone, already hobbled by a downturn in visitors from two separate bombings in the last four years.

There is an associated Internet campaign site aptly named Jiwa Merdeka (literally meaning "free soul"). The site, http://jiwamerdeka.blogspot.com, has been in operation since Feb. 22.

On the site, people can read or download various texts, including the controversial bill, the Bali delegation's opposition statement and a list of the notable figures, who support the opposition, in addition to an enlightening paper on pornography by Prof. Dr. I Made Bandem. Most of the texts are still in Indonesian buy they are in the process of translating the key documents to English.

The site has already found an "Internet buddy" and ardent supporter in another blog,  http://electronposts.blogspot.com. This blog has explicitly and openly voiced support for Jiwa Merdeka and the struggle against the bill. Most of its recent graphic posts were dealing with this issue. The latest one portrayed an image of a human torso with an uncovered navel and a question: What's wrong with allowing my belly button to have a peek of reality?

Well, it must be so wrong that the law will impose a hefty fine up to Rp 1 billion (over US$100,000) and a prison sentence up to ten years for navel displays.

Based on an article from the Jakarta Post

Following a visit by legislators to Bali, Batam and Papua to gauge public opinion on the pornography bill, it's still a guessing game whether there will be major changes to the controversial bill.

While House of Representatives special committee chairman Balkan Kaplale promised people in Batam there would be major changes to the draft of the bill, legislator Rustam E. Tamburaka said in Bali that there may be some exceptions in the bill for Bali and Papua.

Members of the House committee returned Sunday from their visit to the provinces from where people had raised objections to the bill. A group of Balinese earlier told legislators how eroticism and sensuality were part of their culture.

In a meeting with several groups in Batam, Nutter Balkan had previously asked the participants to contemplate the timeliness of the bill, saying that a series of recent natural disasters and tragedies that hit Indonesia were "a warning from God". This bill is a part of our efforts to strengthen the moral fiber of the nation, some of which has been damaged, the nutter of the Democrat Party said, referring to prostitution, human trafficking and the representation of women in adult magazines and tabloids.

Balkan added that of 167 groups and individuals invited by the committee to discuss the bill, only 22 rejected it, including well-known figures from the art world. However, he was at a loss for words when a number of participants bombarded him with questions.

One participant raised concerns that he would be arrested when going online to view a painting of a nude woman by Italian artist Michelangelo. Others questioned the possible arrest of athletes, who wear shorts or miniskirts, and models sporting revealing clothing in fashion shows.

Balkan only replied that the draft of the bill, containing 11 chapters and 93 articles, would see major changes during an upcoming deliberation on the bill next week.

However Balkan's colleague, Rustam, said in Denpasar there would be possible exceptions in the implementation of the bill in Bali and Papua due to their unique cultural traditions. Both regions deserve consideration, he said amid a colorful protest against the bill.

The Golkar Party legislator said that the bill would respect the Papuan tradition of wearing the koteka (penis sheath) as well as foreign tourists who sunbathe in bikinis, because it is the tradition they bring from their countries. Balinese artists are also allowed to make nude sculptures or paintings, he added. Rustam added that legislators may scrap articles on penalties, which reach billions of rupiah, but did not elaborate.

Balinese legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said that she was opposed to the bill despite the fact that she was a member of the committee. It is useless for the government to discuss such a bill which displeases so many people, because it would waste time and money, she said.

From Asia Media

The Indonesian House of Representatives should exercise extra caution before passing the pornography bill into law because many of its contentious articles have not been resolved, a respected Muslim cleric says.

Cleric Mustofa Bisri of the 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama said legislators should listen to the opinions of many people from a variety of backgrounds and faiths before passing the bill into law: The House should accommodate as many people's aspirations as possible.

Mustofa said the bill contained no clear-cut definition of pornography. The existing vague definition could allow multiple interpretations and cause confusion and conflict, he said.

The content of the draft bill is currently being disseminated in selected provinces before it is passed. Particularly controversial articles in the law involve regulations on public dress and restrictions on nudity in the media and art. If the bill became law, women who bare their shoulders or legs or artists who include nudity in their work could be prosecuted for indecency and could be jailed or fined up to Rp 2 billion (US$217,503).

Strongest opposition to the bill has come from predominantly Hindu Bali, where nudity in certain contexts is an accepted part of the island's art and culture. Balinese also worry that tourism could be affected by the law -- with holidaymakers forbidden from wearing revealing swimming outfits.

Balinese protesters have threatened to seek independence from Indonesia if the bill is passed as is. Opposition has also been voiced in Papua, another place where there are few cultural prohibitions on nudity, and in Batam, where tourism plays an important part in the island's economy.

Women's groups and artists throughout the country are also against the bill, which they say intrudes on personal privacy, curtails creativity and criminalizes women for their sexuality.

Mustofa criticized some Muslim groups that were trying to push the law through the House without proper consultation. The pressure was: a manifestation of panic from Muslims who have no self-confidence. It seems that certain Muslims are so worried about globalization and are unable to deal with it that they are resorting to speedily passing this law.

First drawn up in 1999, the bill had been shelved until last year when it was revived after pressure from Muslim-based parties concerned about what they perceived was the moral degradation of the nation.

A House legislator said the bill showed tolerance for pluralism was waning in this multi-religious and multicultural society. Sidharto Danusubroto of the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle said pluralism was under threat as long the pornography bill existed in its present form: There are certain groups who are forcing their ideology on others.

Entertainment and tourism businesspeople in Batam have also now expressed their concerns over the controversial pornography bill following a meeting with a House special committee, but received little assurance their worries would be addressed.

At the meeting with the committee from the House of Representatives on Saturday, the businesspeople raised fears the bill, if passed into law, would have a negative impact on the island's tourism and entertainment sectors, as well as restrict people's freedom of expression.

Deputy head of investment and promotion at the Batam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin), Jadi Rajagukguk, said: The draft bill is like the seed of a disease, and will make foreign tourists afraid to come to Indonesia.

Jadi said that even before the bill had been passed into law, Barelang Police had started warning shops against selling revealing clothing and women not to wear such clothing in public, causing concern among the community. We heard that one shop opted to close after being warned by the police, and there are many shoppers at the malls who fear that the way they dress might cause the police to target them.

From Green Left

At the forefront of the parties in parliament supporting the Burkha Beachwear bill is the Justice and Welfare Party (PKS), which has strong Islamic fundamentalist perspectives.

Other parties have vacillated or refused to take a clear stand on the law during the past year, but are being increasingly pressured to either reject or revise the bill. Politicians from the more mainstream political parties have come out in opposition to the bill. Both members of parliament from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), as well as its chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, have now stated their opposition to the law.

What appears to have tipped the balance in the world of elite politics is increasing fear of a threat to cultural pluralism in a society that has no single dominant cultural perspective.

Now former Golkar chairperson Akbar Tanjung has weighed in against the bill, arguing that there can be no national law that cannot be implemented in specific provinces. However it is not clear whether these mainstream parties will reject the bill or simply soften it. Vivi Widyawati, from Women’s Freedom in Jakarta, told Green Left Weekly that the campaign against the bill has created quite a polemic and is forcing pressure for revision. But it is not looking good for getting the bill stopped given the ambivalent stand of most of the parties.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has remained silent, emboldening the PKS and other supporters of the bill. Yudhoyono’s party, the Democrat Party, has so far supported the UUAPP.

There are strong fears that the passing of the bill will open the way for greater oppression of women. Even before it has passed, said Widyawati, there have been repressive actions. In some areas, raids and arrests have already started ... This is hitting poor women particular hard. For example, in Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta, they have instituted a curfew for women. Three women were arrested and fined. In other areas, the sense that the law will be passed has emboldened local governments to decree the wearing of Muslim dress for women. Local governments have issued regulations against prostitution, under which women have been detained and sentenced simply because they were out alone at night.

In the island of Batam, just 20 minutes from Singapore by ferry, there have been increasing raids on shopping malls where women have been warned about wearing “provocative” clothes, such as sleeveless tops. In Aceh, there have been arrests of women walking with men who were not their husbands or relatives.

Not all Islamic groupings are supporting the bill. Various Islamic figures from the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the organisation that former President Abdurrahman Wahid headed for 20 years, have called on the bill to be revised and have criticised the stand taken by other Muslim organisations. One such cleric, Mustofa Bisri, was quoted in the Jakarta Post on March 6 as saying that some Muslim groups were attempting to push the law through parliament without proper consultation.

Islamic student organisations, such as the Indonesian Islamic Student Union (PMII) and the Association of NU Young Men and Women (IPPNU) have also outright rejected the bill.

From the Jakarta Post

Meanwhile lawmakers actually drafting the controversial pornography bill plan to do it in secret away from the critical eye of the media at an undisclosed hotel in Puncak, some 60 kilometers south of Jakarta.

Members of the special committee are tasked with listing contentious issues before the bill is submitted to a joint House of Representatives-ministerial committee for further scrutiny.

Legislator Balkan Kaplale of the Democratic Party, who chairs the committee, said "biased" reporting on the legislation only added fuel to the controversy: The media tends to run stories favoring those opposing the bill. This is unfair, he said at a meeting with Muslim activists who support the draft law.

Legislator Chairunnisa of the Golkar Party said the special team would hear opinions from 10 major political factions about the draft law. It will be the first time the House factions present their formal stances on the bill. So far, the only party that openly supports the bill is the Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS):Each faction is expected to submit a list of articles they deem contentious, Chairunnisa said.

Next week, they are expected to produce a list of the contentious articles and submit it along with the bill to the government. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will then read the bill and appoint several Cabinet ministers to work with the legislators on redrafting it before it is submitted to the House for debate. The President can reject the bill at this stage, sending it back to the initial House drafting team, although his approval is normally a formality.

From the Jakarta Post

The pornography bill will focus on pornographic materials and their distribution, and do away with the vague definitions on content and personal conduct, the chairman of the House committee deliberating the bill said Monday.

Balkan Kaplale told The Jakarta Post that while there were disagreements among the committee members, they agreed that the bill should target curbing the distribution of pornographic materials: Pornographic products could be in the form of films, video cassettes, pictures printed and broadcast by mass media.

However, his deputy, Agung Sasongko of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said he walked out of an earlier committee meeting because it was not possible to begin redrafting the bill with input from the public still pouring in.

The PDI-P, the party which has expressed the most vocal opposition to the bill and controls 109 of 550 House seats, has requested a delay of at least six months from the committee's deadline for passage in April.

The executive director of the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies, Bivitri Susanti, also urged legislators to focus on strict regulation of the distribution of pornography and the porn industry, instead of dealing with clamping down on obscene acts.

From Asia Media

Contentious clauses in the pornography bill, which has been assailed for encroaching on personal rights, will be dismantled as deliberations enter a critical stage, a House leader said.

Balkan Kaplele, the legislator and chairman of the special committee finalizing the bill, refused to specify which articles would be rewritten, but said the law would focus on general definitions of pornography and obscenity: We've taken quite a number of controversial clauses off the bill, particularly those which criminalize particular conduct. However, legislators are set to redefine the term pornography, considered vague and subject to varied interpretations under the bill.

The bill, initially proposed in 1999 and officially titled the Anti-Pornography and Pornographic Acts Bill, has gained its strongest support from orthodox Muslim groups. Thousands gathered Sunday at Al-Azhar mosque in South Jakarta to urge the government to quickly pass the bill into law.

Balkan's promise of major changes followed an announcement Friday by the Golkar Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the two largest factions in the House, that they would strive to ensure it respected pluralism.

Another expected change is the removal of a clause on the establishment of an agency to oversee the implementation of standards of decency. Balkan said the task would be entrusted to the police: All breaches of the law on pornography and obscenity will be dealt with using the Criminal Code and relevant laws, while the police will have the authority to oversee the enforcement.

Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin, who hosted the discussion, said the country needed a pornography law to "reverse the situation" of an increasingly liberal society: We are concerned by the moral liberalization that will lead the nation to the brink of collapse, unless it is stopped as soon as possible.

From the China Post

Legislation proposed by Muslim legislators to ban pornography and obscene acts in Indonesia will not affect whether scantily-clad tourists can sunbathe on the resort island of Bali, Indonesia's vice president said Monday.
Jusuf Kalla was responding to fears among members of the island's Hindu enclave that the bill would have a chilling effect on its tourist industry by criminalizing sunbathing, as well as being incompatible with its Hindu culture.

Do not worry, we (the government) don't agree (with everything in the bill), Kalla told tourist chiefs on the island. I am sure if it is passed, it will not wreck your rights. All the political parties are listening to your complaints.

From the Daily Times

About a thousand Muslims rallied in Indonesia's capital on Sunday to support a proposed law banning pornography and obscene acts .

The protesters, including many women and young children, chanted "We refuse pornography!" as they gathered under gloomy skies in Jakarta to press parliament to pass the bill, which is supported by conservative Islamic politicians and preachers.

Those who only see this issue from a human rights, liberal and secular point of view are trying to disrupt efforts to curb pornography, said Ma'ruf Amin, a member of Indonesia's council of clerics.

From the Bangkok Post

The Thai government is trying to disrupt the operations of Manager Group's ASTV satellite TV channel, according to Pramen Pakdiwapee, the station's director. Pramen says ASTV's internet connections are mysteriously degraded every time it reports important news that could be viewed as anti-government.

ASTV has been the only channel to broadcast live the anti-government rallies since they started on Feb 4 at the Royal Plaza. Before that, it broadcast the Muang Thai Rai Sapda (Thailand Weekly) programme hosted by Manager founder Sondhi Limthongkul after the programme was booted off Channel 9 by the Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand.

ASTV currently has two separate 40 megabytes-per-second links, both with its connection provider. One link is used to send the seven ASTV channels to a satellite uplink station in Hong Kong and then to the Dutch NSS-6 satellite for broadcast to 20 countries in the Southeast Asian region. The other goes to Singapore to be uplinked to a satellite for broadcast in the USA and Canada.

Pramen said that while both links are with the same provider, there are always problems with the Hong Kong link while the Singapore link is much more reliable: I think the government does not know about the Singapore link or maybe does not care.

Asked to comment on allegations that ASTV was little more than an anti-government channel, he said channels 3,5,7,9,11 and ITV are mainly pro-government. What we are doing is giving the 10% of people who think differently a chance to express their views and opinions. That is democracy; that is free speech. Even if we give them 80% of the airtime on ASTV, it is still a tiny fraction of the total.

Meanwhile, Niran Yaowapa, webmaster of the manager.co.th website said authorities have tried various ways to disrupt the website. In January, access to the manager website was blocked from overseas. Such blocking can only happen at the gateway level (run by CAT Telecom), he said. He dismissed the possibility the servers were overloaded, as traffic was well within normal levels that day.

A source at CAT, speaking on condition of anonymity, said CAT had indeed blocked internet addresses belonging to the Manager and ASTV on Jan 27. However, the manager of the internet exchange Aniruth Hiranraks ordered the ban lifted the same day as soon as he found out, the source said.

This led to CAT acting CEO Phisal Jorphochaudom ordering Aniruth's transfer from the network section on Feb 1. A flurry of protests followed from the media and the CAT labour union and he was soon reinstated.

From CTV

Canadian police are suggesting that a new videogame, 25 to Life, should be banned.

Games where the player kills other characters are nothing new. What makes 25 to Life different is that players can choose to be police or criminals. If a gamer chooses to be a crook, killing police becomes a way to score points.

The Toronto Police Association, the organization representing officers, is disturbed by the game's premise. President Dave Wilson discourages parents and game players from buying it, and store from selling the game: Anything we can do to discourage this video from being bought is a good thing. If a ban would discourage it then we should do it.

The game was created by U.K.-based Eidos. In the United States it has come under fire from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF). The group started a petition to ban the game from being sold. The NLEOMF hoped to get 17,500 signatures in support of their efforts. According to their website, more than 200,000 signatures have been collected so far.

25 to Life  is rated M for mature gamers. That means only players aged 17 and over can buy the game.

From Sun Star

Philippines media yesterday rallied behind The Daily Tribune, which was the subject of the “first attack” against freedom of the press after President Arroyo put the country under a state of emergency.

Police raided The Daily Tribune office in Port Area, Manila, past midnight Saturday and seized several copies of its Saturday issue that were about to be dispatched nationwide. PNP Director General Arturo Lomibao said that under General Order Number 5 issued in relation to Presidential Proclamation 1017, the PNP has a clear mandate to carry out appropriate action and security measures to prevent an escalation of the situation.”

Aside from The Daily Tribune’s office, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group operatives also attempted to raid the office of Abante, a tabloid, also in Port Area, Manila, and offices of Malaya but the policemen withdrew when they noticed several crew of two television stations in the area.

Niñez Cacho Olivares, publisher of The Daily Tribune, decried the act saying that the police conducted the raid without a warrant. She also said they will file a case: What’s this martial law? Does the state of national emergency allow the policemen of (President) Arroyo to just confiscate anything they please?

Marites Danguilan-Vitug, editor of Newsbreak Magazine, feared that they might suffer the same fate that The Daily Tribune had experienced: We view the raid on Tribune, an opposition newspaper, with alarm. It appears to signal the start of a crackdown on media organizations. We have always believed that repression is never the answer to a critical press. Vitug reminded authorities that a free press is a cornerstone of a democracy and without it, “we cannot claim to be a democratic country.”

Vergel Santos of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) likened the incident that happened to The Daily Tribune to the early days of martial rule. Santos said media organizations should band together and oppose the proclamation or any attempt that would curb the freedom of the press.

Also, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) said it is about time that journalists must take a stand regarding the issue. Carlos Conde of NUJP feared that the situation might worsen had not media would not take any stand on the matter: This is going to get worse. We are worried and concerned about the implications of this proclamation on press freedom.

The five daily newspapers in Cebu yesterday also said the government cannot censor the media as proclamation of a state of emergency does not suspend the constitutional right to freedom of expression. Proclamation 1017, which put the country under a state of emergency, said that certain sectors of the media are “recklessly” promoting the cause of those who want to bring down the Arroyo administration.

From Adam McConnel on Media Channel

I haven't seen the film, but from what I understand, the Gary Busey character has been interpreted as anti-Semitic, but the character may or may not be obviously so. The interpretation of the film also depends a lot on how knowledgeable one is about events in Iraq during the past three years; for that reason, Americans are likely to be upset about the film because they don't know that much of what is in the film is, unfortunately, taken directly from reality. For example, how many wedding parties (in the region guns are shot off as a part of the celebration and so have been 'mistaken' by the Americans as 'enemy fire' on a number of occasions, with high numbers of dead and wounded) have the Americans bombed in the past 5 years in both Afghanistan and Iraq? The number is higher than one might think.

There is also the problem that this film does to Americans what American films have doing to Muslims (or Turks or Arabs) for, well, 80 years, that is it stereotypes and denigrates them. Two wrongs don't make a right, but Americans need to bear that in mind. . .

From The Telegraph

A virulently anti-Semitic film about the Iraq war has provoked a storm of protest in Germany after it sold out to cheering audiences from the country's 2.5 million-strong Turkish community.

Valley of the Wolves, by the Turkish director Serdan Akar, shows crazed American GIs massacring innocent guests at a wedding party and scenes in which a Jewish surgeon removes organs from Iraqi prisoners in a style reminiscent of the Nazi death camp doctor Joseph Mengele.

Bavaria's interior minister admitted last week that he had dispatched intelligence service agents to cinemas showing the film to "gauge" audience reaction and identify potential radicals. Edmund Stoiber, the state's conservative prime minister, has appealed to cinema operators to remove what he described as "this racist and anti-Western hate film" from their programmes.

The £6 million film, the most expensive Turkish production ever made, had already proved a box office hit in Turkey, where it first opened last month at a gala attended by the wife of the country's prime minister.

The production went on general release in Germany a fortnight ago and has had full houses ever since. More than 130,000 people, most of them young Muslims, saw the film in the first five days of its opening. At a packed cinema in a largely Turkish immigrant district of Berlin last week, Valley of the Wolves was being watched almost exclusively by young Turkish men. They clapped furiously when the Turkish hero of the film was shown blowing up a building occupied by the United States military commander in northern Iraq.

In the closing sequence, the hero is shown plunging a dagger into the heart of a US commander called Sam, played by Billy Zane. The audience responded by standing up and chanting "Allah is great!"

The nature of the film and the enthusiastic reception given to it by young Muslims, has both shocked and polarised politicians and community leaders. Bernd Neumann, the culture minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's government complained last week that the reaction to the film raises serious questions about the values of our society and our ability to instil them.

Kenan Kolat, the head of Germany's Turkish community, insisted that a ban on the film would make matters worse. If it is withdrawn, it will raise levels of identification with the film. A democracy must be able to endure films that it doesn't approve of.

But those arguing for a ban on Valley of the Wolves appeared to have won a partial victory last week when Cinemaxx, one of Germany's largest cinema chains, announced that it was withdrawing the film.

From the BBC

Chinese Communist Party bosses are as determined as ever to maintain control over every word published or broadcast in the world's most populous country. A media clampdown - the latest of many over the years - has seen a string of journalists disciplined, dismissed or even jailed for violating official guidelines.

Some of the campaign's targets, however, are refusing to be silenced. And they have found plenty of supporters - some in unlikely quarters - willing to speak up on their behalf.

There is now an unstoppable wave of demands for more freedom of expression and resistance to the old propaganda policies, said Jiao Guobiao, who was forced to resign his post as a journalism professor last year after accusing the government of handling the press in a manner worthy of Nazi Germany.

Far more embarrassing, not to say ominous, has been the chorus of domestic protest over the closure in late January of Bing Dian (Freezing Point), a weekly publication noted for its cutting-edge reporting on sensitive topics.

Unlike most journalists punished in the past, the two editors loudly disputed the move to censor them. In comments widely aired on the internet they called it an "illegal abuse of power" aimed at preventing the growth of a civil society.

In an apparent climb-down, it was later announced that the magazine would reopen on March 1, but without its two chief editors. The reopened magazine would be an empty shell of its previous self, they said, and had been ordered to print a full rebuttal of the article on historical censorship which triggered the closure.

Among those who have rallied behind the editors are a group of former senior Party and media officials, including Mao Zedong's secretary and a former Editor in Chief of the People's Daily. The Taiwanese-born columnist Lung Ying-tai, whose controversial articles for Bing Dian may have been the real reason for the closure, has sent an open letter of protest to President Hu Jintao.

She believes the move against the influential magazine was a calculated one made by the president himself. His power base lies in the Communist Party Youth League, whose newspaper, China Youth Daily, publishes Bing Dian as a weekly supplement.

The decision to reopen the supplement was an attempt to ease the anger about the closure, she told the BBC: Freezing out the two prominent and courageous editors, she added, was designed to warn all other journalists to behave.

Propaganda officials have also faced other public challenges to their authority, including a rare strike by reporters in support of three editors dismissed from a leading daily, the Beijing News, late last year.

But what really worries them is that those now pushing for a lifting of censorship include not just journalists and activists, but also people in business, government and law who believe media reform is a necessary part of China's modernisation.

It is not good for the Communist Party to keep to its old ways, said Jiang He, who runs a hi-tech company in the western city of Chongqing.  China's rapid economic growth is proving a strong force for change, he said, pointing out that the media was already far more open in many ways than in the past. It's such an information age. There's no way anyone can block everything, he said.

From The Nation

A senator representing Thailand's northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima Province on Tuesday alleged that government agencies are blocking local residents from political information by forcing cable TV providers to cancel their services despite having subscriptions.

Such acts will only drive more people to join the upcoming rally against the prime minister, warned the senator, Pichet Pattanachoti.

Pichet said residents of Chumpuang District and surrounding areas had complained that government officials forced their cable TV providers to disconnect their services to prevent them from seeing the news, as the opposition against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has grown with democratic activists planning the massive rally against him on February 26.

Villagers were told by their cable TV providers that they have been ordered to disconnect the services by government officials, police and district chiefs, he said: Doing this will push more people to rally to oust the prime minister.

From the forum at Thai Visa

Presumably they are blocking The Nation, ASTV channels (1-6) and a few others that "dare" to criticize this government. There may be other Thai channels doing this as well that I'm not aware of.

We've been lucky none of them have been removed from our service as I thought would happen eventually...

Spoke to soon!
Tonight's ASTV 1 presentation of a demonstration down South was temporarily replaced by a different channel.

Surely Austria has enough incitement laws to deal with any serious crimes worthy of 3 years in jail without needing to stoop to punishing the ludicrous contradiction of well established history.

From The Times

David Irving, the far-right British historian, sat stunned and open-mouthed yesterday when an Austrian court found him guilty of denying the Holocaust and sentenced him to three years in jail.

I’m very shocked and I’m going to appeal, Irving said as he was bundled out of the Vienna courtroom by armed anti-riot police.

From the public gallery a British supporter shouted “Stay strong, David”, before he too was led away.

But in Britain there was dismay at a verdict that could turn Irving into a right-wing martyr.

Irving had pleaded guilty to denying the Holocaust in two speeches in Austria in 1989. He was arrested when he re-entered the country, where it is a crime to deny the Holocaust, last November, and had been in custody since.

During his seven-hour trial yesterday Irving sought to convince the jury that he had changed his mind and now acknowledged the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis. But the judge and jury were unswayed.

One hundred and fifty-eight people have been convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria between 1999 and 2004, but only a handful other than Irving have been imprisoned.

From Web India 123

Officials at the Bangladesh Ministry of Information said that a proposed law would be part of the governments drive to check the onslaught of obscenity on the local film industry. They said the plan is to ban the exhibition of English films in cinema halls in the districts and local levels.

The government was considering a number of steps to rid the film industry of vulgarity and encourage production of good films for healthy development of the industry, the New Age newspaper quoted Bangladesh's Information Minister M Shamsul Islam as saying.

The minister said some dishonest producers, distributors and cinema hall owners were showing uncensored and obscene English films, which could lead to the moral degeneration of society, particularly the young generation. So, we must take action against those who are responsible for the exhibition of obscene films, he added.

Earlier this month, the government had enacted a law to give some teeth to the Film Sensor Act. Producers and actors associations then claimed that the new law might be used as a tool for harassment against them.

The Ministry of Information will send the proposal to parliament shortly, even as the entertainment industry has given a mixed reaction to the move.

English films do not necessarily contain obscenity, and every year, Hollywood produces plenty of good movies. So, if the government enacts the law, moviegoers here will be deprived of watching many good films, said the owner of a movie-theatre in Dhaka.

From DW World

Ernst Zündel, a Holocaust denier is in front of a German court on charges of inciting racial hatred and defaming the dead.

According to prosecutors, Ernst Zündel is one of the "most active" Holocaust deniers today. He began distributing Nazi and neo-Nazi propaganda in the 1970s and has written several books praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. Since 1995, he has been associated with a Web site that carries his name and is one of biggest online repositories of Holocaust-denial propaganda.

But Zündel, who was born in Germany's Black Forest region, was only able to engage in such activities because he was living outside of his native county, in Canada and the United States.

Although freedom of the press and of expression is written into German law, the country is generally more wary of free speech than the US, where Zündel's dissemination of racist literature and refutation of the Holocaust,  while distasteful to most, was perfectly legal.

In Germany, however, it was not. Zündel was deported to his native country in March 2005 after a long legal battle with the Canadian government. He found himself immediately under arrest and up against the German justice system. If he is found guilty by a court in Mannheim of incitement to racial hatred, libel and defamation of the memory of the dead, he faces up to five years in prison.

Article 5 of Germany's constitution, or Basic Law, enshrines the right of freedom of speech and of the press. Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate their opinions orally, in writing or visually and to obtain information from generally accessible sources without hindrance, states paragraph one of the law. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting through audiovisual media shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.

But the next paragraph puts certain limits on that freedom, which were deemed necessary when the Basic Law was proclaimed in 1949, just four years after the end of World War II and the downfall of the Nazi dictatorship:These rights are subject to limitations embodied in the provisions of general legislation, statutory provisions for the protection of young persons and the citizen's right to personal respect, reads the second paragraph.

German law therefore constrains press freedom, s