International Censorship News

The National Commission for Women (NCW) is campaigning for an amendment to a law governing the portrayal of women in media.

Chairperson Girija Vyas urged the industry, particularly the electronic media, to ensure that they did not show women in an 'indecent' manner. Expressing disappointment over the regressive and stereotypical depiction of women in TV serials and ads, Vyas said the NCW would push for an amendment to the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.

Soap operas of the 'saas-bahu' kind reinforce gender stereotypes. This can be dangerous because they condition the thought process of the youth. Ads use provocative images of women to sell products that bear no relation to them, while Bhojpuri music albums contain erotic lyrics and dances. Such influences must be curbed. The past few years have seen a steady rise in crimes against women and the media has the power to influence a change in mindset. Vyas said.

Supreme Court advocate Aparna Bhat has drafted the proposed amendments on behalf of the panel. We recommend the institution of an advisory council comprising women's organisations and advertising professionals. This panel should install screening committees to filter advertisements that are in bad taste. said Bhat.

Using a two-pronged strategy, the panel advised the TV and advertising industries to devise a self-regulatory mechanism of censorship. Panelist Mahesh Bhatt agreed that TV wields the widest influence among the media: I oppose censorship being enforced on creative professionals but news channels and advertisers must self-regulate content.

New Zealand media companies are resisting calls for a combined telecommunications and broadcasting commissioner to regulate the converging industries.

Ministry for Culture officials have opened a hornets' nest of ill feeling in their review of broadcasting regulations.

It is the first time in 20 years that the Government has considered pulling back from New Zealand's laissez faire broadcasting rules.

TVNZ and TV3's owner MediaWorks have called for radical changes including a Telecom-style break up of Sky TV and unbundling its sports rights.

But despite the tough talking against Sky, TVNZ and MediaWorks have joined Sky steering the bureaucrats away from a powerful regulator like the United Kingdom's Ofcom.

It is unclear if any government - whether led by Labour or National after the election - would support a tough regulator. Politicians from both sides have resisted regulations.

Under Labour the Government has cracked down on Telecom with the Telecommunications Commissioner and the Commerce Commission now playing a key role in the running of the industry.

According to a summary of the submissions there was a consensus that a converged regulator should not have both cultural and financial obligations. Broadly speaking media companies were against media ownership rules of any kind while a number of consumers, though not all, were in favour, it said.

Members of the Russian Communist party have called for the new Indiana Jones film to be banned in the county because they say it distorts history.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , set during the Cold War, sees Harrison Ford's character battle Cate Blanchett's evil KGB agent.

St Petersburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told the Reuters news agency it was rubbish . Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?

They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war.

The Associated Press news agency quoted Moscow Communist official Andrei Andreyev as saying: It is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War.

Twenty nine "inappropriate" websites are being investigated for content deemed to be critical of or offensive to the Thai monarchy.

A police source at the High-Tech Crime Centre said a list of inappropriate websites, compiled about a month ago, has been handed over to the Special Branch Police.

The SBP is working with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in tracking down operators or owners of those websites, the source said.

Note that Lese Majeste accusations are sometimes more to do with settling personal scores rather than strident attacks on the monarchy.

The newspapers published the list of sites under investigation. Having compiled the list, the thorny issue of how to block them seems to be causing problems. The recent law suggests that blocking should be via court orders but these have not been obtained. So it seems that the blocking has been delegated to ISPs with assurances that they will not be prosecuted.

See full article from Prachatai

Information and Communications Technology Minister Man Pattanothai said that so far internet service providers had not dared to block websites found to have lèse majesté content for fear of breaching the National Telecommunications Commission law that forbids blocking information flows, with a maximum penalty of licence revocation.

After consulting with the National Telecommunications Commission, the ICT Ministry has assured all ISPs that they will not be subject to the penalty if they block the truly offensive websites, said the Minister.

The National Telecommunications Commission has confirmed with the ministry that blocking websites offensive to the royal family can be carried out without breaching the law. Therefore, the ICT Ministry can guarantee all ISPs that their licenses will not be revoked, said the Minister.

ICT Minister said that there had been an order from ‘high above'
 not to block the websites and to allow the free flow of information, on the grounds that foreigners do not understand the blocking and may form negative perceptions.

See full article from Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed about the comments made by Man Pattanotai, the Thai minister of information and communication technology (ICT), in a radio interview on 14 May. He said prosecuting websites because of their content would cause a “big scandal” and that it was better to just “suppress the news” by closing them down or blocking access.

By voicing a preference for radical censorship measures, the minister is in complete contradiction with the Computer Crime Act, which has been in force since the summer of 2007 and which requires the authorities to bring a complaint against a website before requesting its closure, Reporters Without Borders said: We condemn the reinforcement of online controls, which includes the creation of a toll-free number for people to call to denounce any website criticising the monarchy.

Iranian bloggers and activists have condemned a move by a government panel to block access to several Web sites related to women's issues and human rights.

It's like a big attack , said Parvin Ardalan, who works for www.change4equality.net , a Tehran-based feminist Web site affected by the new restrictions: Now, most sites related to women's and human rights issues have been blocked in one day

Ardalan's site is part of a campaign to collect 1 million signatures aimed at pressuring the government to change what activists call discriminatory laws against women. The authorities want to silence us, she said.

The Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture's supervisory board for the media notified Iranian Internet service providers about the new restrictions, which affected dozens of sites.

This week the European parliament will seek to introduce a new euphemism for genocide into the lexicon of international relations. Diplomats who follow MEPs' advice will no longer have to run the risk of offending countries with a dishonourable history by uttering the 'genocide' word. They can, instead, refer to the most egregious crimes against humanity as "past events".

...

Last month, the Turkish assembly agreed to modify the law, reportedly to placate the EU's most powerful institutions. Out went the crime of insulting Turkishness. In came the crime of insulting the Turkish nation.

Several analysts have concluded - rightly - that this amendment is cosmetic and ambiguous. Yet according to the European commission, it is very much a welcome step forward . The socialist grouping in the European parliament, which includes Britain's Labour MEPs, has made a similar statement ahead of this week's debate.

...Read full article

Singapore has banned access to two pornographic websites in a "symbolic statement" of the country's societal values, its media regulator said.

The two sites, which the regulator declined to identify but local media named as YouPorn and RedTube, work in a similar fashion to popular video-sharing website YouTube. The two Web sites allow users to add and download sex videos.

It should be noted that the hardcore pornographic videos posted on these sites are very easily accessible by the young as each video will start streaming for free once a user clicks on the related link, said Jason Hoong, an official from the Media Development Authority (MDA).

The sites are the latest additions to a list of 100 "mass impact objectionable" pornographic websites banned in Singapore. Singapore, which disallows the possession, distribution and making of pornographic films, defends its action as necessary to protect the young.

A Kuwaiti official has confirmed the country'
s Ministry of Communications is blocking access to adult sites on the Net.

Eng Nasser Al Khandari, director of the Telephones Monitoring Department within the ministry, said the agency also is monitoring the Web for illegal internet telephony.

So far, the ministry has disconnected 85 mobile phones and landlines officials found were being used for connecting to porn sites. The resulting fines brought in KD 32,229, Al Khandari said. Some of the offenders were arrested, he noted.

The ministry has shut down 59 porn websites within the past year.

Internet service in Kuwait is only available to licensed individuals and businesses that have filed applications with the government. The government reserves the right to monitor all internet usage, including that at internet cafes, which have been warned not to allow children younger than 18 to go online.

Of additional concern to the ministry are websites from which users can download mainstream feature films.

The information ministry is planning to block such sites as well, Al Khandari told the daily newspaper Al Seyassah.

Google's Adsense advertising program has sneaked in a wide range of ads that are found to be offensive in Arab and African states.,

These adverts said to trash Arab and African women are being displayed potentially on millions of sites worldwide..

Advertisements such as "Meet Sexy Arab Women - Thousands Sexy Women Online Free! " and Hot Sexy Older Women - Meet Sexy Single Older Women, View Private Photos and Profiles have started appearing on Arabic languages on the Mathaba News Network, whilst English language pages target Muslims with dating services.

As Google are expert in search technology, they know full well that they are allowing ads which are offensive to Arab and African culture which holds women in high respect, unlike the so-called western world, where women are regarded as sex objects , according to Libya's leader Colonel Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi.

Sites that work hard to generate quality content, such as Mathaba News, are hit in the face by offensive advertising that turn visitors away, whilst being unaware of exactly which ads are being served to their visitors.

Google claim that the ads will target the readership and be based upon the content of the page. This is shown to be a lie by the fact that Mathaba is an international news agency with serious content, and its readership do not come to the site to look at sex adverts.

Mathaba has responded by posting a See Nasty Ads - Please Help Us notice on the bottom left of all 60,000 news pages, but it is a losing battle as recently these nasty ads have proliferated to be the norm.

The suspicion is that the few independent news sites like Mathaba may be being targeted with poor quality ads as the revenue has fallen catastrophically over the past year to unsustainable levels, made worse by the collapse of the US Dollar, the only currency Google pay publishers in.

However, Arab men as well as Asian men from Muslim backgrounds are infamous for using the Internet to view "sexy women" and to try to "chat up white women" who are regarded by many of them as "cheap sex objects", spurned to this simplistic view by the proliferation of western women in pornography. This market must be hard for Google to ignore.

Comment: Fair's Fair

And one of the Google ads on the Matahaba news page did in fact read:

Hot Black Women
Find Black Singles Online. Join Our Free Chatrooms, IM & Photo Gallery!
www.BlackSinglesConnection.com

Well if they will include the word 'sexy' so often in their content, what do they expect?

The Vietnam News Agency has reported that the country will have its first network-level Web filtering service later this year.

DTS Corp., Plantynet and Vietnam Datacommunication Co. have agreed to offer Green Internet services starting in November.

The service will enable users to block websites containing pornographic, violent or other objectionable content by blocking access to sites inside and outside Vietnam, with a blocking rate of 99%.

Vietnam Datacommunication representatives said network-based Web filtering would overcome the shortfalls of other methods, such as keyword-based filtering software.

Harmful websites have had a significant negative influence on society and culture, said Vu Hoang Lien, general director of Vietnam Datacommunication. Both government and parents have spent a lot of effort trying to alleviate this adverse impact. The introduction of the Green Internet service is our commitment to families and society to keep the Internet environment ‘green' for our next generation.

Vuong Manh Son, chairman and general director of DTS, said the advantage of the service is that it is impossible for users to disable the Web-blocking function. Son said the Green service has already achieved success in the Republic of Korea, China and Taiwan.

Jerusalem in Israel has effectively banned sex. No, not the act but the three-letter word that appears elsewhere in billboard advertising for the new film Sex and the City.

 Sex in the city became an issue when the advertising company Maximedia told the news media that it would not post billboards featuring Sarah Jessica Parker, above, one of the stars, in deference to requests from city officials concerned about offending public sensitivities by mentioning sex ,

Agence France-Presse reported. Then the distributor, Forum Films, said that without “sex” there would be no billboards in Jerusalem or Petah Tikva, a town near Tel Aviv that has a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. But in other Israeli cities, “sex” in advertising is O.K.

Google is under fire again today for cooperating with Indian police trying to track down an Orkut user who had been rude about a politician.

Police asked Google for user information for the person behind a post called I hate Sonia Gandhi - Gandhi being a Congress party politician. Google provided an IP number and email address which were used to identify Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid.

On Friday Vaid was arrested at home and charged with uploading obscene and derogatory text in breach of section 292 of the Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act, according to ExpressIndia.

Google, which owns Orkut, sent us the following statement: Google supports the free expression of our users and is committed to protecting user privacy [...BUT...] Like all law-abiding companies, we comply with local laws and valid legal process, such as court orders and subpoenas. In compliance with valid Indian legal process, we provided Indian law enforcement authorities with the IP address information they requested in this case.

Vaid has been remanded in custody until 21 May.

The Hamas-run Telecommunications Ministry will start blocking websites deemed unfit according to Islamic rules.

This was made possible after a deal was struck with the Palestinian telecommunications company, said Ihab al-Hussain, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, adding that the plan went into effect last week.

Hamas said that the ban was to ... protect the Palestinian community from cultural pollution and to protect the young generations from the misuse of the Internet through viewing pornographic sites.

Websites featuring Malaysian couples, women in traditional headgear and students has prompted a group to urge authorities to block the sites.

The Harian Metro reported that more than 4,000 video clips and photographs were posted on several websites and showed Malaysians in various sexual acts.

The Negri Sembilan Umno Youth organization has set up a team to monitor the websites and gather information to present to authorities, and leader Datuk Jamlus Aziz has asked officials to block access to the sites.

Nintendo have banned the use of any Miis named Hitler from Mario Kart Wii's online mode.

According to GoNintendo, anyone trying to enter a race using a Mii with the name, will see this a screen requiring a change  of name.

The Israeli Knesset has decided to freeze legislation regulating readers'
 ability to respond to articles via the so-called “Talkback Law”, in an effort to allow web sites to practice self-regulation.

The Talkback Law, submitted by MK Israel Hasson (Yisrael Beiteinu), passed its preliminary reading. It would make web sites responsible for the talkbacks (user generated comments) of its readers as though they were articles of the site itself.

Reporters Without Borders is astonished that access to the video-sharing website YouTube has again been blocked again in Turkey since 5 May as a result of court orders issued by Ankara magistrate courts on 24 and 30 April. The grounds for blocking the website were not given in either case.

Reporters Without Borders said. This is the third time in less than two months that YouTube has been blocked in Turkey. The authorities do not need to block an entire website just because of a few videos they consider ‘shocking.'
 Doing this is an abuse, as YouTube is able to stop the distribution of offending videos in any given country.”

Law 5651 on the organisation of online publications and the fight against crime committed by means of such publications, in effect since November 2007, enables a prosecutor to get a website banned within 24 hours if its content is deemed likely to incite suicide, paedophilia, drug use, obscenity, prostitution or offend the memory of Atatrk, the Turkish republic'
s founder.

This law opens the door to too many abuses, Reporters Without Borders said. Its collateral damage has included the blocking of entire sites such as YouTube, Indymedia Istanbul and WordPress. We urge the authorities to amend Law 5621 so that people can express themselves freely on the Internet again. Turkey has a legislative arsenal that places too many restrictions on freedom of expression.

Censorship in Thailand has always been accomplished by government in secret. The number of websites blocked, its blocklists and the methods it uses to block have never been disclosed to the Thai public..

However, the new cybercrime law required that the government seek a court order before blocking. However, since passage of the law, Web censorship has become far murkier, with Thailand'
s 100 ISPs blocking blocking independently in order to avoid being criminalised under the law for illegal content transiting their servers. And no court orders have been requested.

Now ISPs are required to keep all Internet traffic logs for 90 days. Two cyber-dissidents have already been arrested under the new law tracked by their IP addresses for comments they made on Thailand'
s monarchy to public Web discussion boards.

Make no mistake: Internet censorship is illegal in Thailand under at least 11 articles of the 1997 Constitution, by decree of the lawmakers'
 Council of State and by order of the Administrative Court. Has this stopped the censors? Didn'
t even slow them now.

Now Thailand'
s newly-elected government and its new ICT Minister are using lèse majesté as its ongoing excuse to block freedom of opinion and expression by Thais on issues vital to our society.

The past few weeks have seen YouTube blocked again as well as Prachatai, Thailand'
s foremost independent news portal and Same Sky, a journal of social criticism. Both sites have popular public Web discussion boards. In the past, both sites have been warned by MICT to self-censor “sensitive” public comments.

However, both Prachatai and Same Sky were closed this week without court order by the ICT Minister who was interviewed on May 14 on the Khao Den Praden Ron radio news programme. His comments reveal that, not only was he completely aware he was acting above the law, but that suggestion for the censorship came from those higher up in Thai government.

Quoting the Minister: [Pursuing legal action] will…become a big scandal. We'
d better suppress the news. Someone higher than me is of this opinion . This means, of course, that the rose-apple is rotten to its core and that Thai bureaucrats engage in criminal acts with impunity.

Portal Web sites or peer-to-peer program managers will be obliged to screen out pornographic material while those uploading such video clips with IP addresses overseas will be censored.

Also, more surveillance cameras will be installed at schools to watch over possible sexual assaults and the government will provide software blocking such lewd material online, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.

The plan is part of the government's projects to fight against lewd material on television, the internet and elsewhere in order to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content.

The government is cracking down on online pornography distributors with 3,300 experts investigating user-created clips and other video material by the end of the month. Also, more counselors will be placed at schools to talk about sexual problems with the students from July.

The Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs focused on cable television providers, widely criticized for airing sexually explicit programs nearly all day long. The so-called "Youth Protection Timeline'' where TV stations cannot air lewd programs will be expanded from 6am to midnight throughout the week and 10 am to 10pm on weekends and holidays.

The ministry's suggestion in revising the Youth Protection Law is based on research results indicating more than 38% of programs aired between 10 pm. and midnight in 2007 were inappropriate for children to watch.

The government's strong measures are kneejerks to claims that offenders of recent gang rapes among elementary school students in Daegu testified that they received information from pornography online and erotic films on cable television.

According to anasonline blog, access to Wikipedia Arabic , the Arabic language version of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is now blocked by all ISPs in Syria.

FiguresA voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and internet commentators is supported by almost half of all internet users, a survey has claimed.

The researchers said 46 per cent of web users believe bloggers should agree to a set of guidelines which reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property rights and incitement.

Four per cent strongly opposed the suggestion and 15 per cent had no opinion.

Just one in three of the web users questioned said they had ever read the legal terms and conditions of the sites they use, despite 14 per cent having had material removed for breaching the terms.
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The report also indicated that three quarters of internet users who comment on blogs are unaware that could be breaking libel laws.

Under the laws, it is the person commenting rather than the site hosting the comment who is liable for any offence.

The survey was conducted by legal firm DLA Piper.

Duncan Calow, of DLA Piper, said: "The combination of confusion and complacency about the relationship between the law and user-generated content puts users at risk as they come under increasing scrutiny online.

"It is clear that many internet users would benefit from some clearer guidance about posting comment online."

Yury Samodurov, the director of the Andrey Sakharov Museum and Public Center, has been summoned to a Russian Investigative Committee for questioning.

He is to be indicted and questioned on a case opened about a year ago into the organization of an exhibition entitled the Forbidden Art-2006 at the Andrey Sakharov Museum in March 2007.

The exhibition Forbidden Art-2006 in Moscow in March, 2007, included Mickey Mouse, Lenin, pornography pictures, and obscene sexual slang painted on crucifix and other Christian symbols, which are to be observed through holes in a sheet.

According to the Sakharov Museum official website, the Forbidden Art-2006 showed the art pieces banned by directors or art councils of Moscow museums and galleries in 2006.

The exhibition has caused indignation in the Orthodox community and clerics.

Officials from China's Technology Ministry took a somewhat odd opportunity to speak about its censorship plans during a press conference after the Olympic torch relay crossed Mount Everest. They said that while the government would be able to guarantee as much [access] as possible, there's no way that China would turn off the Great Firewall entirely during the Games.

China has always been very cautious when it comes to the Internet, Technology Minister Wan Gang said, according to Reuters. I've not got any clear information about which sites will be shut or screened. But to protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy web sites.

Wan's statement comes just over a month after the International Olympic Committee reminded China of its obligations as an Olympic host city to allow the press to report as freely as they have in the past which usually includes full, unfettered access to the Internet. The IOC insisted to the government that the Internet be open at all times during Games time, and commission vice chairman Kevan Gosper appeared optimistic that China would comply.

The IOC may have little recourse on China's decision to maintain some degree of filtering. One option for the organization is to insist on a list of things that would be blocked, such as porn sites, to ensure that the international media has free access to all of the sites it needs. However, China's vague description of unhealthy web sites gives it plenty of wiggle room.

China defends its decision by pointing out that it's not the only country to filter the Internet. Every country limits access to some web sites. Even in developed countries not every site can be accessed, Wan said. It's true that some countries do restrict the free flow of information to a degree, but very few do it as strictly as China. And, China did agree to open up the Net as part of its agreement with the IOC.

See full article from Prachatai

Athletes who wave the Tibetan flag or wear traditional dress while at the Beijing Olympics, could find themselves sanctioned under Article 51 (3) of the Olympic Charter according to guidelines issued in April by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The penalties for such a "crime" however, remain unknown.

In keeping with the conduct of China, the current Olympic host country, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken it upon itself to quash even the slightest sign of political expression, said ARTICLE 19 and Reporters Without Borders: The free expression of athletes is being denounced and silenced before our very eyes.

Article 51 (3) of the Olympic Charter affirms that No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas." Perhaps due to growing international attention, National Olympic Committees (NOCs) recently asked the IOC to provide an interpretation of this Article. In a six-point letter sent to NOCs in April, the IOC outlined that The conduct of participants at all sites, areas and venues includes all actions, reactions, attitudes or manifestations of any kind by a person or group of persons, including but not limited to their look, external appearance, clothing, gestures, and written or oral statements.

ARTICLE 19 and RSF call on the International Olympic Committee to immediately amend or interpret Article 51 (3) of the Olympic Charter so that it is compatible with international human rights principles on freedom of expression stemming from ARTICLE 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The right of Olympic athletes to openly comment on the situation of human rights in China or other countries must be upheld.

A Roman Catholic newspaper cleared its first legal hurdle in its fight against a Malaysian government ban on Christians using the word "Allah" as a synonym for "God."

High Court Judge Lau Bee Lan ruled that prosecutors' objection to a lawsuit by The Herald weekly was without merit. The judge said she will allow the paper to contest the government ban in court.

The government says the word "Allah" refers only to the Muslim God and its use by Christians might confuse Muslims. It has threatened to revoke the paper's publishing license if it defies the order.

The Herald also wants a court declaration that "Allah" is not for exclusive use by Muslims. The court agreed that the church's application is not frivolous nor vexatious nor an abuse of process. It deserves to be heard, said Derek Fernandez, a lawyer for the newspaper.

The court will set a trial date later, Fernandez told reporters.

The Herald  insists that "Allah" is an Arabic word that predates Islam and has been used for centuries to mean "God" in Malay.

In a separate case in Malaysia, the Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has also filed a lawsuit in an effort to be allowed to use "Allah" after officials last year banned the import of books containing the word. Hearings in that case were still in the preliminary stages.

The United Arab Emirates has banned Grand Theft Auto IV.

Some gamers, however, have found a way around the loophole by purchasing the game from the duty-free shop at Dubai Airport. The Abu Dhabi airport, however was not stocking the game.

The ban is not surprising, given that past GTA games have been banned in the UAE.

See New Zealand Herald

New Zealand shop assistants are reporting a dilemma of how to say no to parents demanding to buy Grand Theft Auto IV with their 14-year-old beside them.

The Censor office's advice was to stand firm. If it's perfectly obvious the parent is buying the game for the child, don't sell it to the parent, says chief censor Bill Hastings. If a game is R18 it's R18 for a reason and it's illegal to make it available to anyone under that age.

It's possible the adults buying the game for minors are unaware that they could face three months in prison or a $10,000 fine for their actions. Or perhaps they're thumbing their nose at a law that, although it's been in place since 1994, has yet to be enforced against parents.

But Hastings argues fear of being caught shouldn't be the driving force here, it should be doing the right thing - especially for your kids. The game gets its R18 rating largely because of its violence and, thanks to advances in game software and hardware, because it is very realistic.

Iran'
s culture minister has reacted to publishers'
 criticisms of the country'
s evaluation process by urging writers to censor their own books if they hoped for publication in the Islamic republic.

At a news conference the minister, Mohammad Hossein Safar, said: This is what we ask publishers and writers, ‘You are aware of the vetting code, so censor pages which are likely to create a dispute.'
   

Declaring that publications should conform to the system'
s religious, moral and national sensitivities, he warned against graphic descriptions of relationships or sex, saying, It is a clear violation of the law to give an excessive portrayal of a man and woman'
s private relationships and to subject our youth and adults to descriptions of intercourse, adding that if anyone makes fun of religion, be it Islam or Christianity, the country should not allow opposition to God to be reflected in the media.

All publications in Iran must be approved by the Culture Ministry. Publishers have complained of tighter censorship of new books since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in 2005. The culture minister made his remarks in reply to a recent letter from the Tehran Publishers Association complaining that the ministry employed a prolonged and arbitrary vetting process.

In the latest twist on Internet repression, governments don't just censor, they scare. Last week, for example, the Chinese government broadcast a text message to cell-phone users in Lhasa, Tibet, where Beijing has cracked down on protests in recent weeks. The message demanded that users "obey the law" and "follow the rules," and no protester could have mistaken the meaning, or the messenger. If the government also managed to terrify even quiet, apolitical citizens, Chinese and Tibetan—well, so be it. Repression 2.0 is not a precise technology.

The essence of the new repression is a form of surveillance in which the spies make their presence known in order to seem like they are everywhere. This strategy has emerged in recent years as authoritarian governments, led by China, have realized there are too many people online to control. State censors can't keep eyes on the 210 million Internet users in China, the 18 million in Iran, nor the 6 million in Egypt. The idea is not just to stop people from finding "dangerous" material online. It's to create an atmosphere in which none will seek it.

...Read full article

An advocacy organization reported this week that Chinese authorities now accuse a Beijing businessman of being a dangerous religious element – which a long-time friend dismissed as contrary to Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan'
s gentle, patriotic nature.

Authorities have been slow to reveal charges against Shi, who after his original arrest for illegal business practices on November 28, 2007 was released on January 4 due to insufficient evidence. He was re-arrested on March 19, according to his wife Zhang Jing, for printing Bibles and Christian literature.

Until last week he had been denied a visit by his attorney. Following that visit, China Aid Association reported that authorities were holding Shi at the Beijing Municipal Detention Center as a dangerous religious element.

During the meeting with his attorney, Shi'
s talk was interrupted by the guards on several occasions and he received a warning, according to a statement by CAA. Interrogation of Shi, the lawyer told CAA, has centered on his relationship with foreigners, especially those from the United States.

Long-time friend Ray Sharpe said that Shi'
s many foreign relationships as a travel agent may have raised undue suspicions by Chinese authorities.

Update: Still Being Held

23rd June 2008

Despite having held Shi beyond the time legally allowed, absent formal charges or a court hearing, the Public Security Bureau still refuses to allow his family or attorney to see him,” said a source close to Shi'
s lawyer. Claiming an ongoing investigation in what they are calling ‘a complex case,'
 they have managed to hold the owner of a legally registered Christian bookstore in an undisclosed location without giving any assurances that he is receiving his needed diabetic medicine.

The Public Security Bureau has stated that it will delay action on the case indefinitely, raising questions about Shi'
s health and safety.

Update: Denied Medication

9th September 2008

Shi Weihan is awaiting the outcome of an August 19 court appearance and may be back in court within 10 days, according to Compass sources.

Denied proper medication and diet for his diabetes, Shi is almost “unrecognizable” due to severe weight loss, according to family members.

A US senator accused the Chinese government on Thursday of ordering US-owned hotels in China to install Internet filters that can spy on international visitors coming to see the summer Olympic games.

Senator Sam Brownback made the charge at a Capitol Hill news conference where he and other lawmakers denounced China's record of human rights abuses and urged President Bush not to attend the Olympic's opening ceremonies in Beijing.

This is wrong, it's against international conventions, it's certainly against the Olympic spirit, Brownback said. The Chinese government should remove that request and that order.

Brownback said he has seen the language of memos received by at least two US-owned hotels. He declined to name them, and said he obtained the information from two reliable but confidential sources in the hope that public pressure would persuade the Chinese government to back off the demand.

The filters could enable the government to monitor Web sites viewed by hotel guests and restrict Internet information coming in and out of China, Brownback said.

The senator called China the foremost enabler of human rights abuses around the world" and said the Chinese government is turning the summer games into an Olympics of oppression.

In Singapore, Grand Theft Auto IV has been rated Mature 18 (M18).

This is the first game to be classified under the new rating system here.

American Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has issued a statement critical of the opportunities for virtual drunk driving in GTA IV :

Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. This is why MADD is extremely disappointed by the decision of the manufacturers of the game Grand Theft Auto IV to include a game module where players have to drive drunk.

Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100% preventable. MADD is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, a step up from the current rating of Mature and for the manufacturer to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.

See full article from Game Politics

A member of New Zealand'
s Parliament has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto IV . Independent MP Gordon Copeland told Scoop:

Sadly New Zealand has become a violent society. Our criminal courts are almost log jammed with cases involving murder, manslaughter, rape, and other heinous crimes. Our jails are overflowing. A recent study has indicated that, on a per capita basis, New Zealand is now twice as violent as the USA.

As David Rossman, one of the world's foremost experts in the field of violent crime, has said These (video games) are actually killing simulators and they teach... to kill in much the same way the astronauts on Apollo 11 learned how to fly to the moon.

Simply stated, it is time to reverse the tide of violence in New Zealand. We have to have the courage somewhere, sometime, to say “no” and I agree with kiwi parents and the police, that this is not a bad place to start.

See full article from Spong

Kevin Brookwell, quoted in Canada's The Calgary Sun newspaper said:

From the Calgary Police Service perspective, we see these types of video games as a grave concern.

Because of the lack of consequences and even reward, (youth) don't understand the impact violence can have . In some cases, those very games may be training grounds for people to commit criminal activity.

Turkey's parliament has voted to amend Article 301, a controversial law that limited free speech by permitting the prosecution of people for "insulting Turkishness."

Under the changes, which must still be approved by the country'
s president, insulting Turkishness would no longer be a crime, but insulting the Turkish nation could still land you in prison.

According to Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for The Economist magazine, the distinction between insulting Turkishness and insulting the Turkish nation isn'
t any clearer in Turkish than it is in translation. That leaves many people wondering how to interpret the revision to Article 301.

The European Union demanded that Turkey drop restrictions on free speech as a precondition to eventually joining the bloc. The government-sponsored amendment to Article 301 appears to be an attempt to satisfy the EU, as well as Turkish nationalists. And in Zaman'
s assessment, it will probably do neither.

I think that this was a sort of balancing act, Zaman says, and I think in the process they fell off the tightrope, because neither the nationalists -- who they were trying to appease -- sound terribly happy, nor does the EU. In fact, we've heard many EU officials, at least in private, complain that this was just a cosmetic change and didn't go anywhere near addressing their concerns about free expression in Turkey.

The one concrete change from the amendment is that the maximum jail time for the offense will now be two years, rather than the previous three-year term.

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has conceded it can do nothing about some of the content of the YouTube website considered as lese majeste and against the Thai monarchy, apart from seeking cooperation from the webmaster.

Pol Col Yarnpol Yangyuen, the chief of the DSI's office of technology cases and examination centre, said YouTube is an international website based in another country, so the DSI cannot take legal action against it for lese majeste.

But the DSI has asked YouTube's webmasters to block such content on their website and expects to soon reach agreement about the lese majeste content on the site, said Pol Col Yarnpol.

The Surayud Chulanont government last year slapped a ban on YouTube after clips about the royal family were posted on the site. The ban was later lifted after YouTube operator Google agreed to install filters to bar people in Thailand from gaining access to those clips. However, some controversial content remains on the website.

Pol Col Yarnpol also said that the DSI would not meddle with politically motivated websites and would maintain its neutrality. He added that the DSI would not take action against the publication of internet content aimed at discrediting politicians or websites considered as politically motivated. The department does not want to become a political tool for any political group [by interfering in politically-motivated websites],' said Pol Col Yarnpol.

The boss of Edinburgh video game company Rockstar North has said critics of the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto IV title are the same kind of people who complained about Elvis.

Leslie Benzies, the president of the Capital-based firm, made the claim amid waves of protest aimed at the game, which is due to be released tomorrow.

Benzies said the Grand Theft Auto games were victims of the same kind of misplaced moral panic that had greeted the early days of rock'n'roll.

He added: There is a big fear factor here. It's (like) the coming of the railways, it's Elvis shaking his hips. It's cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode. We've had such a beating over the past three years, by the US government, the British government, the Daily Mail. 'You kill prostitutes' – that's usually the objection. I ask if they've ever played the game. Invariably they haven't.

Benzies' reaction comes after top neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield, said yesterday that the rush of continually winning and losing at computer games produces "hits" of dopamine – a euphoria-inducing chemical that has also been linked to drug dependency. She added the long-term result could be damage to a part of the brain that is key to forming personality.

However, another leading neuroscientist, Stafford Lightman, professor of medicine at Bristol University, says there is "no evidence at all" for Baroness Greenfield's theory about the longer-term personality effect.

See review from the New York Times

Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun.

It calls to mind a rollicking R-rated version of Mad magazine featuring Dave Chappelle and Quentin Tarantino, and sets a new standard for what is possible in interactive arts.

It is by far the best game of the series, which made its debut in 1997 and has since sold more than 70 million copies.

The lawsuit by the archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur against the government of Malaysia has been adjourned until April 29. The archdiocese is claiming the right to use the word "Allah" in its Catholic weekly, the Herald.

The standoff over the use of the word "Allah" is just one more chapter in the difficulties facing the majority Muslim country, where a secular constitution is accompanied by Islamic courts charged with applying sharia.

On December 10, the domestic security ministry had prohibited the Malay-language section of the Herald from using the word "Allah" to designate the Christian God, claiming it could be used in this way only by Muslims. Fr Andrew Lawrence, the director of the newspaper, was forced to accept the restriction, but the archdiocese decided to sue the government.

The archbishop of the capital, Murphy Pakiam, maintains that the domestic security minister and the federal government are making a mistake: I am advised by my solicitors that I have a legal right to use the word 'Allah' in the Herald, and this legal right stems from the right to freedom of speech and expression as enshrined in Article 10 of the Federal Constitution.

Archbishop Pakiam further reports that he has been under constant pressure from the government to conform to the "directives". At the same time, numerous threats have been issued, creating a climate of "apprehension".

The bishop concludes by describing as unreasonable and irrational" the justification of the ministry, according to which the use of the word "Allah" is a security issue which is purportedly causing much confusion and which threatens and endangers peace, public order and security". Over thirteen years of publication, he adds, no article in the Herald has ever caused any incidents.

Family First NZ is calling for the latest version of the Grand Theft Auto video game series to be banned in NZ.

Grand Theft Auto IV is scheduled for release this week. It follows on from previous Grand Theft Auto games which included constant graphic violence and sexual situations. Players could re-enact having sex with a prostitute, beating her bloody, taking her money and running her over with a car and shooting at police officers.

Rockstar Games which produces the game says the company is going even further in its pursuit of realism with this latest game in the series and players can buy cocaine, set enemies alight, shoot a policeman, drink drive, and visit strip clubs – all with improved physics and animation which makes the game feel more real, according to reviewers.

In Australia the graphic violence contained in the game was modified to meet an MA15+ rating, still with warnings of strong violence, strong coarse language, drug and sexual references. The Australian censorship board warned that as the violence is relatively frequent, causing blood spray and injury detail, the impact is strong.

It is completely naïve to believe that teenagers and young children won't have access to and be able to play the game, says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ: It is also completely unrealistic to believe that young people will not be influenced in their attitudes and behaviours by constant exposure to this type of material.

Family First says that with concerns in the increasing rates of juvenile violent and sexual offending, it is time we acted to protect our young people and communities from the effects and influences of these extreme types of video games.

So-called 'entertainment' and freedom of expression should never be at the expense of the safety of our community, appropriate emotional and moral development of our children, and promoting acceptable attitudes towards women, violence and law enforcement, says McCoskrie.

However, such is the popularity of the title that big electronics stores are planning midnight openings to cash in on demand from gamers.

he Russian prosecutor's office wants tough anti-extremism laws to be extended to the Internet, state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported, prompting fears of growing media censorship.

The prosecutors office has proposed a legal amendment to bring the Internet under the same rules as printed media, Vyacheslav Sizov, a top official at the prosecutor general's office told the daily.

Newspapers deemed in court to have published extremist material can be shut down under current laws. The new proposal is for any website deemed to have hosted extremist material to be blocked by providers in Russia within a month, Sizov said.

The extremism law has already come under fire from human rights activists, who say its sweeping nature is open to abuse by officials wanting to outlaw legitimate criticism.

Sweden has decided not to ban sexist advertising, saying it would risk undermining the country's cherished right to freedom of speech.

But the decision puts the country at odds with its Nordic neighbours. Norway and Denmark have strict limits on the use of such images for commercial gain.

In Norway, sexist advertising has been banned since 2003. The ban forms part of a much broader package of legal limits on advertising, protecting the depiction of religion, sexuality, race and gender.

Basically, if something is offensive or it makes the viewer feel uncomfortable when they look at it, it shouldn't be done , explained Sol Olving, head of Norway's Kreativt Forum, an association of the country's top advertising agencies: Naked people are wonderful, of course, but they have to be relevant to the product. You could have a naked person advertising shower gel or a cream, but not a woman in a bikini draped across a car."

Norwegian firms that refuse to remove or alter offensive adverts after having a complaint upheld face a hefty fine of 500,000 Norwegian kroner (£49,000; 62,500 euros).

Both Norway and Denmark are keen to emphasise that their advertising limits do not prevent freedom of speech, stifle creativity or mean that there is never a beautiful naked human form on display.

Denmark's advertising ombudsman Henrik Oe says many advertisers are becoming increasingly creative, using humour to stretch the boundaries and appeal to Danish consumers. He says he receives only around 10 complaints about sexist advertising each year and that firms normally remove the offending images quickly.

Sweden, however, despite commissioning a special government rapporteur to look into the matter, is not following the legal professor's advice that freedom of speech does not extend to commercial messages and limits are needed.

This law would be against freedom of speech, which is protected by the constitution , said Malin Engstedt, spokesperson for Equality Minister Nyamko Sabuni: The minister is not convinced that this law would improve things.

See Also:

• Sexist ice cream enrages Swedish consumer watchdog
  
  The Swedish Consumers Association (Sveriges Konsumentråd) has reacted angrily to one of the ice pops in GB's new line. 'Girlie', a star-shaped, pink ice-cream with glitter make-up stored inside the stick, is entirely inappropriate, according to the association...
   
• Jägermeister - Sexist advertising?
   
• Sweden mulls ban on sexist ads
   
• Underwear ads slammed as 'too sexy'
   
• Swedish transport bosses ban boobs
   
• Underwear campaign bottoms out in Sweden
   
• Swedish school stops topless hockey pics
   
• Female road sign rejected

Rape is a crime punishable with lengthy prison sentences in a court of law in Thailand. Yet this criminal act seems to be legal and accepted in the country's most popular night-time TV soap operas. This perpetuation of an inhumane act must end and only the main television networks have the power to do it.

Here the author makes a specific call to Channel 3 and Channel 7 to terminate any future soap dramas containing plot lines that justify rape. The script writers of our television dramas are better than this. They can do more than recycle old storylines written in a backward time when apparently, and unfortunately, men were seen as superior to women and invincible to the application of the law.

I am not going to lie and tell you that I don't enjoy the verbal spat between Teeradej Wongpuapan (Ken) and Ann Thongprasom (Ann) on screen. The exchanges are dramatic and the scenes are excitingly heated every Wednesday and Thursday evening on Channel 3. The lead character is the troubled son of a rich businessman who apparently has not been brought up properly. The father's role is especially craftily acted by veteran actor Dilok Tongwattana. The self-obsessed son attempts to gain the attention of his multi-time married father while trying his best, for the major part of the series, to make his father's new wife jealous of his increasingly intense relationship with the lead female character played by Ann. The plot of Sawan Bieng ( Heaven Unwilling ) is an old one. It is normal practice among TV drama production companies to recycle famous though perennially used screenplays, with a bit of adaptation.

All that is fine and these soaps draw huge ratings. The drama of Sawan Bieng , however, in the end becomes based on a love that is spawned by the sexual violence between the lead male and female characters. Ken vengefully rapes Ann to get back at her sister who happens to be his dad's new wife. Still, as time passes, Ann falls in love with Ken. He is not prosecuted for his criminal invasion of another person's sexual inviolateness. Worse, soon afterwards he gets away with the act by having the victim come to terms, to "appreciate" what has been done to her. She effectively falls for him as a ridiculous "logical consequence" of the sexual violence perpetrated on her. Such is the storyline of the country's most popular TV drama series at the moment.

The other one, on Channel 7, is about slavery during the latter years of King Rama V's reign. And, guess what, a slave girl's falling in love with her master is the central premise of this very popular remake. It is great that Nang Thas (Female Slave) does not necessarily justify rape; it however posits the possibility of a slave being able to come to "appreciate" her being owned and then being impregnated.

For these to be the highest-rated and most talked-about evening series in this country is for us to accept that our culture enjoys sexual violence and hierarchical dominance over women. This is something I don't think I or the people of this country should accept.

Enough is enough. It is time for a change. Change in this sense does not have to be time-requiring. The entertainment industry is packed with talented writers who can put together some of the most socially-adaptive, humanely-appropriate, as well as mass audience-acceptable screenplays. Why rehash ancient scripts from recycled plots which have all been used before? Why not have storylines that move along with a culture that presumably progresses?

Some say art imitates life, but what if - just what if - life in practice actually imitates art? We, as people working in the media and entertainment industry, owe it to our culturally advancing society to influence the Thai nation in the best ways possible.

There is no conceivable way to comprehend a boy growing up watching his favourite soap and all the while learning from that drama that the best way to get a girl is to hold her captive and rape her. If these soaps don't change, boys will grow up to become men who think and act like the lead characters in Sawan Bieng .

European electronics retailer Media Markt was sued by a Swiss politician for selling John Woo's Stranglehold . To be more precise, Roland Näf sued the manager of a local branch of Media Markt.

Now, the reason Näf is doing this is that he wants to see how effective this law is when used against video games. He states that Swiss law isn't strict enough in that respect. Even though the video game industry voluntarily uses a system that prohibits selling overly violent games to minors, kids could still easily get their hands on them, especially since the law doesn't forbid giving the games to them.

So Näf wants to ban video games from being produced or sold at all. He wants prohibition.

Actually, he already tried to change the law but was turned down by the parliament. They said that the law as it is now was good enough and that no connection between video games and violent minors was evident.

Good to know that there are some politicians who actually think about the matter instead of lashing out irrationally.

They've been bombed three times, received death threats and stood before the red-robed justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.

No, Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth are not killers or terrorists. The soft-spoken Vancouver men sell books. And in some peoples' eyes, Deva says, that made the gay owners of Little Sister's Book & Art Emporium dangerous.

Only two years after the store opened in 1983, the owners took on a fight that bolstered and exhausted them, lasting until just last year and challenging Canada's censorship laws.

After 23 years of fighting Canada Customs' seizures of books bound for the gay and lesbian bookshop, the partners have put Little Sister's up for sale.

It's time to do something else, Deva says as he plans to get a choir booked for the store's 25th anniversary celebrations: It's probably time to pass on the torch hopefully to some younger, energetic people who are willing to work with our store. I'm not in a rush. We're going to take our time.

The fight against Customs put the store at the forefront of the battle against censorship in Canada. Among books seized were Jean Genet's Querelle , Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant , Joe Orton's Prick Up Your Ears , The Joy of Gay Sex and The Joy of Lesbian Sex .

I think it's our tenacity. We just wouldn't give up and came back again and again at them from every angle we could figure out.

But after all the court battles, Deva believes Canada Customs has developed a respect for the gay community's literature and imagery: They know that . . . when they make a sort of pronouncement on a book that they may well have to defend that. We still disagree with the process but it's certainly fairer than it was 20 years ago.

A bookstore owner in Beijing has been re-arrested for publishing Bibles and Christian literature after he had been released in January due to “insufficient evidence.”

Shi Weihan was re-arrested on March 19 and has been held without any family visits allowed, according to his wife Zhang Jing. Shi was first arrested on November 28, 2007, and held until January 4.

His wife said she had received no word on her husband's condition, and she has been prohibited from bringing him any food or change of clothing since his re-arrest.

Operating a bookstore located near the Olympic Village, Shi had never had any problems with authorities before his arrest last November, according to a long-time friend. His bookstore operated legally, and it sold only books for which he had obtained government permission.

The arrest of Shi appears to be part of a crackdown on religious groups that the government fears could raise dissident voices during Olympic Games set to begin in August.

The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracking site, has launched a blogging service where bloggers won't have to fear censorship.

The new blogging site, dubbed BayWords, is powered by Wordpress and will eventually make money off ads.

The Pirate Bay already has an uncensored image-hosting site call BayIMG and has confirmed it is working on an uncensored video-hosting site.

Brokep, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, told blog TorrentFreak that the group decided to launch BayWords after a friend's Wordpress blog was removed for linking to copyrighted material.

Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas," the group wrote on the BayWords home page. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don't break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it.

Russia's recently formed regulatory super-agency, Rossvyazokhrankultura (short for the Russian Mass Media, Communications and Cultural Protection Service) has propose an ominous-sounding policy of requiring registration for every Wi-Fi device and hotspot.

Rossvyazokhrankultura's interpretation of current law holds that users must register any electronics that use the frequency involved in Wi-Fi communications, said Vladimir Karpov, the deputy director of the agency's communications monitoring division.

Aside from public hotspots, the registration requirement also applies to home networks, laptops, smart phones and Wi-Fi-enabled PDAs, Karpov reportedly said. Registration only permits use by the owner.

Registration for personal devices is said to take 10 days, but registering a hotspot - including a home network - is more complicated, involving a set of documents and technological certifications.

Any networks in Moscow or St. Petersburg need the additional approval of two federal agencies, Karpov said: Setting up a home Wi-Fi network or a hotspot would require what sounds like vast amounts of paperwork, akin to putting a cell tower, commented wireless pundit Glenn Fleishman.

Based on article from The Other Russia

Russia's Public Chamber, which oversees draft legislation and advises the Parliament, has upheld recent legislation that would regulate information on the internet. Members of the panel, which was formed by President Vladimir Putin in 2005, met at an extended session of the Committee for communications, informational policy and freedom of speech in the media. The group discussed legislation introduced by prosecutors that would put controls on cyberspace and attempt to keep the web free of supposedly immoral and unethical materials.

Senator Vladimir Slutsker, a Federation Council delegate from Chuvashiya who introduced his own version of an internet regulation bill in February, said that a new law was needed since the relevance of the regular law on mass-media was questionable. It is not clearly written into the law itself, and [cases] are now given up to the buy-out of the courts.

Nearly all the speakers agreed that controls on the internet must be reinforced.

One of the few dissenting voices came from Mikhail Fedotov, a Secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists, who co-authored Russia's the original draft law on mass-media. Fedotov asserted that a single amendment to the law on mass-media, which would allow for prosecuting slander on the web, would suffice.

This month, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to soften the controversial Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it a crime to "denigrate Turkishness."

The law has been used to prosecute numerous intellectuals (more...) who dared to speak out about the 1915 Armenian killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, most notably Turkish Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and journalist Hrant Dink.

The bill to amend article 301 was approved by a parliamentary committee on Friday and is set to go to the floor on Tuesday.

AKP's original proposed amendment of Article 301 would have required prosecutors to seek approval from the Turkish president before filing any charges under the law. But sources in parliament say that, under pressure from the opposition, the draft has been changed so that the Ministry of Justice would be responsible for approval. The new law would also lower the maximum prison sentence from three to two years and thereby open the way for the suspension of prison terms. In Turkey, a prison sentence that does not exceed two years can be suspended by the court unless the offender commits the same crime again. With AKP controlling more than 60%of the seats in parliament, the measure is expected to pass by a comfortable margin.

But lawyer Cetin, who represents Dink's Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, doesn't believe the change will make a difference for intellectuals in Turkey. She said that even the revised version of Article 301 could still be applied arbitrarily.

It is obvious that this amendment will not change anything, because its substance hasn't been changed, she said. There are taboos, and when you break them the state reacts in a knee-jerk way. These taboos include the Cyprus conflict, the Kurdish and the Armenian issue. And this causes self-censorship, which is the most dangerous one.

But even as the Turkish government moves to modify Article 301, legal experts are criticizing the fact that a number of statutes are still on the books in Turkey that pose a potential threat to free speech.

An Afghan legislative committee has drafted a bill seeking to introduce Taliban-style Islamic morality codes.

The draft, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, needs approval by both chambers of the Islamist-dominated parliament and President Hamid Karzai signature to become a law.

Women and girls are obliged to not wear make-up, wear suitable dresses and observe hijab (veil) while at work or classrooms, said one article of the draft.

It also aims to ban women dancers performing during concerts and other public events as well as on television. The mass media including television and cable networks must avoid broadcasting programmes against Islamic morals, it said without giving details.

Men and young boys must avoid wearing bracelets, necklaces, "feminist dresses," and hair-bands, the draft reads.

The proposals also demand an end to dog and bird-fighting, pigeon-flying, billiards and video games, all past times favoured by many Afghans.

It demands separate halls for men and women during wedding parties.

Update: Shameful President

22nd April 2008

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai defended a decision by his government to ban Indian soap operas, saying they violated his nation's moral standards and culture.

The culture ministry has given several privately run television stations until today to stop showing certain popular serials based on tales of love, disputes and the daily lives of Indian Hindu families.

At least one has already been taken off air after the ban, which authorities say was prompted by a call from religious scholars who labelled the shows “un-Islamic”.

Asked about the move, Karzai told a media briefing his government was committed to media freedom ...BUT... like the rest of the countries in the world, we want our television broadcasting to be in line with our culture, based on our society moral standards,

One of the two major ISP's in the United Arab Emirates is to begin censoring the Internet immediately.

du, which is 40% owned by the Federal government, will commence blocking non-conforming sites on Monday.

du subscribers were notified mid-afternoon Sunday by a general-circular text message to their cell phones, which said sites that do not conform to the moral, social and cultural values of the UAE, will be blocked as of Monday.

Separately, du said in a statement: The World Wide Web offers us great opportunities to get and share information and to communicate... HOWEVER... it is imperative that when making use of this technology for its enormous benefits, we respect the moral, social and cultural values of the United Arab Emirates.

Hundreds of writers have been prosecuted in Turkey for "insulting Turkishness", but Sarah Rainsford discovers that there are still some people willing to publish controversial books.

It is a very difficult time to be a writer in Turkey.

Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel prize for literature in 2006

Last year the prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, was murdered. This year, an ultra-nationalist gang allegedly had the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk on its hit list.

Both men had been prosecuted for "insulting Turkishness".

Today, many writers once known for their forthright views have fallen silent. But one man is still putting himself on the line in a fight for free speech.

I found Ragip Zarakolu in one of the dimly-lit corridors of the Sultanahmet courthouse waiting to be called for his latest trial.

...Read the full article

Latest Turkish Website Blocking

The Ankara assizes court on 20 March ordered suspension of the website of the daily paper Gndem , Ozgurgundem.org, which has been inaccessible since 1 April and on 11 February that of the Firat news agency , firatnews.eu, both for alleged propaganda in favour of the Kurdistan Workers Party.

A judge has suspended the sale of the video game Bully in Brazil on the grounds that its content is too violent for young children and teenagers.

Judge Flavio Rabello prohibited the game from being imported, distributed, sold or promoted on Web sites and stores in Latin America's largest nation. Rio Grande do Sul state prosecutor Alcindo Bastos added that they would have 30 days to comply with the order.

Bastos said the judge found the game was inappropriate for children: The aggravating factor is that everything in the game takes place inside a school. That is not acceptable.

The request to ban it came from a local youth support center.

Indonesia's ISPs have restored access to YouTube and MySpace after a ban on the sites for carrying a the controversial film Fitna .

An association of Indonesian ISPs has announced that they would only block access to specific pages carrying the film.

The decision to lift the internet ban followed protests by web users who were unable to access several sites including YouTube, Multiply and MySpace, an industry official said: We don't need to block the sites but only links that broadcast the film. If the film is moved to another site, we will keep on chasing and block it .

A police officer filed a criminal complaint yesterday seeking to have a journalist for the BBC charged with insulting His Majesty the King.

Pol Lt-Col Wattanasak Mungkandee said he filed a complaint against British reporter Jonathan Head in connection with remarks he allegedly made when moderating a panel discussion at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand on Dec 13 entitled Coup, Capital and Crown. Lese majeste carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Pol Lt-Col Wattanasak said the police's Crime Suppression Division will have to translate the evidence he presented to see whether it would pursue the case.

Update: Charged

13th April 2008

The charge against Jonathan Head was filed on 8 April 2008 by Pol Lt Wattanasak Mungkitjakarndee, Investigation Officer of Bang Mot Police Station, seconded to Phaholyothin Police Station. Pol Lt Wattanasak alleged that during the FCCT seminar Head used phases that constitute a violation of the laws on lèse majesté.

Pol Lt Wattanasak then gathered evidence in the form of a CD of the seminar, an English transcript of Head's speech, and a Thai translation and handed this to Pol Maj Boonlert Kalayanamit, an Investigation Officer at the Crime Suppression Division. Pol Lt Wattanasak has also filed a similar charge against the Committee of the FCCT.

Taking a Stand

See full article from Prachatai

A Thai man and his female friend have been charged by police with lèse majesté for not standing for the royal anthem at a movie theatre in Bangkok late last year.

On April 5, 2008, Pathumwan District Police called to Chotisak Onsung and his friend, asking them to visit the police station to hear the charge for the offence alleged by Navamintr Witthayakul who was among the cinema audience.

A panel under the National Police Committee will make the final decision on whether to pursue the case or not.

On September 20, 2007, Chotisak and his friend went to a cinema in Central World shopping complex in downtown Bangkok. They were urged by Navamintr to stand up for the royal anthem which precedes every movie shown in Thailand's cinemas, and they had a heated argument with the man.

They claimed that they were physically abused. Afterwards they filed complaints at a police station against Navamintr for verbal and physical abuse, damage to personal property and coercion, while Navamintr filed a lèse majesté complaint against them.

Japanese bloggers have been making noise the past few days in reaction to two separate bills, submitted first by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) and next by the leading opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), each aiming, in apparently similar ways, to legislate regulation over Internet content deemed to be “harmful” to minors.

On March 19th, LDP Diet Member Takaichi Sanae submitted a bill to a government panel to legislate the prevention of browsing on the Internet of information harmful to young people in an attempt to maintain the sound upbringing of young people.

Shortly thereafter on April 2nd, Diet Member Takai Miho of the Democratic Party submitted a bill with the aim to create an environment that makes it possible for children to safely use the Internet. According to bloggers, the bills goes significantly further than earlier legislation introduced late last year, which mandated default filtering on mobile phones for minors. Nonetheless, aside from a single article in Asahi shimbun on the topic, the two bills appear to have been granted no mainstream media attention.

 The main issues are:

1. An organization made up of a small number of people, established by the Cabinet Office and called the Committee on the Promotion of Sound Upbringing of Young People (at most five people), is drawing up evaluation criteria, for all content on the Internet, defining what is and is not harmful to young people. And incidentally, declarations of objection to this standard is probably impossible.

2. Administrators of all websites, including individuals, will also be required, in cases where the contents of their site meets the above standards for harmful content, to do things such as implement a membership system on the whole site so that minors cannot access it, or apply to have filtering software applied to their own site.

3. All employees of ISPs, ASPs, and so on are required to eliminate all harmful content and suspend all harmful services, and there is a punishment being put in place for cases in which these rules are not followed. As a result, deletion of web content will be carried out.

4. Compulsory participation in the pre-installation of national standards-based filtering software or filtering services will be imposed on PC makers as well as carriers for all PCs and mobile phones.

The Council of Europe has released a set of recommendations regarding the use of Internet content filters, in which the council called for a balance between freedom of expression and protection of children from harmful content.

In its recommendations, the council acknowledged that while voluntary and responsible use of Internet filters ... can promote confidence and security on the Internet for users, in particular children and young people, its members believed that: use of such filters can impact on the right to freedom of expression and information, as protected by … the European Convention on Human Rights.

Some of the council's recommendations included:

• Developing and promoting a minimum level of information for users to enable them to identify when filtering has been activated and to understand how, and according to which criteria, the filtering operates (for example, blacklists, whitelists, keyword blocking, content rating, etc., or combinations thereof)
• Developing minimum levels of and standards for the information provided to the user to explain why a specific type of content has been filtered
• Regularly reviewing and updating filters in order to improve their effectiveness, proportionality and legitimacy in relation to their intended purpose
• Providing clear and concise information and guidance regarding the manual overriding of an activated filter, namely whom to contact when it appears that content has been unreasonably blocked and the reasons which may allow a filter to be overridden for a specific type of content or URL
• Promoting initiatives to raise awareness of the social and ethical responsibilities of those actors who design, use and monitor filters with particular regard to the right to freedom of expression and information and to the right to private life, as well as to the active participation in public life and democratic processes
• Development of strategies to identify content carrying a risk of harm for children and young people, taking into account the diversity of cultures, values and opinions
• Informing children and young people about the benefits and dangers of Internet content and its filtering as part of media education strategies in formal and nonformal education

The Indonesian government has ordered the country's ISPs to block Youtube for publishing the 15 minutes anti-Muslim film Fitna made by the Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

Some of the country's ISPs followed the block order, but Fitna could still be viewed through other providers.

A letter was sent to Internet providers asking them to block any site or blog posting the film Fitna . Not only YouTube has uploaded the film, so it is up to the ISPs' discretion to block these sites, communications and information ministry official Ferdinandus said.

The Indian High Court has held that privately watching obscene films does not constitute an offence under the Indian Penal Code, and quashed the criminal proceedings that had been launched against three college students.

Peenya police had caught 3 students of Acharya Polytechnic and Engineering College, Bangalore on November 30, 2005 when they were watching obscene films on their personal computer, at their rented room in MEI Layout.

The 7th Additional Metropolitan Magistrate had taken cognisance of the case and initiated criminal proceeding. The students had challenged the action.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed that international media will have access to uncensored internet during the 8-24 August sportsfest in Beijing and that TV transmission of the games will not be subject to a delay.

According to Reuters, the IOC's chief inspector said that, despite the Chinese regime's routine censorship of net content and penchant for delaying or censoring TV signals, this would not affect the 30,000-strong foreign media expected to cover the games.

Hein Verbruggen told a press conference concluding the committee's final inspection of the games: We were satisfied by the assurances we received across a number of areas - media service levels, including internet access ... and the live broadcast feed.

Reporters Without Borders is worried about the future of blogging in China after the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) closed down 25 websites that allowed video-sharing. The SARFT said they were obscene , violent or threatened national security or national interest.

Thirty-two other websites including Tudou.com, one of China's most popular video-sharing sites, were given warnings. This is the first time the authorities have applied a law concerning the regulation of audio and video files that was adopted on 31 January.

Videos filmed by Chinese citizens are not welcome, Reporters Without Borders said. You now need a government licence to put videos online. Furthermore, this measure cannot be circumvented by using proxies. It has come just when it was needed by a government that is trying to control the dissemination of video footage of the unrest in Tibet. This law is a threat to news and information.

Since 31 January, websites have been required to have prior government authorisation in order to disseminate videos. They are also supposed to be at least partially state-owned.

This is the list of websites with videos that were closed yesterday by the SARFT:

www.mober.cn www.15150.com www.xunleicn.com www.kissdy.com bbs.katinuo.com www.xp90.com myt66.com www.mmnv.cn www.518e.cn www.wingle.cn bbs.duoluojie.com www.fh911.cn www.7xunlei.com www.btttt.com www.mobido.com.cn www.mygmd.com www.rongqiao.net www.skybbs.com bbs.52joy.com www.skyoto.com greatall.com www.tongtong.net www.cycd.net www.pc9g.net www.mopvod.com

Japanese nationalists have forced plans to screen a film examining the country's wartime excesses to be abandoned after a campaign of intimidation that included blockading cinemas.

A new documentary film, Yasukuni , was due to open at cinemas in Tokyo and Osaka on April 12.

The film, by the Chinese director Li Ying who lives in Japan, is about the Tokyo shrine that honours the nation's war dead, and examines Japan's imperial ambitions in the early decades of the last century.

Japanese politicians and commentators attacked the decision by cinema managers, who were targeted by ultra-nationalist protesters who parked vans covered in nationalistic slogans outside the cinemas and broadcast military anthems over loudspeakers.

Excessive 'self-censorship' has trampled on freedom of expression, said an editorial in the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper.

The documentary shows scenes from the grounds of the Shinto shrine on Aug 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of the Second World War. What has particularly upset nationalists is the part of the film that deals with the Rape of Nanjing, Japan's most notorious war-time atrocity. More than 150,000 Chinese men, women and children were murdered by Japanese troops in 1937 at the outset of the Sino-Japanese war.

Tomomi Inada, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that she believed the film's "ideological message" had been to portray Yasukuni as a tool to mobilise the Japanese people for a war of aggression. Mrs Inada criticised the decision to cancel the public screenings as "regrettable" however, adding that street campaigns should not stand in the way of freedom of expression.

There is no reason whatsoever for cinemas to refrain from showing the film, she said.

Hackers took over an Indonesian government website for several hours to protest against a new law banning online pornography, the information ministry said.

The protesters posted a message on the ministry of information website challenging it to prove that the law was not drafted to cover the government's stupidity.

Indonesia's parliament have just passed a law against producing or accessing websites with pornographic or violent content.

The message seemed to be directed at the law that was just passed by parliament, said ministry official Ferdinandus Setu, adding the site was taken down for a period but was now back to normal.

The new law, which has still to be approved by the president, provides for a maximum penalty of six years in jail or a fine of up to 1 billion rupiah ($110,000) for disseminating pornographic material online.

The ministry said it would start distributing software Saturday to allow Internet users to block pornographic sites.

Sylvia Sumarlin, who chairs the Indonesian Internet Providers Association, warned that it would take time to block all pornographic sites. We have recommended that the government form a body to check websites and block unacceptable ones throughout the country. The government accepted our recommendation, but it will take time to implement it and in the meantime the ministry is recommending the use of the filtering software.

The Lebanese authorities have rescinded their decision to ban the prize-winning animated film Persepolis following an outcry and accusations that the censorship was aimed at pleasing Iran and local Shiite clerics. We have given the green light for Persepolis , one official from the censorship bureau said on condition of anonymity. She did not elaborate.

General Wafiq Jizzini, head of the Interior Ministry's General Security department - which administers Lebanon's censorship regime - told AFP he had decided to ban the film after Shiite officials expressed concern that its content was offensive to Muslims and to Iran.

His initial decision was widely condemned, with some Lebanese saying it smacked of hypocrisy and showed that some within the government were kowtowing to Iran.

Culture Minister Tarek Mitri said he saw no reason why the film should be banned and that he had urged the ministry to rescind its decision.

Bassam Eid, production manager at Circuit Empire, the company that was to distribute the film, blasted the ban as ridiculous, especially since pirated copies were widely available - including in Beirut's mostly Shiite southern suburbs.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a leading member of the coalition of parties currently dominating the Lebanese Cabinet, said he was stunned by this cultural faux-pas that allows a security service to evaluate artistic and cultural works.

Update: Poisoned Chalice of Censorship

20th April 2008

General Wafiq Jizzini, head of the general security department at the interior ministry said he wanted to be rid of this poisoned chalice, saying that censorship should come under the ministry of culture, not interior.

However Culture Minister Tareq Mitri wants to abolish what he called an "outdated" practice: A draft law is in the works that would abolish censorship and set up an independent 'committee of wise men' instead .