Nutter News

From Monsters & Critics

An Iranian court has ordered a lower court to re-try the case against a young Iranian woman who since late last year faced execution for "immoral behaviour".

The plight of the woman, known only as "Leyla M." generated protests in several countries including Norway after it was reported that she risked flogging and capital punishment for "morality- related" offences after being forced into prostitution as a child.

Leyla M., said to have the mental age of eight, was subjected to abuse since she was a young girl but those circumstances were not taken into consideration in her trial, human rights group Amnesty International said in December.

Iranian exile Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a researcher at Oslo University that he had learned that the supreme court in Teheran had ordered a local court to re-try the case. The supreme court said she should not face a five-year prison sentence, but ruled that she should be flogged. Of course it is terrible that the court upheld the third count in the sentence of 100 lashes, but the announcement was in any case a major victory.

Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen also welcomed the reports that Leyla M.`s life would be spared, but strongly criticized the flogging. The Foreign Minstry in Oslo has raised her case with the Iranian ambassador to Norway.

Based on an article from the BBC

The Parades Commission is to decide whether Belfast's Gay Pride parade will go ahead as planned. The march, due to take place on 6 August, has been held in the city centre for the past 14 years. However, following concerns raised by some Christian groups, the police have passed the matter on to the commission for consideration.

Andy Thomson from Gay Pride said the parade has always been peaceful and brought trade and tourism to the city. It's open to everybody, it is a colourful and wonderful day out. It is one of the few parades in Northern Ireland that really I can't see any bone of contention about.

However, Jonathan Larner of the nutter group "Stop the Parade" said it was "offensive". Our outlook on this parade is a wholly peaceful one, we find the whole parade morally offensive. As evangelical Christians we believe what the bible says regarding sodomy - that it is a sin - and for that reason we want to oppose a parade that we see is promoting a sinful lifestyle."

The Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether or not restrictions should be imposed on controversial parades during Northern Ireland's marching season.

From the BBC

A lady boy beauty pageant in Indonesia was the scene of an unusual clash on Sunday when it was interrupted by a hardline Islamic group. Members of the Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI) barged into a club where the Miss Waria 2005 contest was taking place.

FPI leader Soleh Mahmud said: Before Allah punishes us with a second tsunami here in Jakarta, let us ask the police to disperse this event.

After a delay the contest continued, and was won by PR worker Olivia. He won $250 and a return air ticket to Thailand, where he will compete in an international transvestite contest next year.

Contest organiser Megi Megawati said contestants were traumatised by the raid, after about 10 FPI members dressed in white tunics and prayer caps entered the nightclub towards the end of the contest.

Lady boys make regular appearances on Indonesian TV, and the country is generally tolerant of the so-called "waria" - a combination of the Indonesian words for male and female. But the FPI - which is better known for attacking bars and other venues considered un-Islamic - wants to end such public shows.

Transvestites should not be made into a role model, said FPI member Alawi Usman. We are worried it could influence our children, he told the Associated Press.

Based on an article from The Mirror

A skinhead thug wins a bloody playground fight with a classmate, before hunting down a teacher as his next victim. This is Bully. A new video game that's winding up the usual nutters, is supposedly an orgy of violence where you win points for being the most vicious yob in a reform school.

Predictably horrified child welfare campaigners and teachers' groups are calling on the government to ban the Bully game. Liz Carnell of campaign group Bullying Online says: This game should be banned. I'm extremely worried that kids will play it and then act out what they've seen in the classroom. Bullying is not a game by any stretch of the imagination. We have around four suicidal children contacting us every day.

Steve Sinnott, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, says: If this game lives up to its billing, the company is behaving very irresponsibly. Awarding a prize - even in the form of points - for bullying should not be promoted.

Before the game hits the UK shelves it must first be approved by the BBFC. Spokeswoman Sue Clark says: It sounds likely the game will come to us and we will then have to decide whether or not to give it a certificate. If we refuse a certificate it cannot be sold or supplied.

But this is unlikely to prevent its release as to date the BBFC has only once failed to certificate a game. This was in 1997 when it refused a rating for Carmageddon, in which players are encouraged to run over pedestrians. And even that decision was later overruled by the Video Appeals Committee. Bully will therefore in all probability be on sale before the end of the year.

Adrian Brown, of ChildLine, says: Rockstar describe Bully, as 'brutally funny'. They may intend their game to be tongue in cheek, but ChildLine knows that for thousands of children bullying is just plain brutal and certainly not funny.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, says: After a meeting between ministers and industry representatives in December, 15 and 18 certificates on the covers of games have been doubled in size to draw parents' attention to their content. This is an issue that the government takes extremely seriously.

A Rockstar spokesman said: "There are no easy answers for the real-life problem of school safety. But we believe the stories in video games should be judged like other works of fiction and recognized as entertainment. Bully is a fictional story that portrays a comic and exaggerated view of a boarding school told with merciless tongue-in-cheek humour. Anyone concerned about content should experience the game first hand and also understand the certification system which provides age-appropriate ratings and content descriptions so parents can make informed choices.

From the BBC

A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent, Romanian police have said. Members of the convent in north-west Romania claim Maricica Irina Cornici was possessed and that the crucifixion had been part of an exorcism ritual.

Cornici was found dead on the cross on Wednesday after fellow nuns called an ambulance, according to police. A priest and four nuns were charged with imprisonment leading to death. Police say the 23-year-old nun, who was denied food and drink throughout her ordeal, had been tied and chained to the cross and a towel pushed into her mouth to smother any sounds.

A post-mortem is to be carried out, although initial reports say that Cornici died from asphyxiation.

Local media reports that the young woman had arrived at the remote convent three months before, having initially gone there to visit a friend and opted to stay. Mediafax news agency said Cornici suffered from schizophrenia and the symptoms of her condition caused the priest at the convent and other nuns to believe she was possessed by the devil. They all said she was possessed and they were trying to cast out the evil spirits, police spokeswoman Michaela Straub said.

Father Daniel who is accused of orchestrating the crime is said to be unrepentant. God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil, AFP quoted the priest as saying. I don't understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests, Father Daniel added.

If found guilty of killing Cornici, Father Daniel and the accused nuns could face 20 years in jail.

Based on an article from Sudan Tribune

A Khartoum court on Saturday suspended a newspaper for three months for publishing an article last month considered by Muslims to be blasphemous, the official Sudan News Agency reported.

The Al-Wifaq daily was also fined 8,000,000 Sudanese pounds (about $3,200) for the outcry it prompted in this conservative African Muslim nation when it republished an article from the Internet that questioned the parentage of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Editor Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed apologized in a letter to the press, saying he did not intend to insult the prophet. The article angered Muslims of different sects, some showed customary tolerance and demanded Ahmed's execution. Ahmed himself was cleared of blasphemy charges, but he remains in detention for violating a previous three day suspension order and ignoring another ruling banning the media from writing about the case.

The government had held the trial behind closed doors and banned media coverage. Some observers said the verdict was lenient in Sudan, where blasphemy and insulting Islam can invoke the death penalty. The government has ruled by Islamic Sharia law since 1983.

SUNA reported that the plaintiffs who spearheaded the campaign against Ahmed, a group representing not so tolerant Muslim scholars, said they would appeal the verdict.

Based on an article from News Letter

The Methodist Church in Ireland has expressed predictable concern over declining standards in broadcasting.

The Church's annual conference adopted a communications committee motion expressing concern over declining standards of taste and decency in the broadcast media. This has been apparent in the widespread use of bad language, sexually explicit material broadcast before the watershed, and the broadcasting of Jerry Springer - the Opera in spite of record numbers of objections prior to the broadcast.

The concerns of the Methodist Church have been heightened by the cursory attention given in the BBC charter review green paper to maintaining standards of taste and decency in broadcast material, and the relegation of maintaining standards in this area to the watchdog body Ofcon.

At the same time, the weakness of Ofcom in this area has been highlighted by its failure to take effective action in the case of Jerry Springer - the Opera, and in the recent policy statement that it would exercise less control in matters of offensive material and would expect viewers and listeners to exercise more control by switching off, says a committee statement.

Based on an article from The Guardian

The Christian Institute's bid to bring judicial review proceedings against the BBC for its broadcast of Jerry Springer - the Opera has been rejected by a high court judge.

The Newcastle-based nutter group vowed to take the action after the broadcaster refused to apologise for the expletive-strewn opera. The BBC was issued with legal papers in early March. It applied for a judicial review claiming the BBC had violated its royal charter and hoped to win a hearing which would examine how BBC bosses executed their responsibilities.

But the high court has refused to grant the Christian Institute permission to bring judicial review proceedings against the BBC. The decision will come as little surprise to the TV industry which has seen several failed attempts to have decisions overturned through judicial reviews.

Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of television, said Jerry Springer - the Opera was a "difficult production" for some people, but represented a "significant landmark" in the BBC's drive to maintain freedom of speech and editorial independence. We are pleased that Ofcom, the Governors' Programme Complaint Commission (GPCC) and now the laws of this country have recognised that the BBC has an important role to play in the freedom of artistic expression.

I for one feel that hotel channels are a bit expensive so I usually take a couple of DVDs for my laptop. Most of the time I can plug it in to the room TV anyway. I'd hate to leave the Swedish hotel maids without any goo to clean up next morning.

From AVN

A growing number of Swedish hotels are canceling their subscriptions to adult entertainment television channels, according to the Swedish women's nutter group ROKS. The organization says that almost 500 Swedish hotels have gone porn free, and more are likely to join them.

ROKS publishes listings of the porn-free hotels in a newly released catalogue the group said came as a result of consumer demand. Since the first catalogue came out in spring 2003, the interest in booking porn-free hotels has increased among government departments, councils and organizations, ROKS project leader Tina Olby told reporters. Those who are opposed to hotels which offer porn to their guests say that [porn-free hotels] are an obvious part of working towards equality in the workplace.

Among those choosing to travel porn free, according to a published report, is the Swedish military. Other authorities, according to ROKS, are doing likewise, with 101 or 176 local authorities booking porn-free hotel accommodations when they need to travel and others planning to discuss the issue.

Excuse me Archbishop but I feel that the Melon Farmers are totally justified in attacking deserving institutions over their secretiveness. Take Ofcon, they uttered a few fine words about evidence based regulation then went off in a huddle for  six months of secret debate and then issued a statement maintaining censorship with just one sentence of explanation. The Melon Farmers are cynical because we have little faith in the Government and their agents to respect our rights and freedoms. Time and time again they have proved to be rights abusers rather than rights defenders.

Alan points out that it is worth reading the full text of the Archbishop's speech at www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/050615.htm and that in fact the speech represents a fair comment on the way the press works. Perhaps I relied too much on the cynical press and not enough on the truth.

From The Guardian

The Archbishop of Canterbury last night launched a wide-ranging attack on the media, accusing journalists of distorting debate, contributing to a climate of national cynicism, and unjustly attacking institutions over their secretiveness.

In the most trenchant statement on public life he has made in his three years at Lambeth Palace, Dr Rowan Williams appeared to take in tabloids, broadsheets, weblogs and broadcasters with equal vehemence. He charged all with conspiring against public understanding.

The speech at Lambeth Palace represented a departure for the archbishop, who has been criticised in church quarters for his reluctance to speak out on public matters, leading to accusations that his advisers prefer him to say nothing controversial. Williams  reticence about being interviewed and the protectiveness of his staff has caused private criticism and despair among some bishops. Senior BBC staff have admitted that programme producers, after a number of rebuffs from Lambeth Palace, now routinely approach Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, for authoritative comment on religious issues.

Williams claimed that some aspects of current journalistic practice are "lethally damaging", contributing to the "embarrassingly low level of trust" in the profession.

He accused the media of manipulating fear, exhibiting violent conflict between people for entertainment, and living off internal feuds: Corrupt speech, inflaming unexamined emotion, reinforcing division, wrapped up in its own performance, leaves us less human: fewer things are possible for us. Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow. His attack encompassed national newspapers which communicate as if every reader ... shared the same fundamental values, preferences and anxieties, broadcasters for their obsession with breaking news, and weblogs which indulge in paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry.

Williams said that journalists were drawn from too narrow a class, educational and ethnic base. He said that they were too London-based and had a strong tribal identity which may be pretty far removed from the specific local and civic loyalties that form the raw material of serious discursive politics.

The archbishop told last night's audience: A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good. Such talk is not in rich supply just now and it is only fair to ask what share of responsibility the media has for this. But ... societies to some extent have the media they deserve and license.

From The Independent

Greece's religious right is on a collision course with the art establishment after a prominent curator was put on trial under blasphemy laws for staging a show which Orthodox clerics said was "obscene".

Christos Ioakimidis, who curated the show Outlook in the run-up to last summer's Olympics, provoked outrage in religious circles by displaying a work featuring, among other things, a cross and male genitalia. Ioakimidis was called to appear in court yesterday on charges of insulting public sentiment and the Orthodox Church, following a complaint by a far-right politician.

The row is deeply embarrassing for Greek authorities who set up Outlook, the largest modern art show the country had staged, to shake off its image as a backwater of contemporary culture.

After opening in October 2003 the show received mixed reviews but initially no complaints. That changed when George Karatzaferis, leader of a right-wing extremist party, paid it a visit. A notorious self-publicist, he whipped up a storm of indignation after taking offence at a painting, titled Dry Sin, by a Belgian artist, Thierry de Cordier. The canvas, featuring a wooden cross, a penis and semen, was denounced by Karatzaferis as the most "obscene, immoral and shameless" painting he had ever seen.

He demanded its removal and called for an inquiry into whether an offence had occurred under Greece's antiquated blasphemy laws, which allow prosecution if a work has "offended people's religious sentiments".

A number of church activists and conservative politicians, including a former leader of the governing conservative party gave their support. Within days a woman attacked another avant-garde work at the show, slashing it with a knife. Protesters began picketing the entrance.

To the horror of Athens' art world, Ioakimidis opted to defuse the situation by withdrawing Dry Sin on the order of the culture ministry. The decision outraged artists and rights activists who said it threatened freedom of expression. Ioakimidis said he had authorised removal of the painting to protect the exhibition from "the wrong kind of publicity".

The wheels of the Greek justice system kept grinding until, 17 months later, a judge decided there was a case to answer and called the curator to court. The latest blasphemy charges have added to concerns at the influence exerted on the political and legal establishments by the conservative Greek Church - which is itself mired in a sex and corruption scandal.

The blasphemy case is likely to be decided by early next year.

From the Daily Mail

Detectives are investigating claims that the attack on Anthony Hinchliffe was inspired by a TV screening of the Film Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. The movie includes a sequence in which a boy narrowly escapes being strung up from a tree. There are a number of other hanging scenes. It was shown on BBC1 on Bank Holiday Monday, 24 hours before Anthony was lured into woods and apparently had a noose tied around his neck.

Six years ago as eight year old boy in New Zealand hanged himself after watching the same film in what his parents believe was an attempt to copy what he saw. There was also concern that by showing the film at 5.45pm, the BBC flouted regulations which say programmes including hanging should not be screened before the 9pm watershed. John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, said: Although it is too early to speculate on any link between the attack and the film, we are clearly very concerned about the decision to show it at that time. The reason there are regulations is because there is obviously a risk that children will try to copy what they see on television.

From The Scotsman

Microsoft's new games console includes a parental control function which can stop children playing restricted games. The Xbox 360 will be the first product of its kind in the UK to have the security measure. It also features mandatory parental controls for the Xbox Live function, which lets adults oversee their children's online play.

Microsoft said in a statement: We feel a strong responsibility to provide safety and security features and will continue to evolve this part of the plan over time.

John Beyer, director of the nutter group Mediawatch UK, said it was "unrealistic" to expect parents to monitor all their children's games. To have mum and dad pressing buttons here and there just isn't the way that most families deal with these things. I think it is unrealistic of the games people to expect parents to have total control.

Beyer said manufacturers should stop producing the most violent games.

From the Calcutta Telegraph

The National Commission for Minorities has decided to ask the censor board to ensure that any film that holds a possibility of triggering protests should be viewed by religious leaders first before being screened in theatres.

The commission’s demand comes after the recent controversy over the film Jo Bole So Nihaal. Yesterday, there were blasts in two halls in the capital that were screening the film starring Sunny Deol. Although authorities have not said that the blasts were directly related to the screening of the film, there has been panic in several states with theatres across the country deciding to stop running the film.

The chief of the National Commission for Minorities, Tarlochan Singh, today said: We will write both to the censor board chairperson and the minister for information and broadcasting to have a panel of religious leaders to review controversial films which have the potential of hurting the sentiments of the faithful.

Singh believes that in a country like India, where people are extremely religious, it is essential to take such a step: Jo Bole So Nihaal would not have faced the kind of problems it is facing now if the censor board had taken the opinion of Sikh religious leaders.

The title of the film is part of the daily prayers of Sikhs and therefore, could be seen as an insult to them. The other point that angered Sikhs is the scene that shows Sunny Deol smoking. Although the hero is scolded by his mother for defying the tenets of Sikhism, the censure has done little to ease the sensitivity of the community.  Smoking is not permitted for a practising Sikh.

A note to the Home Office. More religious people worthy of hatred.

From The Times

Boms exploded inside two cinemas in the Indian capital last night, killing one person and injuring at least 50 people as audiences watched a controversial film condemned by Sikh leaders as offensive to their faith. One man told television news that he had pulled several bodies from the badly damaged Liberty Cinema in Delhi.

Minutes after the first explosion, a second bomb went off in the Satyam Cineplex in neighbouring Patel Nagar. Police said that the first bomb, which had been strapped to a seat in the fifth row of the cinema, injured at least forty-three people, twenty of them seriously, and that the second, hidden in a toilet, had injured at least seven.

Both cinemas were screening the same film, Jo Bole So Nihaal (Anyone who calls out to God will be blessed), which had sparked protests and condemnation from a powerful Sikh group because of its use of religious symbols and text. The film has been withdrawn voluntarily from the Sikh-dominated state of Punjab after stone-throwing protests and clashes with police outside cinemas.

The highest decision-making body of the Sikh religion has denounced the film, claiming that its title misuses a term used only in Sikh temples or as a war cry by Sikh warriors.

Police last night refused to acknowledge any link between the bombs and the film being screened for fear of inflaming religious tensions. Cinemas across the city were evacuated and bomb squads moved in to search for further hidden explosives. The capital was put on high alert and police teams sealed off all roads in and out of the city.

Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, called an emergency Cabinet meeting of the Cabinet to assess the situation and security was tightened in the neighbouring Sikh-populated state of Punjab. It has the largest concentration of Sikhs and is where Sikh extremists began an armed campaign for a separate Sikh state in the 1980s.

From SwissInfo

Swedish media and advertisers are accused of "degrading" women by using too many images of scantily dressed women, Prime Minister Goran Persson said on Saturday, and held out the prospect of legislation to stop the trend. Persson said at a Social Democrat women's congress: Wherever you go in Sweden you see pictures of young women, almost naked. It is used as a commercial argument to sell products. It is degrading,

Sweden has strict rules against pornography and prostitution. Persson indicated this was not enough. Persson said he hoped the press would regulate itself on this matter, but that if it did not then he would consider legislating against it. He said an enquiry would be held to see what form such laws would take. We can have the world's best policy on sexual equality and at the same time see this kind of development and then we have a joint responsibility to deal with it. It is not good if Swedish tabloids go in the same direction as those in Britain, he said, referring to the likes of The Sun newspaper, which for decades has printed a picture of a barechested woman on its page three.

Tabloid Aftonbladet said Persson was aiming at censorship. Limits on the freedom of speech and what should be printed in the media are not compatible with our democratic values, Afotnbladet editor-in-chief wrote on the newspaper's website.

Based on an article from The Scotsman

Edinburgh Council are  being harangued by nutters as they are asked to decide on a licence for two late-night screenings of Deep Throat.

Nutters have asked the council to refuse the bid by the Cameo cinema, in Tollcross, which plans to show it to accompany a new documentary about the film and the story of Lovelace.

Despite being a huge box-office hit in the United States, the film was only ever screened in sex cinemas in the UK, although it has been available to buy on video or DVD for the last five years. 

According to the current licensing regulations, screenings of R18 movies can only be hosted by cinemas being operated as a club. The Cameo, which has its own membership scheme, has told the city council that it is planning to stage two late-night screenings of the film on June 17 and 18.

Ian Hoey, the cinema's general manager, said: We're planning to show Deep Throat as a companion piece to the documentary, which looks at the full cultural impact of the film and we feel it's appropriate to let the people of Edinburgh see them both and make their own minds up. By all accounts, the documentary gives the impression that no-one backs up Lovelace's claims and it was several years before she came out and made them. We have our own club here and it may be that we have to restrict attendance at the screening to our members, but I'll find out when we go up to the council next week."

However, Catherine Harper, spokesnutter for the Scottish Women Against Pornography Campaign, said the Cameo was trying to "legitimise" Deep Throat by claiming it was being shown as a companion piece: To suggest that this film has artistic or cultural value is claptrap. Are they seriously trying to say that the same people who will watch this will be the same as those who go to see the documentary? The council should not be allowing this film to be shown.

And shameful Labour councillor Lorna Shiels, who was appointed to a Scottish Executive taskforce which will explore Scotland's lapdancing clubs and sex shops earlier this year, said: I don't see any reason why the Cameo should be showing it and I totally agree with what Catherine Harper is saying. There can't be any artistic or cultural reason for screening this.

A council spokesman said: The council has received a request from the Cameo to screen a film authorised R18 by the BBFC. Details of this request will be considered by the Regulatory Committee which will determine whether or not to grant this request.

Well the archbishop can rest assured that this particular media professional will be tirelessly campaigning to rid world of Nutography, the addictive affliction of getting off on the sexual oppression of one's fellow man.

The Melon Farmers are appalled at the effects of nutography which are most damaging to those who are already vulnerable, including children, who may be exposed to harmful material through television or the internet.

From Catholic World News

The president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has decried the explosive growth of pornography, and urged media professionals to seize responsibility for curbing the practice.

Archbishop John Foley, speaking to a form organized by the Italian Eurispes institute, spoke of the "alarming spread of a practice as degrading as pornography." The American archbishop said that media professionals should develop their own professional codes to curb the practice.

The effects of pornography, the archbishop noted, are most damaging to those who are already vulnerable, including children, who may be exposed to harmful material through television or the internet. He encouraged an effort to protect children, organized through families, schools, and society at large.

From LifeSiteNews

Brazilian Government Introduces Free Contraceptives for All, including Abortifacient Morning-After Pill

Euphemistically dubbed as a “family planning program,” Brazil’s lawmakers launched a program to distribute free contraceptives at hospitals and walk-in clinics throughout the country in March.

The controversial program, predictably denounced by the Catholic Church there, includes the abortifacient morning-after pill, despite a Brazilian law prohibiting abortion except in cases of rape or if a mother’s life is in danger because of the pregnancy.

This is nothing more than medical and moral barbarism, which will pervert our youth, warned Bishop Rafael Llano Cifuentes, president of the Bishops Committee on Life and the Family for the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. The free contraceptives program will promote the sexual perversion of teenagers, which means prostitution, Bishop Cifuentes added. It’s like telling teenage girls, go out and enjoy an active sex life for the government will guarantee that you won’t get pregnant.

According to an Instituto Sensus poll conducted in April, 87% of Brazilians support the use of contraception, while 84% support the free distribution of contraceptives by the government. 85% are still opposed to abortion on demand.

Based on an article from The Nation

Scenes of Miss Universe 2005 contestants in swimsuits with Buddhist sites in the Bangkok background will be edited out of video footage to broadcast on the final day of the pageant, Thai Tourism and Sports Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said yesterday.

A still image from the footage, which was shot yesterday morning during a luxury cruise along the Chao Phya River, has also been ordered removed from the pageant's official website, Somsak said.

Event coordinator Tom Khruasophon said the footage had been screened and anything deemed defamatory to the host country’s reputation would be cut from a broadcast planned for May 31, the final day of the event.

Media representatives covering the event on the Grand Pearl cruise yesterday were surprised after learning that swimsuits were the only costumes selected for the session, even though the organisers knew the cruise would be passing such sites as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Temple of Dawn.

News about the promotional event drew criticism from nutter groups, which called it an unnecessary provocation. Ladda Tangsuchachai, head of the Culture Ministry’s Cultural Watchdog Network, said she would recommend banning the video entirely if the edited version turned out to be unsuitable. However, if the religious landmarks were seen from a distance and the swimsuits were modest, she would not call for censorship, she said. Images of modern architectural structures would make a better backdrop, she said.

Phra Thep Dilok, head of the National Centre for Buddhism Promotion, took a more aggressive stance, saying the timing of the pageant was unfortunate considering the ongoing Visakha Bucha celebrations.

The monk said the beauty contest was based mainly on commercial interests while cultural and moral values attached to Thai traditions were being overlooked.

Lighten up, says PM

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra urged those feeling offended by the images “not to be too serious” over the matter. Thaksin said he did not think the publicity stunt was ill intentioned, or that it would negatively affect Thailand’s image.

We sometimes take things too seriously. They were cruising along the Chao Phya River and filming wherever they thought was beautiful, the prime minister said. It’s just a matter of different cultures. They are not Buddhists. We told them, and they stepped back. Let’s not complain too much.

I hate shits who seek to deprive adults of sexual entertainment by suggesting that the whole industry is awash with children. It simply is not.

Based on an article from the Sunday Mail

Scotch whisky giants Chivas Regal and Johnnie Walker were yesterday accused of cashing in on the sex trade in Thailand. The global brands are making cash from sales in brothels and their brands are even used to advertise the sex clubs.

Nutters have falsely accused bosses that the sex industry in Thailand is fuelling child prostitution and lining the pockets of Asian crime barons.

The warning comes days after Chivas Regal boasted of record growth in Asia.Their slogan 'This is the Chivas life' features in giant billboard adverts for licensed brothels.

One in Bangkok, bearing an image of Marilyn Monroe with a rose clinched between her teeth, encourages punters to head for the Pasaya 'party massage' parlour.The Pasaya, run by owner Khun Jum, is a landmark on the Ratchadapisek, one of Bangkok's major thoroughfares and known for its 'mega-brothels'.

Inside the club, girls gyrate naked on tables for cash and offer 'extras' for just a few pounds. Typically punters have 20 to 30 girls to choose from each night. The system in Bangkok is that the customer picks out a girl in the bar area, pays a one-hour fee of 600 baht (about £8.50) for a 'massage', then negotiates the extras with the girl in an upstairs room.

Empty boxes of Chivas are put out with the rubbish every morning, showing the popularity of the brand with Pasaya punters. Chivas and Johnnie Walker are the most popular whiskies in Asia and earn their owners - Chivas Brothers and Diageo - tens of millions of pounds profit every year.

Campaigners believe the tie-up between the brothels and the booze brands attracts wealthy western sex tourists. Chris Beddoe, director of anti-child-prostitution pressure group ECPAT UK, said: Multinational companies should not be selling their products within bars and saunas where sex is sold. They should be paying closer attention to where their products are and ensure they are not supporting the sex industry.

ECPAT is also appealing to the conscience of western holiday firms who unwittingly provide cheap deals for sex tourists: We have asked the major holiday companies to be aware of their responsibilities to Thai women and children.We have asked that they do not promote districts where there is a risk that children are being exploited for sex. It is our hope that if these areas are less accessible, the problem can be brought under control.

A Chivas Brothers spokeswoman said: In common with other international spirit brands, Chivas Regal does provide legally licensed bars and outlets selling its brands with point-of--sale material for display. This may have led to some confusion.

A Johnnie Walker spokeswoman said: 'We sell to our wholesalers in good faith and all of our activities, wherever we operate, are within the letter of the law locally. But once the wholesalers have our products and promotional materials, we do not have control over how they are used. While most outlets are operating legitimately, there may be some outlets where materials are being used inappropriately.'

SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon, said: I would hope neither company is doing anything that could be seen to be condoning or encouraging child prostitution. If so, I am sure they would both want to take action to rectify this situation.

Independent MSP Campbell Martin said: The flashy advertising hoardings they are putting their names to make it look as though these clubs are mainstream and acceptable.They are clearly not. [Bollox, Consensual adult, legal venues are totally acceptable. The police raid frequently checking for underage staff. It is ludicrous to suggest that children (ie below the age of consent) are ever employed in a public venue. The vast majority of managers, patrons and staff simply would not stand for it. Any problem that there is hides behind private doors where entry is by invitation only. Just like in the UK]

From agapepress. By James L. Lambert, the author of Porn in America.

See How Melon Farmers See US Nutters Seeing Europe for a comment from IanG

Ironically, 225 years after the United States of America broke the shackles of a great European empire, our country is yet again struggling to free itself from Europe. Will we become another Europe? Or will America remain separate from the dark cloud of secular humanism that has engulfed that continent?

The great churches of Europe that were so much a part of that continent's culture for centuries are now mere dwarves of their former selves. The Protestant movement that began in Germany with Martin Luther has lost all of its influence among the people of that continent. Today, a large church in Europe might number 200 in its congregation. The Catholic Church, once a powerful and influential part of European society, cannot prevent homosexual marriage from being legalized this week in Spain. Even the new Pope, Benedict XVI, has reflected in his recent writings of the huge shortcomings of his church in Europe.

Today European culture has aligned itself with a general air of permissiveness and perversion that in past generations would never have occurred. Legalized drugs, state-sponsored legalized hard drug programs, euthanasia, legalized prostitution, "gay marriage," lowered age of consent laws, tolerance of pedophilia and pedophiles, and intolerance of Christianity and the Bible pervade the land. Much of these problems aren't discussed or reported by the media because they are accepted and legal in many European countries.

Several years ago a friend of mine told me of a visit he made to Europe in the late 1990s. He said that that there were parks (in Switzerland) where hard drugs were sold openly, tolerated openly, condoned openly, and used openly, all with the consent of Swiss authorities. Officials in a number of European countries have waved the white flag of surrender to the drug trade.

In a number of cities on the continent, prostitutes operate legally and. in some cases. are on display in open bay windows (like mannequins) where they sell their services to the highest bidder. In Holland, euthanasia is now widely accepted and condoned even by the religious community.

In Germany, you can turn on television in the mornings and see full-on pornography. Nudism and public nudity have become more and more accepted throughout the continent (in Greece, France, Germany, Sweden, etc.). Sexual perversion has run amok throughout the continent. There are no barriers for the porn industry in Europe.

In Rome -- where the Vatican, the official seat of the Roman Catholic Church, is located -- a huge, world gay and lesbian celebration was allowed without any opposition by any notable public official. Most people may not think this is such a big deal, but those who have witnessed and attended uninhibited homosexual events like this would likely disagree.

Throughout Scandinavia, same-sex marriage is now accepted. The influence of traditional marriage there has waned tremendously in recent years where simply "shacking up" has become more popular than marriage.

While America has strong historical roots to Europe, we must once again rebel against the negative influences the continent portends. Liberals in this country would like nothing better than for America to become a reflection of Europe. Groups like the People for the American Way, the ACLU, MoveOn.org, NARAL, NOW, Free Speech Coalition, First Amendment Lawyer's Association, and numerous secular and atheist activist groups all want America to become another Europe.

America's historical heritage is rich with religious influence. What initially characterized the difference between American and European culture is that most of the colonists came to America seeking religious freedom. While today's culture is a far cry from the America of even 30 years ago, this country is only as strong as the character of its people. If America continues its slide into secularism, devoid of a moral code, we will become like Europe. The very essence and strength of this country is the morals of its people.

If the majority of Americans do not understand the importance of being a just, moral, compassionate society, we will certainly go the way of Europe.

Millions of Americans are praying their country will pay attention to the message of its religious roots and heritage. We are in need of a sweeping revival. Please join others to pray that this happens soon!

Interesting to see that American nutters have set up a website to list all US hotels that do not have porn on the hotel TV service. The idea of course is that nutters can choose which hotels to patronise. Now of course such a list is equally useful to those that would like to censorial hotels so why not take a look at www.cleanhotels.com

I have yet to see uncensored hardcore on American hotel TV anyway so I simply buy a couple of DVDs and play them on my laptop which I can often plug into the room TV anyway. The best I have seen in a US hotel is a weird compromise where real sex is shown but not cum shots nor anal scenes.

As always, the most aggressive and intolerant threats are generated by those proclaiming a tolerant religion. You can't get a much more thinly veiled threat than The imams warned that showing the film could create new and drastic tensions that could induce the most fanatical to commit high-profile actions endangering public security. Worthy of hatred or what?

From The Guardian

Italy's state broadcaster, RAI, will tomorrow defy protests from Muslims and reported threats to one of its executives when it becomes the first leading foreign TV network to show the controversial Dutch film Submission.

The film's director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered last November. An alleged Muslim extremist has been charged with the killing.

The decision to screen substantial extracts from the film, which is fiercely critical of the treatment of women in Islam, followed a plea last week from Italian MPs from all leading parties. They said broadcasting the film would contribute to artistic freedom and freedom of expression.

In a letter to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the Islamic Council of Turin called for the broadcast to be cancelled. The letter, signed by two imams, said the content of the film was detrimental to Islamic traditions and customs. The imams warned that showing the film could create new and drastic tensions that could induce the most fanatical to commit high-profile actions endangering public security. Copies of their letter were sent to, among others, the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

Critics of RAI's decision have argued that it is bowing to pressure from the anti-immi grant Northern League, which had earlier tried and failed to get the film shown at the European parliament.

Van Gogh's 12-minute film was written by a former Muslim who has become a member of the Dutch parliament representing an anti-immigration party. She was last reported to be in hiding under armed police guard.

Submission includes scenes of near-naked Muslim women in headscarves with verses from the Koran written on their bodies. According to someone who saw the film at a recent private viewing, it includes an interview with a woman who recounts a beating she endured for fleeing her home after being attacked and made pregnant by her uncle.

Some Dutch Muslim women who were victims of male violence reacted angrily when Submission was shown on television in the Netherlands last August, arguing that it cheapened their suffering. Van Gogh's murder two months later was followed by dozens of arson attacks on mosques and other Islamic targets, which in turn led to counter-attacks on churches.

The decision to screen the film in Italy was reported by the Northern League's daily, Padania, on Sunday. But the news was not carried in the national press, apparently for fear of stirring protests.  \A RAI official confirmed that it planned to air the film at 11pm tomorrow. Until now, only brief clips from Submission have been televised on national channels outside the Netherlands in news reports on Van Gogh's death. A northern Italian station has shown the film.

Last month, the European parliament scrapped a screening of the film because of legal concerns and security fears.

Based on an article from The Guardian

Jerry Springer: the Opera provoked accusations of blasphemy and a firestorm of protest from nutters when it was broadcast earlier this year. But the television watchdog Ofcom has ruled that the programme did not breach broadcasting guidelines.

Ofcom received more than 16,000 complaints - an unprecedented number - but yesterday ruled that although the January showing clearly had the potential to offend and indeed the intention to shock, it was set in a very clear context as a comment on modern TV.

Nutters were particularly offended by the programme's portrayal of Christian figures, which included Jesus wearing a nappy. Tabloid press reports stoked the controversy, saying that the programme contained 8,000 swear words. According to the BBC, however, it only contained "around 200 f-words" and "nine c-words".

In its ruling, Ofcom said it appreciated that the representation of religious figures was offensive to some people. But it said: The show's effect was to satirise modern fame and the culture of celebrity. The images that caused the most offence were part of a 'dream' sequence serving as a metaphor for the fictional Jerry Springer and his chat show. In Ofcom's view, these were not meant to be faithful or accurate depictions of religious figures, but a product of the lead character's imagination. Even as he lay dying, the fictional Jerry Springer still saw his life through the lens of his confessional show.

Ofcom received 7,491 complaints before transmission and 8,860 afterwards, including 4,264 emails from an organisation called Premier Media Group. It also received 210 messages of support for the programme.

Complaints were investigated by Ofcom's content board - the highest level at which complaints are considered. Ofcom said the musical was preceded by a programme which aimed to put the whole show into context.

From the Gulf Daily News

A violent clash outside a Stockholm sex club between feminists protesters and the club's staff and clients left several people injured and led to 24 arrests, police said yesterday.

In the small hours of Saturday, around 30 young women gathered outside the Club Prive, a sex club in the Swedish capital, which offers strip-tease and lap-dancing, blocking the entrance. Initially peaceful, the demonstration turned violent after three men, two club staff and one client, confronted the demonstrators, Stockholm police inspector Anders Nordberg said. More men joined in the brawl and in the ensuing violence, three men were badly injured and taken to hospital.

According to police, the demonstrators appeared to have used baseball bats and umbrellas in the fight. Police arrested a total of 16 women and eight men. They were later released, pending possible charges for aggravated assault, Nordberg said.

Interesting to note that Beyer calls for a new breed of well-behaved sportsmen. Presumably none exist at the moment then.

Based on an article from the Daily Express

The noted footballer Wayne Rooney has been banned from a prestige VIP role at a nationwide schoolboy tournament because he is “a bad influence” on children. Rooney was to be the star attraction at the English Schools Football Association’s big event and train with youngsters. Now officials have told the Manchester United striker not to attend the tournament … because of his bad language on the pitch and  allegations of unruly behaviour in his private life.

Last night nutters against yobbish behaviour applauded the decision and called on the young star to control himself. John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk said: I support the tournament’s decision. I hope they get someone who can be a good example. Rooney has frequently been caught mouthing swear words on camera during games and his aggressive style has brought criticisms. Beyer called for a new breed of well-behaved role models that children could emulate, adding: If footballers such as Rooney use bad language it shows bad sportsmanship, bad manners and a complete disrespect for the game. It tells young children they can do the same. These players are meant to be professionals and should learn how to control

The Pope's association with the Nazis is clearly insignificant so I am sure the Vatican must be doing more harm than good by showings its intolerance of satire and free speech

From CNET News

Rome judicial authorities sought a temporary injunction on Friday against an Internet site which carried doctored photographs of Pope Benedict dressed in a Nazi uniform.

The photomontages of the head of former German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on the body of a man wearing a swastika armband and standing in front of a Nazi flag were posted 10 days ago on the Italian branch of the international news and opinion site, Independent Media Center.

Rome investigating magistrate Salavtore Vitello said in a statement that the pictures violated a national law prohibiting defamation of the Catholic Church. Vitello said he was also considering taking action against the owners of the site for insulting the authority and honor of the pope himself.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth, a Nazi paramilitary organization, in World War II when membership was compulsory for young Germans. He was soon released to study for the priesthood, and his biographers have said he was never a member of the Nazi Party and his family opposed Hitler's regime.

Judicial sources in Rome said the Indymedia site was registered in Brazil and it was not immediately clear how the injunction, if granted, would be put into effect.

The Italian arm of the Independent Media Center, whose site is a forum for hundreds of contributors around the world on issues ranging from anti-globalization to gay rights, could not be reached for comment.

From The Stage

Attempts by religious pressure groups such as Christian Voice to censor productions will become increasingly prevalent if the theatre community continues to capitulate as it did over controversial Sikh play Behzti, manager of Birmingham Stage Company Neal Foster has warned.

Foster’s call to the theatre industry to take a stand against all pressure groups coincides with the launch by members of the International Theatre Institute of a series of discussions to address the threat of censorship to British theatre and to decide what practical action can be taken to support venues and companies when faced with outside pressure.

Speaking to The Stage, he said: The Rep made a terrible mistake when it cancelled that show. The whole Jerry Springer debacle - I felt it was a direct ramification of the events in Birmingham and hardline groups feeling they could affect the decisions of arts organisations. I can’t believe that the protests around Jerry Springer - the Opera would have happened before Behzti.

Official organisations need to be involved to help theatres make the right decision. The staging of Behzti is the first thing that needs to happen - we lost the battle and we are now suffering the effects. The artistic community put up its white flag - now we need to support whatever organisations are suffering the consequences.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice cites the successful religious opposition to Behzti, which was eventually pulled from Birmingham Rep Theatre, as inspiration for his damaging campaign against Avalon musical Jerry Springer - the Opera. Foster says that the industry needs to make a stand in the face of increasingly militant opposition from both religious and secular groups.

Felix Cross, director of NITRO black theatre company called for Arts Council England to take a more involved approach if further protests occurred and stressed that organisations such as ACE had a duty to support cultural institutions in more than simply financial terms. He concluded: When something from outside comes to threaten the existence of a particular piece of work, what is the function of the arts council? Its remit to protect the arts comes into profile.

From The Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian Family Association is at it again. When it's not watching smutty European films, it is trying to stop the rest of us from seeing them. In Melbourne, Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, will be screened at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. This upsets the association no end. It tried unsuccessfully through the Classification Review Board to get the film banned. Now a taxpayer-funded institution is screening it.

A Sydney lawyer, Damien Tudehope, doesn't need to wait for these films to screen in public. As a member of the association, he gets private screenings. With 9 Songs it's the actual sex he's concerned about. In the association's submission to the Classification Review Board, he argues that letting actual sex into the R category is opening the way for hardcore pornography to be routinely classified R18+.

So what is the Australian Family Association? And who does it represent? It describes itself as Australia's leading family advocacy group. It publishes a journal that discusses issues such as gay marriage, drug-proofing your children, abortion, stem cell research, and tax policy for families.

It has been around for 25 years and evolved from B.A Santamaria's National Civic Council. Despite these narrow foundations, Tudehope told me the association represents the interests of the majority of Australian families. So how many members does it have? How many families does it truly represent? Tudehope seems to believe in censoring figures as well as films. He refused to tell me.

An article in The Age last year said it had 3000 members. But Raena Lea-Shannon, the lawyer who represents films such as 9 Songs and is a member of Watch on Censorship, thinks this is an exaggeration: You've got to make a distinction between the active members and those on the mailing list. There may be several thousand members but I understand from my research of public domain information the active membership is probably several hundred.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that at the time of the last census there were 4,936,828 families, comprising 14,845,780 people. That's a lot of families who have nothing to do with the Australian Family Association. Yet it continues to say it represents a majority of Australian families. So why is it allowed to represent Australian families at the Classification Review Board?

In 1999 the federal attorney-general brought a bill before Parliament that would allow community interest groups to be given "standing" to appeal decisions made by the classification board.

Democrats senator Brian Greig warned at the time: If this particular section of the bill is successful, you are opening the door to every lunatic, fringe, nutter organisation and individual in this country to complain about every film that they want to, and let us be clear about this: they will not hold back. Organisations around Australia such as the Logos Foundation, the Salt Shakers or, for that matter, the Australian Family Association - which are no newcomers to consistent and persistent attacks on issues of censorship - have been imposing their particular morality on the rest of the community, and that is not new to any of us here.

From Mediawatch-UK

A petition bearing more than 121,000 signatures was handed in yesterday at 10 Downing Street. The petition, organised by the campaign group Mediamarch, was handed in by a delegation including Pippa Smith and Miranda Suit, Co-Founders of Mediamarch; Roger Smith, Head of Public Policy, CARE, John Beyer, Director, mediawatch-uk; Dr A Majid Katme, Muslim Council of Britain; Yaqub Masih, Director, UK Asian Christian Fellowship and advisor to Bishop of Wakefield.

In a covering letter to Tony Blair they said:

We, the undersigned, submit this Petition of 121,378 signatures to Her Majesty’s Government, and respectfully seek urgent consideration of our requests. We are shocked and saddened that none of the major parties has seen fit to address the role of the media in contributing to the current crisis in our society: the breakdown in family life and law and order has reached epidemic proportions. However, as leader of the party in power for several years, you must bear the heaviest burden of responsibility for this state of affairs.

The regulators, especially the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and OFCOM are failing to curb the growing influx of media violence, explicit sex and obscene language. The BBFC (funded by the film industry) no longer believes in censorship but in giving adults guidance so they may decide what they want to watch. What was until recently illegal has now become legal, simply as a result of a relaxation of BBFC Guidelines following their own research. These changes have come about with no change to the law and no Parliamentary debate.

OFCOM, constrained by the wording of the Communications Act 2003, is unable to protect viewers adequately from harmful and exploitative material. This is compounded by the speed of the introduction of new global technologies which have rendered the Proposed Broadcasting Code useless even before it is published. The internet is causing particular harm but is largely unregulated. These issues have been raised in Parliament on a number of occasions, and this Petition will be followed up in the House of Commons.

We urge you, on behalf of all who have signed this Petition, to act to tackle this growing problem. It would show great integrity to address these vital issues now, albeit at this late stage of the election campaign. However, if you do not feel able to take up this challenge now, but are returned to power, we call on you to address these matters as soon as possible following the General Election on 5 May.

From The Guardian

Adverts which offended Christian sensitivities accounted for three of the four most complained about ads across the broadcast and print media last year. In a year in which the number of complaints made to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) fell by almost 11%, adverts which were said to mock key aspects of the Christian faith received the highest number of complaints.

A Channel 4 advert for the Paul Abbott series Shameless, in which the Gallagher family are posed like Jesus and the apostles in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, received the most complaints for any non-broadcast advert.

In all, 264 people complained to the ASA about the advert, but the authority decided the complaints were unjustified because it parodied the Renaissance masterpiece rather than the Christian sacrament.
There was no such ambiguity about the second most complained about non-broadcast ad. Schering Health Care's advert for its morning after pill carried the top line Immaculate Contraception. It did not go down well with Roman Catholics, in particular, and received 182 complaints, which were upheld.

Channel 4 also produced the third most complained about non-broadcast ad: a newspaper insert advertising a documentary on the Royal Mail which workers claimed implied they were thieves. Like the advert for Shameless, however, the complaints were ruled to be unjustified.

In its annual report, published today, the ASA reveals that the total number of non-broadcast complaints fell in 2004 to 12,711, a decline of 10.9% on 2003. Despite a drop in the number of complaints, the total number of campaigns investigated by the ASA increased. The number of non-broadcast campaigns altered or withdrawn after intervention from the agency increased by 8% to 1,835.

For the first time, the ASA also investigated complaints about broadcast adverts in 2004, taking over the function previously performed by Ofcom on November 1.

The top 10 broadcast complaints list was, however, compiled by Ofcom, which received the most broadcast complaints - 1,360 - for the digital television channel Auctionworld.

Complaints about poor customer service, misleading guide prices and failure to deliver goods led to the channel being fined £450,000 and its licence was withdrawn.

Religious sensitivities were also offended by an advert for Mr Kipling's mince pies which featured a woman named Mary giving birth. Initially she appeared to be in a hospital, but it later showed her to be in a church hall in a nativity play. Ofcom agreed with 806 complainants that the advert mocked one of the Christian calendar's central events and the advertiser withdrew it.

The ASA received 2,841 complaints about taste and decency for non-broadcast advertising, down by nearly a quarter compared with 2003.

Launching the report, the ASA's chairman, Lord Borrie QC, said it had never been easier to complain: "Not only has the creation of the one-stop shop benefited the consumer by making it easier to contact a single regulator, the ASA's new role also carries extended responsibilities."

Non-broadcast

1. Channel 4 Shameless poster posing the Gallagher family as in Leonardo's Last Supper offended religious sensitivities. Not justified
2. Schering Health Care Immaculate Contraception ad for the morning after pill. Upheld
3. Channel 4 Sorted insert for programme about postal workers, provoked complaints that it portrayed them as dishonest. Not justified

Broadcast

1. Auctionworld Licence revoked
2. Mr Kipling's mince pies Complaints it made fun of the nativity. Upheld
3. Virgin Mobile Man at urinal. Not upheld

So a very dodgy copcept to me, even from a nutter point of view. Surely kids could end up watching adult movies that are unsuitable not though swear words or particular violent acts but through the tone of a film. I would guess that the BBFC would not think much to the idea as it would belittle their carefully thought out age classifications.

From The Register

It will soon become legal in the USA to alter a motion picture so long as all the sex, profanity, and violence have been edited out, thanks to a bill called the Family Movie Act, an attachment to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act approved Tuesday by the House. The Senate has already passed its own version, and the President is expected to sign it.

Overall, the bill is a big win for Hollywood, with significantly harsher penalties for common bootleggers. But the 'family movie' provision, championed by  Lamar Smith (Republican), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, indemnifies any company that makes prudish versions of movies available without authorization. File sharing will remain a crime, but so long as all the good parts have been purged, a sort of Puritanical bootlegging will be tolerated, if not encouraged.

The bill does not address companies such as CleanFilms, Family Flix, and others, that produce sanitized versions of movie DVDs. These outfits claim that they do not violate copyrights because they buy a copy of the original each time they create a bowdlerized version. These claims amount to no harm no foul: the studios are selling just as many copies as they otherwise would, and perhaps more when one considers the number of people who would not buy the original versions.

The studios say that their copyrights are being violated whenever a company or individual re-distributes their work for profit. The Director's Guild is especially incensed because the outfits doing the censoring are re-working the movies however they see fit, which the directors claim can make a mess of their work. (Although there are bowdlerized editions of movies for broadcast and for exhibition on airplanes, in those cases the directors themselves produce the edited versions, and the production companies and studios are compensated for these performances through a licensing scheme.)

The directors agree that whenever a person purchases a DVD, it becomes their property and they can do with it what they please: edit it for their own enjoyment, decorate a Christmas tree with it, or satisfy their curiosity about how long it might last in the microwave oven. But the thing one may not do is market one's own copies of it. And this, they say, is what CleanFilms and Family Flix are doing, whether they buy an equal number of original copies or not.

These claims and counterclaims are currently being tested in the courts. Companies like ClearPlay go about things a bit differently, with a DVD player and downloadable filter templates that can skip past objectionable content without actually altering the DVD.

Creating a separate DVD seems to be a straightforward case of copyright violation that the courts ought to settle easily in favor of the studios, but with ClearPlay, the problem is not so obvious. The company does not produce an unauthorized copy of the original: it produces DVD player technology that users can control to show as much, or as little, skin and violence as they wish to see. The disk itself is not affected.

While this leaves shaky footing for a copyright infringement claim, the Director's Guild had been hoping that the courts would recognize their right not to have their work fiddled with by amateurs. ClearPlay does choose for consumers which portions of each movie its system will skip on demand. Users work from a menu of selections such as violence, sex, nudity, profanity, homosexuality, etc. to be suppressed. Essentially, the company is selling a library of filtering templates for movies that people can customize to some extent.

Interestingly, Smith's legislation appears tailored to accommodate ClearPlay alone. The bill will protect from copyright liability, a manufacturer, licensee, or licensor of technology that enables the making of limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture imperceptible... It says nothing about making separate editions on DVDs, although the courts have begun taking up that issue.

Umm. I think we may have had just as much bullying in schools during the golden age of morally correct Hollywood films

From The Telegraph

David Puttnam, the shameful Oscar-winning producer, blamed Hollywood films for fuelling a culture of bullying in British schools. Puttnam, who produced The Killing Fields, Midnight Express and Chariots of Fire, said films often ignored the consequences of actions.

The Labour peer said films that featured violence and aggression devoid of human consequences were leading to the growth of bullying in the playground, with children imitating what they saw on the big and small screens. He added that films were dumbing down and failing to address real moral problems. For too long the movies have been playing games with reality, playing with it in such a way as to allow actions to become entirely divorced from their consequences, he told a conference in London organised by the Anti-Bullying Alliance. Sensation has come to eclipse almost everything - bigger and better explosions that miraculously don't kill the most important of protagonists; simulated plane crashes in which the right people somehow survive; and most common of all, shootings which manage to create victims without widows or orphans.

His comments follow the death of 12-year-old Nathan Jones, a pupil at King's Wood school in Harold Hill, Essex. He was found hanged at his home in Romford, and Havering council is investigating claims that he was being bullied.

Lord Puttnam, the UK president of Unicef and a former chairman of the General Teaching Council, said the media should be a force for good in promoting the overwhelming value of social coherence.

Speaking after the conference, he was particularly critical of films such as Gangster No 1, Falling Down, Man on Fire and Natural Born Killers.

He admitted that the media was not "wholly to blame" for the rise in bullying, and fell short of calling for tighter censorship. But he urged film makers to think far more deeply about the impact of their work.

Based on an article from The Daily Express

An episode of Dr Who is set to cause inevitable outrage amongst the nutters of Mediawatch-UK. An episode hinting at a sado-masochistic style torture scene with characters using some sexual language has attracted complaint.

The sixth part of the BBC series will go out before the watershed at 7pm later this month. It will depict the central evil character ordering one of his cronies to “canoodle and spoon” the Doctor’s assistant, Rose. In one scene, viewers will watch Van Stratten torturing Dr Who to try to work out his identity by binding the shirtless time traveller to a crucifix with metal shackles.

John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, branded the BBC “irresponsible” for including such inappropriate imagery and language in a pre-watershed show. This is not a programme designed for children, I’m surprised the BBC have gone with this, they should have been more attentive to youngsters. It seems that the broadcasters are taking the view that if youngsters are offended or disturbed by the show, then hard cheese. He called on the BBC to review the scheduling so that it is shown after 9.00pm.

Good to see such a tolerant attitude to this non-crime, after all they could have defined it as theft of dignity and lobbed off a hand or two.

This is the sort of story that would make the "incitement to religious hatred" policy so dangerous. Surely such a justice measure as this deserves to be hated.

From The Guardian

Anyone using camera phones to distribute pornography may face up to 1,000 lashes, a 12-year jail term and a 100,000 riyal ($26,670) fine under a proposed Saudi law, newspapers reported on Saturday.

The conservative Muslim kingdom's consultative 150-member Shura council was expected to endorse the new law soon, local newspapers said.

The state telecommunications regulator earlier this year warned against using third generation (3G) mobile phones for "immoral" purposes.

3G mobile phones can access the Internet, which is strictly controlled in Saudi Arabia, and receive high-quality video clips from adult sites.

A ban was recently overturned on the import and sale of mobile camera phones. Religious leaders said they are used to invade privacy, particularly of women.

The use of camera phones has triggered scuffles at weddings and girls schools after handsets were used to film and distribute pictures of unveiled women, newspapers have reported. Under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic rules, women must cover their heads in public.

There have now been several press items suggesting that the extreme powers underlying the asbo are being abused. We need more control on those who seek asbos on a personal whim.

From The Guardian

A man who published jokes about the Pope's death on a spoof village website, www.lynehamvillage.co.uk, was yesterday threatened with an antisocial behaviour order. Police were asked to investigate after Mitch Hawkin posted a spoof advert for the job of pontiff following the death of John Paul II.

Hawkin's website has been involved in a feud with a similarly named website in Lyneham, Wiltshire. The website said: Fancy a new job? The Vatican is now looking for a new Pope now that the current one has snuffed it. Let's hope the next Pope can do a better job. Better still, why not abolish the position of Pope, as religion, at the end of the day, causes more wars than anything else.

Critics of the spoof site fear that people looking for information about the village will read that site first rather than Andy Humm's more sedate version, whose home page has pictures of daffodils and urges people to pick up litter.

Humm and a local councillor have been pressing for an Asbo to be taken out against the alternative site.
Allison Bucknell, shameful councillor for Lyneham, said: An Asbo is being looked at against Mr Hawkin. He's causing a lot of damage to the community.

The council's antisocial behaviour officer had tried to mediate, but Hawkin did not show up. A Wiltshire police spokesman said investigations were under way after a series of complaints.

From Index on Censorship

Educational IMAX films rejected as blasphemous. Some cinemas have refused to show science movies that mention evolution or the Big Bang because the ideas contradict the Bible.

The 360 degree cinemas are popular features at US science and technology centres, but as educational venues are susceptible to local pressure groups that say the films are blasphemous. The film Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, which discusses the possibility of life on Earth having started around subsea hydrothermal vents has been turned down at several centres; Galapagos, a IMAX film about the islands where Charles Darwin pondered evolution has also been refused showings.

The protests only involve fewer than a dozen cinemas, but the effect could be significant because only a few IMAX theatres show science documentaries. Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote: The desire not to antagonise audiences and to avoid negative business outcomes is entirely understandable. Yet, the suppression of scientifically accurate information as a response to those with differing perspectives is inappropriate and threatens both the integrity of science and the broader public education to which we all are committed.

Based on an article from the BBC

The BBC board of governors has rejected thousands of complaints made over the showing of Jerry Springer: The Opera. The corporation received around 55,000 complaints prior to the screening of the hit West End show, in January, and 8,000 after it had been broadcast.

But the governors' Programme Complaints committee voted by a 4-1 majority not to uphold the complaints. They said the programme's artistic significance outweighed any offence which might have been caused.

The committee said that the offence caused to sizable numbers of viewers should not be taken lightly. However, they added that attempts were made to minimise offence through appropriate scheduling, clear warnings as to the nature of the show, and other programmes which put the broadcast in context.

One governor, Angela Sarkis, disagreed with the decision not to uphold the complaints. Sarkis said she agreed on many points raised by the governors, particularly that the programme was well scheduled and signposted. But she did not agree that the artistic significance outweighed the offence caused by what would have been considered literal portrayal of holy figures by many people.

Stephen Green, National Director of the nutter group Christian Voice, told BBC News he was "very disappointed" with the governors' decision. It's a complete abrogation of their responsibility in my view, he said. It's just too easy to get offended - what offends me the most is censorship.

Earlier this month another nutter group, the Christian Institute applied for a judicial review of the broadcast. The group said the programme breached the BBC's charter and broke the Human Rights Act by discriminating against Christians.

A spokesman for the Church of England said they were disappointed by the outcome. This was a programme that gave rise to unprecedented levels of public concern and, as the governors concede, caused significant offence to large numbers of people.

However, the National Secular Society welcomed the decision. The BBC decided to show Jerry Springer: The Opera not because it wanted to offend people but because it adjudged it to have artistic merit, said vice-president Terry Sanderson.