International Censorship News

Bulent Esroy, a popular transsexual singer in Turkey, was acquitted of charges of turning the people against military service.

Esroy had spoken out against the military campaign against the Kurdish militia groups in Turkey, but the court ruled that the comments were in line with the free expression of individual views.

Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist and Nobel Prize laureate, forcefully denounced the Turkish government for its treatment of writers, speaking at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair as the president of Turkey sat listening.

Every year, a nation is chosen to be guest of honor at the fair and this year it is Turkey. Hundreds of thousands of publishers, editors, agents and authors are gathered here from 100 countries.

Pamuk spoke quietly but intensely: A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them or branding them as traitors and sending them into exile, and continuously denigrating them in the press — none of this has enriched Turkish literature. It has only made it poorer.

Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, was the subject of criminal charges of insulting Turkishness after giving a 2005 interview to a magazine in which he condemned the genocide against Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I and the killing of Kurds by Turkey in the 1980s. The charges were dropped, but many nationalists have not forgiven Pamuk.

The state's habit of penalizing writers and their books is still very much alive, Pamuk said in his speech. Article 301 of the Turkish penal code continues to be used to silence and suppress many other writers, in the same way it was used against me; there are at this moment hundreds of writers and journalists being prosecuted and found guilty under this article.

When he was working on his latest novel, Museum of Innocence,  Pamuk said, he used YouTube to research Turkish films and songs. Now, he said, YouTube and many other domestic and international Web sites are blocked in Turkey for political reasons.

President Gul, who spoke immediately after Pamuk, said Turkey was really proud of Pamuk's Nobel Prize. He did not address Pamuk's criticisms directly, but said that today I can state with happiness that in Turkey, thanks to political and economic reforms that have gradually and more intensively been integrated, his nation was moving closer to fulfilling the conditions necessary to join the European Union.

Gender Minister Mary Legsa Kimbo Defends mini rights for women

South Sudan's government has expressed outrage after police in the capital, Juba, arrested more than 30 women for wearing tight trousers or short skirts.

Police said local officials had issued an order banning bad behaviour and the importation of illicit cultures.

Gender Minister Mary Kinden Kimbo said police had exceeded their authority and violated the women's human rights.

Some of the women were beaten after they were arrested outside church and bundled into lorries.

All the women have since been freed and the government of the semi-autonomous region has launched an investigation.

The crackdown took place following a local order issued by the commissioner for Juba County last week.

Ms Kimbo said according to the county order, those found guilty of "bad behaviour" would be sentenced to three months in prison. A second offence also includes a $283 (£161) fine.

The order does not mention clothing specifically, nor specify what is deemed inappropriate behaviour. However, the police interpreted it as applying to what they deemed unsuitable clothing for women.

Ms Kimbo stressed that South Sudan was committed to protecting the rights of its people and that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

Update: Trouser Banner Sacked

12th October 2008 See article from africa.reuters.com

A senior official in South Sudan who ordered a crackdown on young women wearing tight trousers has been sacked, officials said on Saturday.

Juba county commissioner Albert Pitia Redentore was removed form office by President Salva Kiir.

The tide really does seem to be turning in the UN debate on combating defamation of religion – even to the point where there are hopes among some delegates that the concept will soon be buried, at least in the Human Rights Council.

Following attacks by France and Belgium last week on the notion of defamation of religion, several NGOs joined the attack with several strong statements.

The Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies with Article 19, the European Center for Law and Justice, and Center for Inquiry in a joint statement with IHEU were among those who weighed in.

Gregor Puppinck of the European Centre for Law and Justice stated that they could not support the concept of defamation of religions or phobias when applied to religions or beliefs. They also recalled that the concept of defamation was incompatible with human rights. It endangered the rights of religious minorities and would lead to international approval for blasphemy laws.

Austin Dacey from the Center for Inquiry and International Humanist and Ethical Union said in a speech:

We welcome the new Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Mr Githu Muigai, and we welcome the call from his predecessor, Mr Doudou Diene, to replace the notion of the defamation of religions with the legal concept of incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence. Not only does the former notion have no legal basis, it is a threat to human rights and to religion itself.

U.N. resolutions combating the defamation of religions are dangerous, as noted by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ms Asma Jahangir, since they can be used to legitimize blasphemy laws that punish members of religious minorities, dissenting believers and non-theists or atheists.

In Afghanistan, a 23-year-old student named Sayed Pervez Kambaksh sits in prison, convicted of blasphemy for circulating an article critical of women's status under Islam. For this he has been sentenced to death. Religion does not need protection from Pervez Kambaksh. He needs protection from those who act in its name.

Would this Council return Geneva to the era of heresy and blasphemy? Or will it work to guarantee to Pervez Kambaksh and to all people, the freedom of expression enjoyed here today? We urge member states to return focus to the protection of persons and to abandon the dangerous notion of the defamation of religions.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) rejected the pornography bill as it is considered interfering with privacy. We clearly reject it. It is not ethical to generalize a perception of a moral value, said the Commission member Yoseph Adi Prasetyo in Jakarta yesterday.

Yoseph explained the regulation on the pornography issue actually can be covered under the Criminal Code. Special regulations can cause it to overlap with other bills.

Update: Rethink but not stalled

6th October 2008. Based on article from old.thejakartapost.com

Due to increasing pressure, legislators have agreed to revise the controversial anti-pornography bill, scheduled to be introduced to the House of Representatives later this year.

But after a series of public hearings -- held in Jakarta, Ambon, Makassar and Banjarmasin -- and a volley of criticism in which groups pointed to an expansive definition of pornography and vague wording in a draft of the legislation, it's not yet clear if that will be enough to pass the bill.

"We understand that this is a delicate issue," said Bahrul Hayat, secretary-general of the Religious Affairs Ministry. "It is not a one-day process."

Originally, supporters had pledged to pass the bill before the end of Ramadan, but critics pushed for more discussion.

The Ministry welcomes public input into the process, said Bahrul, but he emphasized that the bill still must move forward.

"As a law it is a common agreement. It cannot please everybody," he said. And, although the law would seek to protect cultural diversity in Indonesia, he added, questions of appropriate art would be settled in the courts.

Some artists and educators, however, remain anxious about the bill's potential effects on artistic expression and education.

While many agree with the need to curtail pornographic material -- especially for youth -- they cite the potential for abuse or misunderstanding and a general lack of clarity in exactly how the law would be enforced.

A district governor in the West Africa nation of Cameroon has issued an order banning adult material in the district of Mfoundi.

The order bans reproduction and dissemination of erotic and pornographic writings and images in his jurisdiction, according to a report published on Africa Press Agency's website.

Joseph Beti Assomo, the prefect of the Mfoundi district where the national capital Yaounde is located, issued the order following a homily by the city's archbishop denouncing widespread pornography through cable television, and targets motels, hotels and video clubs.

A British artist walked free after being cleared of insulting Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, by portraying him as a dog in a case seen as a test of Turkey's tolerance of free speech.

A Turkish court acquitted Michael Dickinson of criminal charges despite citing some insulting elements in his depiction of Erdogan as a dog attached to a leash in the colours of the US flag. But the court ruled that the artwork was within the limits of criticism.

Dickinson who has lived in Turkey for 20 years, was charged with insulting the prime minister's dignity in September and could have faced up to two years in jail if convicted. He was arrested after unfurling the picture at a court hearing of an art exhibition organiser, who had been charged with insulting behaviour for displaying another of Dickinson's works. The earlier picture depicted Erdogan as a dog being presented with a rosette by George Bush.

Dickinson, a member of the Stuckist art movement, voiced relief at his acquittal but warned that other artists still faced legal pressure for expressing dissenting views. I am lucky to be acquitted. There are still artists in Turkey facing prosecution and being sentenced for their opinions, he told AP.

The Indonesian parliament has postponed endorsing a controversial anti-pornography bill following opposition from social and religious groups, who say the unclear bill threatens to interfere in people's private lives.

The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on Sept. 23, 2003, and has been revised several times in response to criticism from various groups.

Nonetheless, opponents say the bill still does not clearly differentiate between pornography and obscenity on the one hand, and cultural, artistic and creative expressions on the other. They also fear the bill will allow the state to interfere in people's private lives, and especially to target women.

Chapter I Article 1 of the bill says, Pornography is sexual material made by humans in the form of pictures, sketches, illustrations, photos, writing, voice, sound, moving pictures, animation, cartoons, poetry, conversation, body movement or any other form of communication through various media and/or public performance that can arouse sexual desire and/or violate societal values.

This definition is too wide, the Jakarta-based Kompas daily maintained in its Sept. 22 edition, in a special section dedicated to an analysis of the bill. The paper also pointed out this could allow the state to control people's private sex lives.

Originally containing 11 chapters and 93 provisions, the bill's final draft has eight chapters and 44 provisions.

More than a year ago the Swiss State Council voted 25-4 to broaden its porn ban to mobile phones, making the sale of adult material on portable devices illegal.

The decision from the Senate came in light of a series of gang rapes involving minors. The Justice Minister at the time, Christoph Blocher, questioned the need for a blanket ban and the House of Representatives were forced to vote on the issue.

Last week, the House of Representatives finally approved motions banning the distribution of pornographic or violent material on cell phones, according to SwissInfo.ch. The chamber voted in support of the plan despite recommendations from the government to deny the motion.

With the motion on pornography passing the Senate, it is expected they will jump on the House's bandwagon to ban violence as well.

The Russian channel under fire from prosecutors and religious groups for airing South Park and The Simpsons kept its license Wednesday, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

We unanimously recommended the extension of the license of 2x2 channel, Mikhail Seslavinsky, a member of the Federal Competition Commission for Television and Radio Broadcasting.

Fans had staged protests in support of the channel, fearing that the commission would take 2x2 off the air starting next month after a campaign by religious groups against the irreverent US cartoons.

But the channel still faces a criminal investigation on charges of extremism for broadcasting the notoriously foul-mouthed South Park.

Religious activists heading the campaign against the channel say its cartoons are offensive to their faith. I've got no problem with my sense of humour...BUT...any satire has its limits, Konstantin Bendas, a Pentecostal pastor who is heading the campaign and has written a formal complaint to prosecutors, told AFP.

Update: License Extended

18th October. See article from en.rian.ru

Russia's adult cartoon 2x2 TV channel thanked the federal TV and radio watchdog body on Friday for extending its license for another five years amid a row over 'extremist' cartoons such as South Park.

On Thursday, Rossvyazkomnadzor approved a decision on extending the license of the 2x2 TV channel, which was due to expire on Friday, until October 17, 2013. The move was earlier recommended by the Russian federal broadcasting commission.

A popular Turkish singer has defended public statements that Turkey's long conflict with Kurdish rebels needs a solution - not more deaths.

Bulent Ersoy made her comments at a court hearing in Istanbul, after being charged with attempting to turn the public against military service.

The transsexual singer also suggested that if she had a son she would not send him to fight.

If found guilty, she faces up to four-and-a-half years in prison.

Ms Ersoy made her comments about Turkey's powerful military on television last February. The Turkish army was conducting a major operation against the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq at the time.

The prosecutor accuses Bulent Ersoy of making dangerous propaganda for the PKK, describing military service as the sacred duty of every Turk.

But Ms Ersoy told the judge she had committed no crime. The singer said she stood by her words and her right to express her thoughts freely - as a loyal citizen of her country.

It was a defiant stance, but this case has exposed the limits on free speech in Turkey once again - a country whose military remains extremely powerful, its reputation and actions protected from criticism by law, our correspondent says.

Questioning the Turkish military can be a risky business, our correspondent says. Article 318 of the penal code - dissuading people from military service - is frequently used by the military against its critics. Critics say a separate article, making it a crime to insult the Turkish nation and its institutions, is also used to stifle free speech.

Pornographic, extremist and immoral - that's how Russian prosecutors are describing popular US cartoons like The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park.

The channel that carries them has been forced to suspend broadcasts of the offending programs pending legal action. On Wednesday (local time), a meeting of a government monitoring agency could take channel 2x2 off the air.

Throngs of teenagers have taken to the streets to demand their favourite cartoons back.

Fans of the cartoons say critics just don't get the joke and are engaging in Soviet-style moral censorship, while opponents say the cartoons are poisoning the minds of Russia's young.

Channel 2x2 is also facing a criminal investigation under strict new Russian legislation against extremism for broadcasting the notoriously foul-mouthed South Park.

Judging by a highly critical statement issued by the prosecutor general's office this month, the prospects for the channel and its cartoons appear bleak in a Russia that commentators say is becoming increasingly conservative: The cartoons broadcast by 2x2 propagandise violence, cruelty, pornography and anti-social behaviour.

The Federal Service for Monitoring in the Sphere of Connections and Mass Communications is set to meet on Wednesday (local time) to discuss whether or not to renew the channel's licence, which runs out on October 17.

The movie Children of the Dark has been disqualified from being screened at the Bangkok International Film Festival.

A month ago, film selectors of the film festival working under no influence from the main sponsor, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), selected Children of the Dark for the line-up. The film is Japanese, and tells the story of a journalist and an activist who arrive in Bangkok and try to help young Thai boys and girls from a ring of child prostitution.

Naturally, the movie makes it clear that there are children being forced into the sex trade here, though in the end, it points the accusing finger at foreigners, Japanese and Western, who prey on the weaknesses of a less developed society and help perpetuate this contemptible practice.

In early 2007, the Japanese producer of the film went through the proper channels by applying for permission to shoot in Bangkok. After reading the script, the Thailand Film Office, the agency supervising foreign film shoots, denied the permit on grounds it contained unsavoury scenes that are difficult to stomach. Yet by some sort of Japanese black magic, Children of the Dark was shot in Thailand anyway.

When the Film Office learned the movie they'd denied a permit for would be screening here, they notified the TAT and the Ministry of Culture. After a deliberation, the festival organisers decided to axe the movie from the line-up because it is, according to them, inappropriate.

The Ministry of Communication has issued a memo to all ISPs in Kuwait asking them to block YouTube access. The popular video website came under fire from the ministry due to content considered offensive to Muslims, a source within the industry told Kuwait Times. The Ministry pointed to content including a video of a man signing verses from the Holy Quran while playing the oud and another video showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.

Short Lived

Based on article from itp.net

According to reports, the decision to block access to YouTube has been revoked by the Ministry of Communications after a meeting was held to discuss the issue.

Sunday's surprise announcement by the Ministry to block YouTube over offensive videos generated angry reactions from people in Kuwait.

Update: Long List

30th September 2008. Based on article from itp.net

An insider working for an ISP in Kuwait has revealed to itp.net that the Ministry has issued a new order to block certain specific links within Youtube.com.

The official paper which has been circulated to ISPs, gives a five page list of specific URLs and key words that are to be blocked, mostly concerning sexual content.

ISPs have yet to implement the ban however, in part due to the confusion surrounding the order, and because of technical concerns about how to implement the blocking.

We have not yet applied any blocking mechanism, mainly because we're worried that such a long list of URLs might overload the CPU usage on our caches. And we're not sure what to do honestly. The decision seems to be definitely delayed until after Eid holiday, said the source.

The Working Committee for pornography bill drafting at the Indonesian House of Representatives said the team will work on its final tasks on Tuesday and Wednesday before handing over the draft to a larger team of legislators to be discussed further.

A member with the working committee said the team made up of ten legislators and government officials, will discuss behind closed doors the remaining sticking points of the draft which were, article 1 on the definition of pornography, and article 20 on pornography ban on the internet.

The draft will be handed to a special committee consists of 50 persons which will discuss the draft after Idul Fitri holiday.

The remaining steps for the draft to be passed are reviews from all ten factions at the legislative and the house plenary session. Two parties still opposed to the bill are Indonesia Democratic Party for Struggle and Prosperous Peace Party.

Tzipi Livni is poised to become Israel's next prime minister - but ultra-orthodox newspapers in the Jewish state are refusing to publish her picture for reasons of religious modesty.

Only about 600,000 of Israel's 7 million population are haredi, or ultra-orthodox, but they pack a strong political punch and include key officials including cabinet ministers and the mayor of Jerusalem.

No haredi paper will publish Livni's picture, said Avraham Kroizer, a public relations adviser to the incoming premier: Graphic artists will blur the faces of women that do make their way into pictures that the papers want to use. They will also blur pictures of television sets or other items deemed improper to be seen by the wider haredi public.

One ultra-orthodox paper also said it would not be using Livni's name Tzipi - short for ‘Tziporah' which means ‘bird.'

We might write "Mrs. T. Livni" or just "Mrs. Livni," but the name. Tzipi is too familiar. It is not acceptable to address a woman using her first name, especially when she goes by a nickname, said a senior editor at Hamodia, the oldest ultra-orthodox daily.

Michael Dickinson, a British Stuckist artist in Turkey and a frequent contributor to MungBeing Magazine, was arrested and held by police for 10 days for displaying 2 collage pictures of Turkey's Prime Minister as America's pet dog.

Charged with insulting the prime minister under Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, he faces a two year jail sentence if found guilty.

We at MungBeing throw our support fully behind an artist's right of free expression. Any laws that stifle an artist's creative and artistic expression must not be allowed to persist.

After several adjournments the trial is now set for September 25th, 2008.

Miniskirts distracting?... Surely not

Uganda's ethics and integrity minister says miniskirts should be banned - because women wearing them distract drivers and cause traffic accidents.

Nsaba Buturo told journalists in Kampala that wearing a miniskirt was like walking naked in the streets: What's wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally.

Wearing a miniskirt should be regarded as indecent, which would be punishable under Ugandan law, Buturo said.

The BBC's Joshua Mmali in Kampala, the capital, said journalists found the minister's comments extremely funny.

Reporters Without Borders discovered today that access to its main website has again been blocked within China. The site had been accessible since 1 August, a week before the start of the Olympic Games.

Our website was accessible for just over a month in China, the press freedom organisation said: The freedom allowed to Chinese Internet users for the Beijing Olympic Games, which the authorities had promised, was just an illusion. There is no letup in online censorship in China. We call for the restoration of access to our site and all the other news and information sites that are blocked in China.

The websites of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the BBC are still accessible although they continue to be “geoblocked” for Internet users in Tibet. The overseas Chinese news and human rights websites are also blocked, as is the site from which the censorship circumvention software TOR can be downloaded.

Indonesia's parliament has postponed plans to table a controversial anti-pornography Bill after growing opposition from critics who say it could damage native cultural traditions.

The Bill aims to shield the young from pornographic material and lewd acts, but also contains provisions that could see people being jailed for kissing in public or wearing bikinis and could criminalise many forms of art and traditional culture that hinge on sensuality.

Parliamentarians have so far stopped short of passing the Bill because of claims it could jeopardise Indonesia's tradition of tolerance and polarise the country.

Some political parties had been hoping for the Bill's approval this month as the final draft was due to be tabled in parliament on September 23rd.

So far at least two parties - the Christian Peace and Welfare Party and the nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) - have rejected the proposed Bill.

A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after a Muslim creationist claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous.

Adnan Oktar, who writes under the pen name of Harun Yahya, complained that Dawkins, a fierce critic of creationism and intelligent design, had insulted him in comments made on forums and blogs.

According to Oktar's office, Istanbul's second criminal court of peace banned the site earlier this month on the grounds that it "violated" Oktar's personality.

His press assistant, Seda Aral, said: We are not against freedom of speech or expression ...BUT...you cannot insult people. We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed. We have used all the legal means to stop this site. We asked them to remove the comments but they did not.

Oktar, a household name in Turkey, has used hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDs to contest Darwin's theory of evolution. In 2006 his publishers sent out 10,000 copies of the Atlas of Creation, a lavish book rejecting evolution on every one of its 800 pages.

Dawkins, one of the recipients, described the book as preposterou". On his website the British biologist and popular science writer said he was at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content.

The Thai public is never made aware of the extent of Internet censorship because the ICT ministry operates as secret government.

Recently, MICT announced that it had been blocking 1,200 websites.

No article we've seen points out that the further 400 sites recently blocked by court order on application of MICT are in addition to the original 1,200.

If these figures can be called accurate, MICT is responsible for blocking at least 1,600 websites.

The court order was never made public because, of course, MICT would then have to reveal exactly which sites were being blocked and the reasons for so doing.

About 1,000 Balinese dressed in traditional sarongs rallied Wednesday to protest against a controversial anti-pornography bill that critics say could hurt local cultural traditions.

The bill contains provisions that could jail people for kissing in public and criminalize many forms of art or traditional culture that hinge on sensuality.

Lawmakers have so far stopped short of passing the bill which has been in parliament for over three years because of criticism it would threaten Indonesia's tradition of tolerance.

But some political parties are hoping for its approval this month when the final draft is tabled in parliament. One Islamic party's lawmaker has said the bill would be a Ramadan gift.

We in Bali see the body as aesthetic, but the pornography bill sees the body as an object of sin, said Sugilanus, one of the protesters at the rally in Denpasar, capital of the predominantly Hindu island of Bali.

Reject the pornography bill, some protesters shouted as they performed a sensual traditional dance while others carried banners saying, The porn bill is not a gift but humiliation for the nation.

An anti-pornography bill which is before the Indonesian Parliament may hurt tourism on the island of Bali, some officials have claimed.

The bill, currently in draft form in the House of Representatives, defines pornography as acts that incite sexual desire.

The repressive legislation defines pornography as sexual materials in the form of drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, text, sound, moving pictures, animation, cartoons, poetry, conversations or any other form of communicative messages.

But some say the legislation could go as far as jailing people for kissing in public.

Experts see the bill as contentious, because traditional dress in Bali and the sparse clothing and swimwear worn by tourists, could be viewed as pornographic under the legislation.

The island's tourism will clearly suffer should the house pass the bill, said Ngurah Wijaya, head of the Bali Tourism Board.

Bagus Sudibya, a tourism expert, acknowledged the moral stance behind the bill's inception, but warned against hidden agendas in the process to pass it into law. Bagus said the bill should focus on defining explicit pornography designed to arouse sexual desire or exploit women, and not condemn artwork depicting nudity: Many of Bali's trademark attractions are in close connection with its arts, which occasionally depicts women in the nude.

Last Friday, an Indonesian Islamic party, the Prosperous Justice Party said the anti-pornography bill could be a Ramadan present" for Muslims.

The draft bill has been before the Parliament for three years and there is speculation that it may be passed in a few weeks.

In its latest pressure tactic against Iranian bloggers and text-messagers, Iran's government has declared blogs, texting, social networking sites and, more generally, the Internet destructive, tools of media warfare and more dangerous to the public than addiction. It also is threatening to charge some bloggers with heresy, which could carry a death sentence.

Under the guise of protecting the Iranian people from supposedly dangerous online material such as pornography, the Majlis (Iranian parliament) has proposed legislation that associates bloggers with violent criminals and proposed a committee to confront bloggers and those who have Internet sites, and control them - if necessary to filter them, or otherwise open a case and turn them over to judicial authorities for arrest.

They in fact want to create a preventive measure within families. And on the other hand, they have brought up the subject of execution for bloggers - under the claim of heresy or publishing material that would lead and encourage corruption and prostitution, said a blogger.

The crime of heresy can be interpreted very broadly by the authorities.

YouTube has moved to ban videos that supposedly incite violence following criticism in the UK and US that it needed to toughen its policies.

Google-owned YouTube has updated its community rules - specifically pointing out that a new addition is to make sure no videos directly incite violence.

We realise it's not always obvious where we draw the line on content that's acceptable to upload, said YouTube in a blog post: We've updated the community guidelines… included in the update are a few new things to steer clear of, like not directly inciting violence.

Within YouTube's community rules section, the updated rules include two points on violent videos. Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed, points out one rule: If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked or humiliated, don't post it.

The second relevant rule relates to hate speech: We do not permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status and sexual orientation/gender identity).

Canada Post will continue to ban sexually explicit material from its general delivery admail service, despite a January ruling at least partially upholding the Sex Party's right to freedom of expression.

The Sex Party challenged Canada Post's criteria for Non-Mailable Matter in 2006 after the postal agency refused to deliver one of its political pamphlets. The pamphlet outlined the party's Politics for a Sex-Positive Future and contained a sexual IQ test and images of potentially erotic art, including a photo of a doorknob in the shape of a penis.

Canada Post rejected the pamphlet because, according to its admail policy at the time, it will not knowingly deliver offensive articles that contain sexually explicit material.

Ruling that the corporation's restrictions were impermissibly vague, federal court Justice Michel Beaudry gave Canada Post six months to clarify its regulations and define what counts as sexually explicit.

When the case was heard last October, Canada Post lawyer Steinman offered the following definition: representations of nudity suggestive of sexual activity, representations of sexual intercourse, and written text describing sexual acts in a way that is more than technical all fall under the umbrella of sexually explicit, he said.

Had that definition been included in the corporation's regulations to begin with, Beaudry said he would have dismissed the Sex Party's complaint outright. Imposing certain conditions on the distribution of sexually explicit material is demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society, he ruled.

The revised policy states that admail containing images or representations of nudity that are suggestive of sexual activity, images or representations of sexual intercourse, and text that describes sexual acts in a way that is more than purely technical must now be enclosed in an opaque envelope marked adult material. Material considered illegal under Canada's obscenity law is entirely prohibited.

Killing Kenny is apparently against the law, and the popular South Park cartoon series appears set to become the latest victim of Russia's crackdown on “extremism.”

As the Interfax news agency reports, Moscow city prosecutors have filed a motion with the Basmanny regional court after finding that an episode of the show broadcast in January bore signs of extremist activity. Simultaneously, the channel that broadcasts the American cartoon, 2×2, has been issued a warning for disseminating extremist materials.

An investigation conducted by prosecutors found fault with an episode titled Mr. Hankey's Christmas Special, which went on air on January 9th. Experts found that the show humiliates the honor and dignity of Christians and Muslims, offends the feeling of believers regardless of their denomination, and can provoke interethnic conflict, up to and including extremist acts.

A panel of experts examined the 12 animated series shown on 2x2, including 118 films. Among them are the Simpsons, Family Guy, Metalocalypse, Drawn Together, Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, Angry Kid, and others.

The experts found that the cartoons do not correspond to the legal requirements for protecting children's moral and mental development and protecting their health. The cartoons promote violence and cruelty, pornography, anti-social behavior, abound with scenes of mayhem, the infliction of physical and ethical suffering, and are aimed at invoking fear, panic and terror in children, the Office said in a statement: Practically all the cartoons exploit the topic of suicide, and characters demonstrate readiness to risk their lives for the sake of deriving extreme sensations.

The atheist website RichardDawkins.net has been blocked in Turkey where viewers encounter a white screen saying: Access to this site has been denied by court order.

However there has been no official explanation of the ban. Suggestions for the ban include hacking and a comment that might have offended the litigation happy muslim creationist, Adnan Oktar, or Harun Yahya.

The block seems to be easily worked around using proxies or open DNS servers outside of Turkey.

Speaking to Edge, games make Bethesda has explained what it calls a “misconception” regarding the classification of Fallout 3 in the Australian region. Edge has also learned that due to concerns and issues raised in the process of international classification, Fallout 3 will not contain real world drug references in any territory.

Fallout 3 was originally refused classification by the Australian Censor Board, citing among other reason the in-game use of Morphine in order to ignore limb pain. According to the censor's guidelines, material promoting or encouraging proscribed drug use is banned.

In mid-August, the OFLC announced that a revised version of the game had been granted a rating in Australia, thanks to edits that changed the context of the in-game drug use.

While it has been assumed that these changes would only be in place in the Australian release of the game, Edge has been told by Bethesda vice president of PR Peter Hines that there will be no differences between the version that releases in Australia and the versions that will release in other territories, including Europe and the US.

Hines said, An issue was raised concerning references to real world, proscribed drugs in the game, and we subsequently removed those references and replaced them with fictional names. To avoid confusion among people in different territories, we decided to make those substitutions in all versions of the game, in all territories.

MF Husain, India's most renowned living artist, faces years of exile despite a ruling from the country's supreme court.

He will not be able to return to India unless the hundreds of cases claiming he hurt Hindu sentiment are withdrawn, say experts despite a ruling from the country's supreme court clearing him of the charges.

The artist has been in self-imposed exile since January 2006, forced out by threats from Hindu groups enraged by his paintings of nude gods and goddesses. Three supreme court judges considered whether his painting, Bharat Mata (Mother India), which depicts a nude woman on her knees creating the shape of a map of India, was sacrilegious.

The bench rejected the petition seeking prosecution for offending Hindus, saying it was a work of art and citing India's tradition of graphic sexual iconography.

Does the sentiment of the petitioner get scandalized by the large number of photographs of erotic sculptures which are in circulation? the judges asked: It is an art like the sculptures. None get scandalized looking at the sculptures.

Good, but not good enough.

That was the verdict yesterday of a group of bloggers on a list of proposals the Singapore Government-sponsored panel had put up for managing new media.

It has some good, forward-looking options but the approach was overly-cautious, said a group which calls itself The Bloggers 13.

The Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims) has released its consultation paper and is now seeking public feedback on its proposals.

In fact, for every Aims suggestion that called for a relaxing of restrictions, the bloggers went one-up and asked for the law to be removed completely.

Where the panel gave three ideas for easing the ban on party political films, the bloggers wanted an unconditional repeal of Section 33 of the Films Act.

They also wanted Section 35 of the Films Act to go, a move that would strip the Government of powers to ban films

The panel had also urged that more activities be allowed for online election advertising. But the bloggers asked if such a list is even necessary.

Similarly, they disagreed with Aims' suggestion that political bloggers be exempted from registering under the Class License Scheme. They want it dumped altogether. The scheme requires all who deal with political material or religious issues online to register with the Media Development Authority.

In addition, it treats all websites as automatically licensed, meaning their owners must adhere to a prescribed code of conduct. For instance, the code prohibits the posting of pornographic material. The bloggers argue that existing laws adequately deal with pornography or racial and religious hate-mongering without the need for such a scheme.

The only suggestion they agreed with is the lifting of the ban on 100 websites. Aims believes that once its proposals for the protection of minors are in place, the list becomes unnecessary.

A draft law pushed by the Korean Communication Commission (KCC), the country's telecommunication and broadcasting regulator, that imposes strengthened identification policies for Internet users is sparking widespread protests from the public and media.

The revised bill mandates all Internet sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors to verify the identities of their users.

This is a stronger version of the current telecommunications law that imposes identity verification for sites with more than 300,000 visitors.

The designated sites require subscribers to submit their private information such as I-PIN, an alternative identification system for online users, and also reveal their real name or register nicknames when they post comments.

Internet companies must disclose the identities of the users accused of cyber attacks when victims seek to sue for libel or privacy infringement.

Following a review by the Regulatory Reform Committee (RRC), the KCC is expecting the revised law to be enforced as early as October.

The KCC hired a group of 10 people, including industry experts and scholars, for a project to research the impact of the strengthened identity verification system. However, despite the group having yet to produce a study, regulators are fast-tracking the bill anyway.

The government, which first introduced the identity verification policy last year, claims that the measures are essential to curb cyber attacks and other 'negative online behavior'.

However, critics argue that the revised law is a strong threat to the freedom of speech on the Internet and could be abused as a tool for censorship.

Another controversial provision of the KCC bill is the mandating of portals to suspend the publishing of articles deemed fraudulent or slanderous for a minimum of 30 days while a media arbitration body rules on the legitimacy of the complaints. For example, should a blogger or online journalist write a post criticizing the government, the new rules will have Web sites immediately pull the articles for a month if they receive a complaint.

Due to the unclear definition of cyber bullying and malicious online messages, there is a danger that authorities might use their power arbitrarily, critics said.

The KCC admits that the identity verification system has so far had a limited impact on curbing cyber bullying since its introduction in July last year, saying that the number of 'malicious' messages reduced by only about 2%.

Video game repression has surged in Thailand following last month's killing of a taxi driver by a 19-year-old man who told police he was re-enacting Grand Theft Auto.

Jesada Chandraprasert  who pens Cnet's Technology Thailand blog, reports that five games have been officially banned by the Ministry of Culture:

• Hitman
• 300
• Killer Seven
• Hitman: Blood Money
• Fifty Cent: Bullet Proof

In a story broken by GamePolitics, Thailand stole its list of "dangerous" games from an outdated list offered by Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy during the 2007 holiday season. The five banned games constitute half of the list.

Their official press release at the Government's Web site clearly states that they see gaming as a problem which is obsessive and has an (adverse) effect on the behavior of children and teens....

Chandraprasert also reports on a recent government and law enforcement conference which was held to discuss the video game issue - with ominous overtones:

The conference, held at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center on August 21, had an audience of over 1,500 people, mostly public officials and the police. The main focus of this conference was to find solutions to unregistered gaming stores (basically an Internet cafe like a setup where people can go in and game all day long on computers, not the traditional arcade) and "dangerous games". Their aim is to eliminate the "dangers" associated with said problem within 90 days of the conference.

An Australian writer has been arrested in Thailand and faces a lese-majeste charge for publishing a novel deemed defamatory to the country's royal family, police and the Australian embassy said.

An embassy official identified the man from Melbourne and police named him as Harry Nicolaides, who was unaware there was an arrest warrant out for him when he tried to fly out from Bangkok to Australia.

An arrest warrant was issued in March for a book he wrote in 2005 deemed defamatory to the crown prince, Police Lieutenant-Colonel Boonlert Kalayanamit told Reuters.

He has been charged with lese-majeste, a crime that can carry a 15-year jail sentence in Thailand, and was being held at a remand prison pending further interviews, Boonlert said.

Nicolaides, a regular visitor to Thailand and briefly a resident, when he taught English and wrote for Australian newspapers, had not been granted bail, police said.

Police identified the novel in question as Verisimilitude, described  as a trenchant commentary on the political and social life of contemporary Thailand.

Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry has sought court orders to shut down about 400 websites and 'advised' ISPs to block 1,200 sites supposedly as a danger to national security or disturbing social order.

ICT minister Mun Patanotai said the department had advised ISPs to immediately block these websites, which it claimed were detected between March and August this year, and had sought court actions against them under article 20 of Thailand's Computer Crime Act.

This move to shut down online dissent follows the Thai authorities' declaration of a state of emergency as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand the government's resignation.

Thai prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, announced sweeping curbs to civil liberties to maintain calm, after which the ICT Ministry said it had detected more than 1,200 websites that violated the Computer Crime Act.

In addition, a Thai court issued three orders to shut down about 400 websites, 344 of which, it claimed, carried material that was supposedly contemptuous of the country's royal family.

The ICT ministry, the Bangkok Post reported, also sought help from the police to bring all the violators to trial.

An organisation of hair stylists in Tamil Nadu have launched a protest with the Indian Censor Board demanding a ban on depiction of members of any profession in poor light in any film in future.

We presented a memorandum to Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and demanded re-censoring of ‘Kuselan'. We have also requested a future ban on all professions being belittled in films, Tamil Nadu Barbers' Association president M. Natesan said.

The attitude of the director hurt us more than the scenes, as P. Vasu said only a fake barber was shown in bad light. The director claimed we were out to merely create trouble, said the body's general secretary M.G. Bhagyanathan.

The Bush administration, European governments and religious rights organizations are mounting a new effort to defeat a General Assembly resolution that demands respect for Islam and other religions but has been used to justify persecution of religious minorities.

The resolution, called Combating Defamation of Religion, is sponsored by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and has been approved by the world body annually since 2005. It comes up for renewal this fall.

U.S. officials said they hope to persuade 'moderate' Muslim nations - among them Senegal, Mali, Nigeria and Indonesia - to reject the measure, which lacks the force of law but has provided diplomatic cover for regimes that repress critical speech.

Before, it was one resolution with no impact and no implementation, said Felice Gaer, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan federal body that investigates abuses and proposes policies to advance freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Now we are seeing a clear attempt by OIC countries to mainstream the concept and insert it into just about every other topic they can, Gaer said:They are turning freedom of expression into restriction of expression.

The European Center for Law and Justice filed a brief with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in June warning that such anti-defamation resolutions are in direct violation of international law concerning the rights to freedom of religion and expression.

U.S. officials working on human rights said the resolutions are being used to justify harsh blasphemy laws in countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan.

The Middle East's new youth entertainment and lifestyle tv-channel MTV Arabia announced on 20 August 2008 that it will mark the holy month Ramadan by refraining from music videos.

Some call it religious censorship over music videos. Others appreciate the tv-channel's sensitivity to the solemnity of the Islamic month of fasting.

MTV Arabia's manager Samr Al Mazouqi was quoted as saying: The Holy Month is a time for introspection, and we would like to offer our viewers a break from the ordinary fare. (...) MTV Arabia is conscious of regional sensitivities and we are keen to respond to the needs and desires of viewers in the Middle East, the vast majority of whom will be fasting, spending time with family, and focusing on their spiritual lives.

During Ramadan, the channel will continue to play programmes from MTV's international roster of reality shows, celebrity news and pop culture documentaries.

We have high censorship on what goes on air in terms of language, images, everything has high censorship, the station's head of productions and promotions, Rasha Al Eman, told Communicate Magazine in December 2007.

South Africa's Independent Online reports on yet another attempt to link media violence to the real deal. It reports that Cape Town-based watchdog group the Family Policy Institute has petitioned South Africa's government to recall all music containing violent lyrics and all video games with violent content.

FPI spokesman Errol Naidoo made the request, expressing the group's concerns over potential negative influences on young people. The move comes in the wake of the samurai sword killing of a 16-year-old by a schoolmate who allegedly dressed himself like Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison.

Prefering not to wait for any type of inquiry, Naidoo requested the recall of the games and CDs pending the outcome of the investigation. From the Independent Online:

He said there was no guarantee that removing violent music and games would prevent violent behaviour, but that it would provide added peace of mind for families.

The physical burning of books now seems to belong to another, much less enlightened age, but not so the censorial urges that led to the practice. I have experienced this first-hand in the past few weeks since the release of my book This Horrid Practice, which explores traditional Maori cannibalism.

I recall a fellow academic approaching me when I started writing the book and warning me that I was putting my career in jeopardy by tackling this subject. At first, I dismissed the caution, but when others began making similar comments, I came around to the view that I would be risking my integrity as a historian by being bullied into silence.

Then the attacks came. First, there were the emails and often anonymous phone messages, accusing me of all sorts of sins for having researched and written about Maori cannibalism. This was followed by Rawiri Taonui, the lecturer from Canterbury University, suggesting I was demonising Maori and that my book was a return to Victorian values.

Margaret Mutu similarly condemned me and announced to the media that I did not understand the history of cannibalism, although she admitted to not having read even a single sentence of the book.

Then the Human Rights Commission dipped its toe into this acrid pool and considered the merits of a letter of complaint made about the book. The commission's response was to suggest I enter into mediation. Like Kafka's Josef K, I found myself being considered increasingly guilty, even though I do not know what I am meant to be guilty of. I politely refused the offer.

And here is where the book-burners come in. While the methods are far more subtle, their aim in this case to bar the sale and distribution of my book amounts to exactly the same thing: censorship based on ideology.

A Bombay High Court orders Google's subsidiary to reveal identity of blogger after posting critical comments.

Reporters Without Borders secretary general Robert M้nard has written to Google about a defamation lawsuit that the Indian construction company Gremach brought against Google's Indian subsidiary, Google India Private Ltd.

As a result of the action, a Bombay high court ordered Google's subsidiary on 15 August to reveal the identity of a blogger who used the pseudonym "Toxic Writer" to post comment's criticising Gremach on Google's blogger platform

Indian law governing the use of personal data makes no provision for the parties concerned to oppose disclosure. As far as the Indian authorities are concerned, Google India Private Ltd is subject to local law and must name the person who posted the disputed content.

Under the Indian law concerning cyber-crime, IT Act 2000, a company is presumed responsible for the content posted on the websites it hosts unless it can demonstrate its innocence. Google has just two options - either prove that its local subsidiary was not aware of the offending content at the time it was posted, or that it was posted in violation of the warnings it had issued,"Reporters Without Borders said: We urge Google's executives not to comply with the local law and to appeal against the court's decision.

M้nard's letter, dated 21 August, refers to the precedent of Chinese journalist Shi Tao and the US company Yahoo!, whose compliance with a Chinese government request in 2005 to identify one of its clients resulted in Shi being sentenced to 10 years in prison.

You must be aware of the ensuing public relations disaster for Yahoo! and the apology that your counterpart and rival, Jerry Yang, had to give to the US Congress after it held him responsible for his client's imprisonment, the letter says: Seize the opportunity you are being given to demonstrate transparency by defying the Indian court's request in the name of the international standards that protect free expression.

M้nard points out that the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA) proposed by US representative Christopher Smith would protect US companies operating in foreign countries with authoritarian governments that could ask them to reveal their clients' personal data: The GOFA would require all such requests to be submitted to the US government, thereby extricating them from a delicate situation."

In a public notice, the Kenya Film Censorship Board issued a two-week notice to all video and cinema operators who have not complied with the Films and Stage Act to do so.

The government warned that those involved in the sale, hire, exhibition and trafficking of pornographic materials in the country will be prosecuted. It is a criminal offense to display or to distribute sell, hire and exhibit pornographic materials or exhibit unclassified movies and posters.

The government will conduct regular spot-checks to restrict pornography and check on those premises that do no have valid licenses from the board.

It also discouraged members of the public from buying, hiring or viewing unclassified or pornographic videos and to  report any incidents of sale, hire, distribution or exhibition of pornographic materials to the Board or a police station.

Thailand's nationalist organisation, People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has entered the National Broadcasting Service of Thailand (NBT) television station, forcing it off the air.

The group reportedly entered the back entrance of the station in the early morning and forced all employees to leave as part of their plan to force the Samak Sundaravej government to resign.

The station briefly aired pictures of the protesters before broadcasting was cut.

Police later arrested a group of 80 protesters, who were reportedly armed with two pistols, knives, and golf clubs.

But PAD core leader Sondhi Limthongkul denied that the men were carrying weapons, saying the break in was done peacefully.

Other PAD protesters, meanwhile, invaded the Transport Ministry, Finance Ministry and Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives compounds. The road leading to Government House was also blocked, forcing the government to cancel its weekly meeting.

Local media reported Prime Minister Samak called an urgent meeting with Supreme Commander Boonsang Niampradit and chiefs of the armed forces.

Army chief Anupong Paochinda, meanwhile, insisted that the military will not overthrow the government to quell political unrest: The military will not stage a coup d'etat. The public must not panic and must carry on their daily lives. The army will not get involved in politics.

Malaysian authorities have reversed their decision to cancel a concert by Canadian pop-rock star Avril Lavigne, days after they ruled that her show was unsuitable for local youths.

After discussions with organizers, we have agreed to allow the show to go on, a spokesman for the Arts, Culture and Heritage Ministry said.

Its minister Shafie Apdal had sparked criticisms of being "closed-minded" on Wednesday when he said Lavigne's show would be cancelled because it was unsuitable for Malaysian culture and could not be held on August 29, two days ahead of independence day and nearing the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

However, the ministry official said the decision has seen been reversed, but declined to give a specific reason.

The minister is showing our country to be a closed-minded, childish country that objects to anything different from our own culture, said Leow, a Lavigne fan who had purchased tickets for her concert weeks earlier: It's a relief that they've come to their senses now.

The youth wing of a hardline opposition Islamic group had earlier called for the show to be canceled, saying Lavigne's performances were too raunchy for youths. Malaysia requires all performers to wear clothes without obscene or drug-related images and to be covered from the chest to the knees. They must also refrain from jumping, shouting, hugging and kissing on stage.

Turkish ccess to YouTube banned in early May by a court decision for broadcasting videos deemed insulting to the nation's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, was reinstated on Saturday night.

It may take up to 72 hours for all Internet users to be able to access the Web site as Turkey's Internet service providers reconfigure their systems to reflect the court's decision.

An estimated 1.5 million people from within Turkey had been visiting YouTube every day despite the ban by using several proxy server Web sites. China and Pakistan continue to impose similar bans. YouTube has been banned in Turkey five times since March 2007.

Bans on YouTube and other Web sites were criticized and strongly protested in Turkey. A campaign, launched by elmaaltshift.com to draw attention to and protest the bans, lasted for three days, ending on Aug. 20. Web sites participating in the campaign posted notices on their home pages reading Access to this Web site has been denied by the Web site's own decision, in imitation of what one sees upon trying to access a banned Web site.

Update: YouTube Blocked

30th August 2008

This is to confirm that YouTube is still blocked in Turkey as of 15:23 GMT on 27.08.2008. As I suspected local and worldwide news reports are wrong to report that a court order banning access to YouTube has been lifted. A dubious press release by the Telecommunications Authority (only in Turkish) confirmed this today as well as an interview with the head of the Telecommunications Communication Agency (only in Turkish).

India's moral guardians appear to have lost patience with three of the country's most popular television channels, accusing them of violating strict broadcasting guidelines and prompting a national debate over censorship and how far the country is prepared to let standards change.

The networks' crimes were diverse; MTV India was hit with what is known as a 'show cause' notice for allegedly denigrating women in its reality show Splitsvilla, while news channel IBN-7 was accused of encouraging superstition by reporting that the gods Lord Ram and Hanuman had appeared in a ball of fire in Malaysia. Meanwhile, Headlines Today, another news channel, raised hackles for celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the invention of the bikini in a report branded objectionable and indecent.

All three have been given 15 days by the government's Information and Broadcasting Ministry to justify their actions. If their explanations are not accepted, they could be taken off the air or forced to run grovelling apologies on screen.

Opponents of censorship are bewildered by the arbitrary nature of the bans. Praful Bidwai, a political commentator and human rights activist, said the Indian state was naturally prone to censorship: Their motto is, if in doubt, ban it. It is outrageous in some respects, but the bureaucracy is so bloody-minded. There is a lot of prudery and hypocrisy in this society. Until a few years ago even a kiss was banned in Indian films, and there was a commission of inquiry to decide whether kissing was part of Indian culture.


MTV's Splitsvilla show was certainly never going to win any prizes for good taste. The publicity shot for the show features two bare-chested hunks, bound in thick ropes and surrounded by a gaggle of nubile young women in various states of undress. One appears to be brandishing a riding crop. Every week the women do battle for the attentions of the men, strategically deploying whatever assets nature has bestowed on them as they seek to gain the upper hand, whether that means belly dancing or giving the men a rub down in the hot tub.

The Philippines censor, The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), suggested to director Cris Pablo that he change the title of his new film Quickie to a less suggestive and more acceptable one.

Pablo then thought of Quicktrip, which the MTRCB immediately approved.

Young Critics Circle member Nonoy Lauzon, a programmer at the UP Film Institute Cine Adarna, pointed out that the change was to warrant an R-18 rating for the movie.

According to Lauzon, the MTRCB also suggested that the production team change the look of the poster.

The Turkish blogosphere suffers from an ongoing ban on Wordpress….and periodic bans on YouTube, and on the social-networking widget site Slide, oh..and now on Dailymotion as well.

Turkish bloggers are protesting the constant banning of sites by voluntarily banning their own.

They are putting the following up on their website: Bu siteye erisim kendi karariyla engellenmistir which translates roughly into This site is blocked by [the author's] own choice.

Several Turkish media sites are covering the protests and providing links to forum groups and Facebook sites.

Techcrunch gives a history of the block as they have observed it: The problem has gotten so bad that Turkish blogs are now banning themselves in protest. The fake bans started with Firat Yildiz, who put this message up on his blog[...]Then another Turkish blogger, Selim Yoruk, created this page with a piece of code that lets any blogger easily add the same message to his homepage. Nearly 200 Turkish blogs have (temporarily) shut themselves down in this manner. The point is to show Turkish Web surfers what the Internet would look like if the censorship continues unabated.

It is too early to predict if the protest will have any effect.

So now Slipknot are responsible for knife crime.

Not the most obvious of choices, but The Dark Knights been shown for a few weeks now (and society for 12 year olds still hasn't crumbled) and we still don't have a Gotham related fatality, so better find another scapegoat, and here it is SLIPKNOT.

Gotta be honest, I've never seen the initial thrill of this band, but hey, that's just me. What really got me was the fact that the killer in question was wearing a mask like 'Knot drummer Joey jordison, ok, suppose that could be a similarity. Or if you dig just a smidgen deeper (in my case a little poke around some very bog standard Slipknot fansites), you will find out that Jordison's mask is in fact based on the mask used by the character Eric Draven from The Crow, WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICH!!!!!!!!!!!!! in turn is based on a very basic porcelain mask used by artists, and board treading Thespians of old. You can buy these masks in art supply stores the world over, and if bright sparkly things are your bag, you can buy an even cheaper plastic version of said mask that comes with felt pens, so you can be all pretty like.

KNIVES DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW MANY MORE TIMES.

It has been a tumultuous time for blogging and online expression in Malaysia. With the ongoing court cases with blogger and online news portal editor, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, as well as the detention of Malay language blogger, Abdul Bakar aka ‘Penarik Beca’, it is with little surprise that it has been reported that Malaysian foreign Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, called for the creation of a council or other form of mechanism to monitor bloggers.

News reports stated that Dr Rais Yatim believed that Malaysia has sufficient sanctions under the Sedition Act 1948, but he believed that there might be insufficient enforcement under the Act. Because of this, Dr Rais was said to opine that establishing a council would assist in both sanctions and enforcement.

Having sex with a third party during consensual divorce proceedings is not illegal, South Korea's supreme court has ruled, even though adultery remains a criminal offence in the country.

The court Sunday overruled a lower court's conviction of a man surnamed Chung who had an affair with a bar hostess during divorce proceedings, a court official told AFP.

The lower court had given Chung and the hostess a suspended six-month prison sentence, a ruling upheld by an appeal court.

Adultery is punishable by up to two years in jail in South Korea.

The supreme court ruled that Chung and his wife had no intention of continuing their married life and therefore sex with a new partner did not constitute an offence.

The constitutional court is meanwhile considering whether to scrap the adultery law altogether following a petition from top actress Ok So-Ri, who says it infringes personal freedoms. The constitutional court has rejected three previous appeals against the 54-year-old law on the grounds that social morality may be weakened.

A heavy metal band due to perform in Britain has been blamed for an horrific school killing.

Slipknot, who play the Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend and are expected to announce a UK tour, are said to have inspired a teenager to stab a fellow pupil to death with a samurai sword.

The unnamed boy walked into his school in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday morning and fatally knifed the 16-year-old in the neck.

The boy wore a mask similar to that sported by Slipknot’s drummer Joey Jordison while carrying out the attack He then stabbed another boy and two gardeners.

Pierre Eksteen, who is in charge of the school’s support network, said: We know the wrong kind of music and drugs have bad effects. Young people need to be informed of the effects of bad satanic music.

Malaysia has cancelled a Kuala Lumpur concert by Canadian pop star Avril Lavigne with just one week's notice, saying her act would not instill good culture in the youth, a minister said.

The timing of the concert, two days before the country's independence day and just ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, was claimed to be a chief reason for the cancellation by Shafie Apdal, minister of unity, culture, arts and heritage.

Shafie said Lavigne's act would be unsuitable alongside local cultural performances during the National Day celebrations.

Concert organizers insisted over the weekend that the show would go on, in spite of calls by certain groups to cancel the performance.

Earlier this month, the youth wing of Malaysia's hardline opposition Islamic party demanded Lavigne's concert be banned.

Singaporeans are abuzz yet cautious about government pledges to ease restrictions on free speech and public assembly in the city state.

Writers, filmmakers, activists, and politicians are either expressing optimism or warning against too much of it, after the country's prime minister promised to allow more issues to be ventilated in the notoriously restrictive political environment of Singapore -- subject to certain "ideals" of factuality and nonpartisanship.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, acknowledging the advent of new media, announced during the National Day Rally on August 17 that the government will ease the ban on political videos and outdoor public demonstrations, media reports said.

An outright ban is no longer sensible, he said. At the same time, he noted that such relaxation of restrictions will still be guided by what he called safeguards. I think some things should still be off limits... (for instance) if you made a political commercial so that it's purely made-up material, partisan stuff, footage distorted to create a slanted impression.

The Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society, led by former "Singapore Press Holdings" editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng, will present its recommendations on these issues later this month.

The Straits Times reported the prime minister as saying that political films will be dealt with in ways similar to non-political films, with censorship and film classification standards, with a panel to decide whether or not a political film would pass.

Singaporean film makers expressed mixed feelings with this development. This is by far the most obvious relaxation of political space in Singapore in the past 20 years. It will lessen the climate of fear, according to film maker Martyn See who had two of his films banned in recent years.

After months of planning, Kuwait's Public Prosecutors Office (PPO) is set to finalize a bill that will punish "Internet offenders" in the country.

It seems that constitutional freedoms no longer extend to Kuwait's large (and still growing) population of bloggers. Prosecutor General Hamed Al-Othman said that the bill will criminalize the promotion of immoral conduct, encouraging anti-government sentiments, divulging state secrets, or insulting Islam online. Penalties for breaking the law could involve a 1-year prison sentence (7-years if the insulted party is a minor) and monetary fines.

Speaking of what this new law means for the future of free expression in Kuwait, one blogger told APN this law means two words: shut up. The blogger also noted that most of the Kuwait blogging community is opposing the looming law. This law is a way to control what bloggers publish online; the government wants to know 'who is this blogger?' They want us to shut up so they are free to do anything they want. They can't handle the truth.

The blogger provided a list of tips on their website to help other bloggers stay out of trouble when the new Internet law takes effect. Among the tips is remove the times from comments and leave only dates. As the blogger explains to APN: if I put a comment at 2:03:09 a.m., the government can call all ISP's here in Kuwait and ask for all IP's running at that time. This is more of a safety tip for the commenter than for the blogger. A scheduled publishing system is a way to protect the blogger. For example, if at 8:00 p.m. I am at the cinema and I have a ticket and at 8:10 p.m. Blogger.com publishes my post, nobody can prove that I published the post.

Other tips for bloggers include using symbols or codes to refer to taboo public figures rather than their real names.

Polwat Chinno killed taxi driver Kuan Pohkang with his bare fists and knives in a grisly 2am plan to steal the hard-earned money of his victim. The media descended on this story of bloody murder when the killer confessed, but pleaded that a video game made him do it. Authorities took him at his word, issued a hasty ban on exactly 10 games and vaguely promised new restrictions further down the line. Far from showing concern, this reaction emphasised the huge gap between the real technology revolution and what the country's leaders appear to know about it.

First of all, it is most troubling that authorities and the media latched on so quickly and conveniently to the alibi of a confessed, vicious killer.

They were far too quick to accept the word of Mr Polwat. He is an adult who told police he planned and carried out a reprehensible killing for a small amount of money. His claim that the video game Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime sounds more like a novel legal defence than a credible motive. Tens of millions of people around the world play that game - tens of thousands in Bangkok.

Early evening on any given day, the top floors of the city's many shopping malls are filled with youths playing a myriad of computer games - many of them violent.

An earlier ban on this particular violent game would not have saved the murdered driver. More to the point, there is no evidence or reason to believe the ban will save any lives in the future.

The Public Health Ministry quickly assembled a list of Top 10 Violent Games - not by research or reason, but by a quick Googling in which bureaucrats accepted the first hit, an obscure list from a local US politician trying successfully to get his name in the newspapers and his face on the TV news in an election cycle.

Such a ban is also self-defeating, since new games come on the market regularly. In any case, a police ban is only another business hitch to the video pirates and shop owners involved in underground distribution.

Beijing's propaganda mandarins have issued a 21-point edict on Olympic coverage for Chinese media that goes some way to explaining the different perception of the games within and without China.

The directive includes a detailed list of dos and don'ts for journalists. According to a translation of the document in the Sydney Morning Herald, journalists are instructed to follow the official line on all matters relating to international affairs. They are warned not to conduct interviews about the US election, the Doha world trade negotiations or China's relations with Sudan, Iran and Zimbabwe.

Follow the official propaganda line on the North Korean nuclear issue; be objective when it comes to the Middle East issue and play it down as much as possible; no fuss about the Darfur question; no fuss about UN reform; be careful with Cuba. If any emergency occurs, please report to the foreign ministry, it says.

Several issues prominently covered in the overseas media during the past two weeks are ruled out of bounds. The day after the opening ceremony, the big news in Beijing was the murder of an American tourist related to a US volleyball coach. But domestic journalists were hamstrung by article 17, which states, In case of an emergency involving foreign tourists, please follow the official line. If there's no official line, stay away from it. Also taboo are protests by Free Tibet, mention of East Turkestan separatist groups and, alarmingly, all food safety issues, such as cancer-causing mineral water. The edict also says there must be no negative comments about the opening ceremony

Chinese officials have denied issuing the edict, but local journalists have confirmed its existence. Some say it was distributed by email, others by word of mouth.

After the internet sites youtube.com and dailymotion, the access to the site of kliptube.com is denied to the internet users in Turkey.

The latest victim is another video sharing site, kliptube.com. However, it is not possible to find out how, when and why the access to this site is banned by going to the site itself.

Those who visit the site are greeted by the sentence that The access to this site is barred by a court decision.

The internet site of gundemonline.com is also banned without any justification. Ankara’s 11th High Criminal Court banned gundemonline.com, a site about the Kurdish problem, on August 7 without any justification.

According to one of the site authorities, Ramazan Pekg๖z, their site has been closed by court orders four times so far. He says that nobody gives them any explanation about the situation. Since it is a very long process to remove this court order, they simply continue their existence by changing names.

On May 5, all access to the popular video-sharing web site YouTube was banned in Turkey. YouTube was banned in connection with a video that allegedly insulted Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founder of modern Turkey. The ban continues up until today and is the longest ban of a web site in the history of Turkey.

YouTube is not the only popular web site under attack. It is only the highest-profile case. Sites such as Wordpress, Geocities, and Alibaba are also regularly banned. Indeed, it is clear that there is a frenzy of banning web sites at the moment. There are about 900 courts able to ban web sites based on individual complaints, and it is possible to obtain a ban from multiple courts. This means the duration of the ban can be extended using another court. Also, the courts are under no obligation to inform the web sites concerned before or after their decision. The web sites learn that they were banned after their users start complaining of lack of access. This adds to the delay in removing a ban.

...Read full article from wsws.org

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will ask the Culture Ministry to form a panel to rate computer games, following the Aug 8 murder of a taxi driver by a teenage schoolboy.

Yannapol Youngyuen, head of the DSI's bureau of technology and cyber crime, suggested distributors of computer games be asked to help screen game content, saying the planned rating panel would find it very hard to keep pace with new computer games.

'Rating by the ministry has proceeded at a very slow pace. The ministry should study overseas ratings as a guideline and adjust them to suit Thai culture and values,' he said.

Police Colonel Yannapol also said there are many computer games which are more violent than GTA, such as those which focus on cop killing or rape. He maintained, however, that on-line games are not the major cause of teen problems.

Yannapol also  pledged to make a serious effort to suppress illegal on-line games.

Lertchai Kanpai, managing director of Asiasoft, said currently there are 57 games active in the Thai cyberspace. Though all of them passed Microsoft's screening, some are quite violent: A bigger threat, however, is illegal game software which bypasses the violence rating.

British libel laws are stifling free speech around the world as wealthy businessmen and celebrities increasingly turn to UK courts to silence their critics abroad, the United Nations has warned.

In a report published yesterday, the UN's Committee on Human Rights criticises the phenomenon of "libel tourism", where foreign businessmen and millionaires use the High Court in London to sue foreign publishers under claimant-friendly defamation laws.

It said that UK defamation law had discouraged critical media reporting on serious public interest matters, affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work.

The report cites the case of Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American researcher who was sued in London by a Saudi businessman and his two sons over a book which was not published in the UK, although 23 copies were sold into the jurisdiction via the internet and one chapter was available online.

The committee also criticised the way the British Official Secrets Act 1989 had been used to stop former Crown employees from bringing issues of public interest into the public domain and said that provisions in the Terrorism Act 2006 regarding encouragement of terrorism were vague and could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

The committee said it was concerned that the Official Secrets Act had been used to frustrate former employees of the Crown from bringing into the public domain issues of genuine public interest, and can be exercised to prevent the media from publishing such matters. It noted that disclosures of information were penalised even when they did not harm national security.

The State party should ensure that its powers to protect information genuinely related to matters of national security are narrowly utilised and limited to instances where the release of such information would be harmful to national security, the report says.

The committee was concerned about the "broad and vague" definition of the offence of "encouragement of terrorism" in section 1 of the Terrorism Act.

In particular, a person can commit the offence even when he or she did not intend members of the public to be directly or indirectly encouraged by his or her statement to commit acts of terrorism, but where his or her statement was understood by some members of the public as encouragement to commit such acts, the report says.

The committee called on the Government to consider amending the part of section 1 which deals with encouragement of terrorism so that its application does not lead to a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression.

Creators of violent video games should be prosecuted if copycats take their content into real life.

It's high time game makers face the legal consequences of their creations, a top Thai government official says.

This reaction comes in the wake of a brutal slaying of a city taxi driver by a teenager obsessed with blood-and-guts shoot-'em-up game Grand Theft Auto.

When a player copycats a crime he or she sees in the game, the game maker should be prosecuted, says Somchai Jaroen-amnuaysuk, the deputy director of the Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups Office.

Prosecutions will automatically force game makers to act more responsibly, Somchai says.

Dr Somprot Sarakosas, a former spokesman of the Human Security and Social Development Ministry, agrees the government should explore legal avenues against all parties responsible for such violence: At the same time, everyone, especially the Education Ministry, should make children aware that games and real life are two different things.

National Culture Commission chief Preecha Gunteeya says the government has to do something to control violence-packed games, including imposing a rating system. We must regulate gaming cafes, too he says.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has accused the Egyptian authorities of forcing cyber caf้s to gather personal information on Internet users, saying the measure was a violation of privacy.

According to the NGO, clients at Internet caf้s must provide their names, email and phone numbers, before they use the Internet.

Once the data is provided, clients will receive a text message on their cell phones and a pin number allowing them to access the Internet, the NGO said.

The rights group called this a censorship procedure which it said has become a widespread reality in Egypt.

A deputy chairman from Turkey's ruling AKP withdrew a draft law that she prepared after her work drew fierce criticism from the opposition in the country.

According to the draft law, prepared by AKP Deputy Chairman Edibe Sozen, those purchasing pornographic publications were obliged to provide the retailer with their citizenship number and signature, in order to be later handed to the Youth and Sport General Administration.

The draft law also foresaw the construction of places of worships for students from all religions at schools.

I decided not to bring the draft law to the agenda of parliament, in order to put an end to the misunderstandings regarding my proposal, Sozen said.

Sozen's work drew fierce criticism from the opposition in Turkey, as AKP's attempts were claimed to aim to divide young people and prepare the bases of a theocratic state.

Update: Distanced

18th August 2008

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has proffered an olive branch to secular critics by publicly disowning his party's proposals to curb pornography and encourage school prayer.

In an unusually harsh rebuke in which he described Sozen's proposals as ill- timed and fatal. He urged party discipline at a time when the AKP is under fierce scrutiny for perceived anti-secular tendencies: It [the bill] is not the party's work, but it was perceived as if it belonged to the party. Such works should be discussed within the party first. It is an ill-timed and fatal statement. The content is bad. She [Sozen] put the party in a difficult situation. We are going through sensitive times that need caution and ultimate care. This is valid for each one of us. We all need to refrain from any actions or statements that could create new tensions.

The Thailand Department of Special Investigation will host a conference on violent computer games and youths on Thursday, in a bid to find measures to address the issue.

The move follows a brutal murder of a city cabbie by a schoolboy copying Grand Theft Auto. Experts will brainstorm ways to end this kind of behaviour.

No doubt some kneejerk policies will result

Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reports that an association of Spanish taxi drivers has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto.

Josep Maria Go๑i, secretary general of the Catalan Taxi Federation, has requested that the Spanish government pull GTA titles off the market.

Go๑i makes it clear that the Taxi Federation's request is based on the Thailand murder case.

The cabbie spokesman didn't stop at GTA, however, calling for a ban on all games with a high level of violence or which "celebrate" drug trafficking or prostitution.

GameSpot points out: There are no actual missions in GTA IV which require players to rob, stab, or kill a taxi driver...

Malaysian Ban It

Based on article from gamepolitics.com

The head of a Malaysian consumer rights organization has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto and similarly violent video games.

The move comes following the murder of a Bangkok cabbie last Saturday. Thai government officials were quick to link that killing to what they said was the 19-year-old suspect's Grand Theft Auto play.

In an op-ed for the Star Online, Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang, writes: It was recently reported that the Thai authorities have banned a computer video game known as Grand Theft Auto... Violent video games and television programmes have previously been linked to expressions of violence and aggression in young viewers. It is time for the authorities to act.

If this particular video game is available in Malaysia, CAP calls on the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs to immediately halt its sales and ban this game. The Ministry should also warn the public and any stocks that have already been sold should be recalled.

YouTube has been blocked for most internet users in Sudan for reasons that are still unknown. It seems that ths ite is blocked on all ISPs except Canar

In line with what’s looking increasingly like a trend, Sudanese flocked to Facebook to voice their concerns in a group dedicated to the matter. The group is called Unblock Youtube In Sudan Now and at the time of writing it has 476 members.

The reasons behind this block are still vague but the best guess may be blogger ZoulcolmX who shares his opinion:

They don’t want someone with the opposition to [interfere with] the official story about how every Sudanese citizen supports Omar.

They don’t want us to see the documentaries that have been posted lately about the “ghost houses” created to torture individuals who didn’t support the “salvation revolution”, and with the elections coming, they don’t want any anti-kizan* campaign, which is something not allowed on local newspapers, and the national TV is on their side 24/7, but YouTube, Facebook, and blogs give a free space for the truth, and this is what THEY fear the most.

… * Kizan is a nickname for the National Islamic Front and the ruling party the National Congress members.

See full article from Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders condemns the stubborn insistence of the Turkish authorities in censoring video-sharing websites. After blocking access to YouTube for the past three months, the authorities began blocking the Paris-based Dailymotion two days ago as well.

The two most popular video-sharing sites in Turkey are now inaccessible, the press freedom organisation said: This is a serious violation of free speech and freedom of information. We call on the authorities to restore access to these websites and remove only the videos that are the subject of judicial orders.

Transport minister Binali Yildirim said YouTube was still blocked because those responsible for the site refused to cooperate with the Internet regulatory authority, Internet Iletisim Baskanligi, an offshoot of the Telecommunications Council that was founded in November 2007.

Turkey's ruling AKP plans to register all purchases of pornographic material with a new draft law.

According to the draft law, those purchasing pornographic publications would be obliged to provide the retailer with their citizenship number and signature, the report added.

Those names would be later handed to the Youth Sports General Management, according to the regulation, Milliyet said.

AKP Deputy Edibe Sozen, who prepared the draft law in one year based on laws in Germany, has sent her work to State Minister Murat Basesgioglu, it added.

The draft law also foresees the construction of places of worships for students from all religions at schools,

The new draft law is expected to raise eyebrows in Turkey as the country awaits the ruling party to take steps to soothe concerns over secularism after the court ruled that it undertakes activities that harm secularism but stayed short of closing the party.

After a yearlong investigation, the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission has rejected a complaint by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Canadians against former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant over his re-publication of the Danish Muhammad cartoons.

The allegation the Feb. 14, 2006, issue of the now-defunct magazine was likely to expose Muslims to hatred helped to spark a national debate about human-rights law and free speech, and its rejection comes after similar complaints of Islamophobia against Maclean's magazine also failed.

In a report on his investigation, which recommended the complaint not be referred to a panel hearing, the human rights and citizenship commission's Pardeep S. Gundara wrote the cartoons are stereotypical, negative and offensive, and they do reinforce stereotypes, but they were related to relevant and timely news and were not simply gratuitously included.

Yasmeen Nizam, a civil litigation lawyer in Edmonton and a director of the council of Muslim Canadians, said the Council is certainly disappointed with the decision. We thought the cartoons did (expose Muslims to hatred), regardless of the context, because if you look at the broader context in a post-9-11 world, Muslims are at a higher risk of being discriminated against.

I basically told them to f-off without using the swear word, Levant said of his response to the complaint, given during an interview with a human-rights commission officer that he taped and broadcast on YouTube.

He does not consider this a victory, though.

This censor approved what I wrote. His decision is not that I have freedom of speech. His decision is that I have his approval. I'm not interested in his approval. The only test of free speech is if I can write what he disapproves of with impunity.

That's what freedom of speech is, to piss off some second-rate bureaucrat like Pardeep Gundara and know that you have the right to do so, because you're in Canada, not Saudi Arabia.

As if pulling Grand Theft Auto IV from Thai shelves wasn’t overreacting, the Thai Ministry of Health has drawn up a shortlist of the ten most dangerous games.

1. GTA
2. Man Hunt
3. Scarface
4. 50 Cent - Bullet Proof
5. 300
6. The Godfather
7. Killer 7
8. Resident Evil 4
9. God of War
10. Hitman

Game Politics has cheekily pointed out that this is is exactly the same as that produced by Detroit Prosecutor Kym Worthy also used to blame all the world's ills on video games.

I have been seeing a lot of coverage on the killing of a taxi driver by a Thai teen who says he was inspired by the new release of the violent video game called Grand Theft Auto. The English language news stories left out much of the detail about the victim and the accused murderer. The Thai news had interviews of the families and other people involved.

The story is very sad for many reasons. On the victim's side, they are a poor family and the man was the only person making any income, and not much because driving a taxi does not pay very well. He became the chosen victim because he was older and smaller than the first taxi driver the killer approached.

The killer's family is also poor but the teen had always been known as polite and very nice, even getting the dek dee (good child) award at school. The mother was a house maid and the father a security guard. The kid was alone a lot and the parents never really knew what he was doing all that time he was playing violent video games.

The 18 year old confessed to the killing, which means he won't face the death penalty as some western media incorrectly reported. He gave a detailed account of how he planned for the robbery and chose the victim, although he said the killing was not originally part of the plan but he did it when the victim fought back.

The distributor of the game in Thailand has stopped all sales and is requesting that internet shops return the game for replacement with a different game.

I saw on TV this morning that GTA has been declared illegal. Police will search internet cafes and if any are found to be making the game available they will be fined 20,000 to 100,000 Baht.

Distributors of Grand Theft Auto yesterday suspended sales in Thailand after a teenager allegedly killed a taxi driver in a bloody frenzy, re-enacting scenes from the blockbuster video game.

Police who caught the 18-year-old at the scene said he confessed to having planned the attack to find out if robbery was as easy as depicted in the violent game.

Phalawat Chinno, who played the game obsessively for hours every day, bought two knives and chose his 54-year-old victim carefully as he believed he would be too old to fight back, police said.

The secondary school student said the killing was a robbery that went wrong. New Era Interactive Media, the Thai distributors of Grand Theft Auto, which recently launched its fourth edition, has asked shops to withdraw copies from sale and video arcades to suspend the game.

We are sending out requests ... to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games, said Sakchai Chotikachinda, the marketing director of New Era.

Asma Fatima, a petite, bespectacled Pakistani diplomat in Washington, sat at the front of a crowded Capitol Hill hearing room on July 18, carefully considering whether a man seated a few places to her left on the panel should be jailed.

The occasion was a panel discussion convened by a group of congressmen to educate their colleagues on the issue of religious freedom, and the man was Canadian Ezra Levant, who in February 2006 republished Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his now-defunct magazine the Western Standard, which resulted in, among other things, two complaints of “discrimination” before the Alberta human rights commission.

One complaint was withdrawn, but the other continues. If it is upheld, Levant could face a large fine, a lifetime order not to talk about “radical Islam” disparagingly, and be forced to issue an apology. If Levant does not comply with these orders, he could be imprisoned for contempt of court.

...Read full article

A Thai student has stabbed a taxi driver to death supposedly acting out a robbery he copied from the online game Grand Theft Auto.

Neighbours called police in Bankok about 2.30am after being woken by a constantly blowing car horn and saw people struggling inside a pink taxi.

Police arrived and saw Polwat Chinno, 19, trying to steer the taxi backwards, but the street was a dead end. The teen locked himself in the car but they finally persuaded him to get out.

There was blood all over the vehicle. The body of the taxi driver, Kuan Pohkang was on the back seat. He had been stabbed about 10 times. Two sharp knives were found nearby.

Police said Polwat confessed to being addicted to the online game GTA and said killing seemed easy in the game. He imitated a scene where a criminal kills a driver for his car to escape police.

I needed money to play the game every day. My parents give me only 100 baht a day, which is not enough. I am also fed up with them fighting. They are civil servants and do not make good money, he said.

Today [Saturday] my mother gave me 500 baht, so in the evening I went to the Lotus superstore and bought knives. He flagged down a taxi and when it arrived at the destination, he pulled out a knife and held it against the driver's neck. He said he did not mean to kill him but the driver reached for a metal bar under a console and tried to hit him. He stabbed the driver several times, killing him, then dragged the body onto the back seat and sat behind the wheel.

He could not drive, but thought it would not be hard. He was still struggling with the car when police arrived.

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajakapse has ordered an immediate ban on pornographic websites, to stop children being exposed to adult content.

Service providers have been told to filter sites showing pornographic material.

The head of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission says anyone who wants unrestricted internet access will have to pay extra and get a special password.

Olympic organizers unblocked some Internet sites at the main press center and media venues Friday while others remained off limits for journalists covering the Beijing games.

The move falls short of the free and unfettered access the organizers and Chinese officials had promised for months. However, it was an improvement from earlier in the week when sites for the likes of Amnesty International or Tiananmen Square could not be opened.

Senior International Olympic Committee officials met late into the night Thursday with their Chinese counterparts and said they reached an agreement to unblock sites, although the IOC statement said the details were still being formulated.

We trust them to keep their promise, the International Olympic Committee said.

Kevan Gosper, the press commission head of the IOC, said the IOC and Chinese officials were working toward unblocking sites that we believe were unreasonably blocked. Gosper acknowledged full Web access was not possible due to China's authoritarian government and the tight social controls exerted by the Communist Party.

Amnesty International's site was open on Friday, but links to the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong remained closed. Some Web sites dealing with Tibet were open, but others tied to the restive region in the west of China were blocked. The BBC's Chinese-language site was open at times, but frequently unavailable.

The censored Internet is among the issues tarnishing China's attempt to us the Olympics to promote an image of a modern, open state. The run-up to the games, which begin in a week, had also been dominated by concerns about Beijing's choking air pollution, attempts to censor foreign TV broadcasters, and a security crackdown that had discouraged foreign tourists.

Update: CPJ blocked

17th August, based on article from cpj.org

The Committee to Protect Journalists' Web site, www.cpj.org, is blocked in the Main Press Center and at least one other Olympic press venue, according to a number of foreign journalists there. CPJ calls on the Chinese authorities to provide the free Internet access they promised foreign reporters when they were awarded the Games.

We call on China and the International Olympic Committee to immediately remedy this situation and ensure unfettered access to the Internet, including CPJ’s Web site, said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director: China’s press freedom record is an integral part of the Olympic story, and yet journalists working in the official press centers are being denied information essential to their reporting.

At least four journalists told CPJ this week that its site was blocked within the Main Press Center, using direct, official connections; one source was able to access it. My colleague inside the Main Press Center says the only [Web site] they can get is Amnesty. Can’t get cpj.org, one journalist told CPJ.

Update: Songs for Tibet

25th August, based on article from idolator.com

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Chinese officials have closed access to Apple's iTunes Store after getting wind of Olympic athletes downloading Songs For Tibet, which features songs by the likes of Rush, Underworld, and Moby.

The ban came shortly after the Art Of Peace Foundation, which backed the project, sent out a press release saying that "over 40" athletes participating in the 2008 Olympic Games had used download cards they were given to download the album, thus "speaking" their mind about the geopolitical situation when the Games' rules forced them to remain silent on the issue.

Update: No Songs for Tibet

26th August, based on article from idolator.com

Apple's iTunes online music store is back up and running again in China after it was apparently blocked last week by local authorities.

However, the Web page for downloading a pro-Tibet album, which is suspected of prompting the crackdown, remains unavailable on the service.

A deal with Beijing has allowed the Chinese authorities to continue to block internet sites, the International Olympic Committee has disclosed.

Journalists at the main media centre in Beijing found that the BBC Chinese language site was inaccessible, as were the websites of human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Reporters without Borders — whose welcome page at present shows the five Olympic rings replaced with interlocking handcuffs. The US broadcaster Radio Free Asia and the German radio station Deutsche Welle are also out of bounds.

Kevan Gosper, the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) press commission, confirmed that some of its officials had agreed to Chinese demands that sensitive sites be blocked on the ground that they were not related to the Olympics.

Chinese organisers said that the censorship would not hamper journalists in their job of reporting on the Games. Sun Weide, a Bocog official, said that the plan had always been to provide “sufficient” internet access for foreign reporters. Sites run by the Falun Gong religious sect remain inaccessible, as do most sites with the word Tibet in their internet address.

The revelation that China's censors had never considered relaxing internet curbs further tarnishes the image of the Games amid persistent fears of pollution and security so tight that cafés are not allowed to place tables on pavements and hotels cannot change their brand of shower gel without checks.

Sohoxiaobao, not the prettiest but definitely one of the earlier blog service providers in China, has been out of operation for a week now.

Based on article from rinf.com

Journalists working from the Olympics press centre in Beijing are unable to access amnesty.org, the Amnesty International website, the organisation claimed today.

A number of other websites are also reported to have been blocked, they claimed.

It comes as Amnesty International prepares to launch a new report evaluating the Chinese authorities' human rights performance in the run-up to the Olympics.

It is embarrassing to the International Olympic Committee, who had highlighted the loosening of restrictions on foreign media in China as an example of an improvement in human rights brought about by the hosting of the Olympics.

Earlier this month Jaques Rogge, the IOC President, had claimed that there will be no censorship on the internet.

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

Competitors staying in the Beijing Olympics athletes village will be able to purchase a wide variety of soft pornography - but websites such as the BBC Chinese news page are still banned.

When Beijing won the right to hold the Games, officials had to promise that journalists would be allowed the same freedom to report as in previous host cities.

There have been repeated cases of journalists detained or otherwise stopped from reporting while covering Olympic and political issues in recent weeks. Officials had to apologise after a Hong Kong photographer was detained for six hours after scuffling with police while trying to film fights among those queuing for the last Olympic tickets on Friday.

Based on article from menassat.com

China will tighten its control over the Internet as the Olympic Games approach by ordering Chinese Web sites to censor certain content, Interfax sources with several online community and blogging platforms said this week.

We received notices from the Public Security Bureau and the Propaganda Department this week, asking us to closely watch for 'unhealthy' information. We have added many key words into our supervision system to watch for such information, said a source who works for an online community platform under a state-owned newspaper.

In the past, we generally watched for posts that contain Party leaders' names, pornography or violent content. Starting this week, more words have become sensitive, the source said.

The source said that some posts containing sensitive key words will be deleted. The key words include Olympic-related themes, names of Chinese nationalities or ethnic groups and comments about terrorism.

When contacted by Interfax, several other sources working for online communities and blogs in Beijing and Shanghai confirmed that Internet censorship has tightened due to the Olympic Games.

Shahe99.com, a Guangzhou-based online community, went so far as to announce on July 3 that it will forbid users from discussing any political news during the Olympics. A section of the forum called News from around China will be closed from July 3 until the end of the Olympics.

Thanks to Nick
Based on article from Art Knowledge News

As the Chinese government attempts to control the country's image during this summer's Olympics games, censors have forced two art galleries to delay the openings of their shows, Bloomberg reports. Galleri Faurschou postponed a show of work by Andy Warhol of Olympic athletes that was set to open this weekend, because censors felt it was inappropriate to exhibit foreign artwork during China's biggest public event. Xin Beijing Art Gallery canceled a show of oil paintings by Ma Baozhong, because censors did not like his depictions of the Dalai Lama and former president Jiang Zemin.

This week, Dongcheng district council put up posters telling residents of the city to avoid picking their noses or sitting with their legs apart in public. The posters also warned residents not to ask foreigners about their salaries, love lives, or health.

Galleri Faurschou is now hoping to open the Warhol show on August 7, after enlisting the help of the Royal Danish Embassy to convince censors to rethink their decision. Xin Beijing may postpone its show until as late as October or November, apparently giving the artist time to enhance the details in a couple of his larger paintings, according to gallery director Li Feng.

Bitter rifts within Iran's leadership came to the surface on Friday when the authorities banned the evening edition of a newspaper controlled by Tehran's mayor, a leading rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hamshahri, a daily owned by Tehran's municipality, angered the president by reporting an argument between his ministers and the central bank governor, Tahmasb Mazaheri.

The story struck a nerve because it highlighted the reasons behind the president's acute political vulnerability. One year before he faces re-election, Iran's economy is stagnant, living standards are falling and unemployment remains at crushing levels. This is in spite of the windfall gains brought by record oil prices.

Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, has emerged as Ahmadinejad's leading opponent and a possible challenger in the next presidential election. Hamshahri, which Qalibaf indirectly controls, has made a point of reporting Iran's economic woes and linking them to Ahmadinejad.

The president has now retaliated. Of the newspaper's two editions, one has been shut down. By a decision of the press supervisory board, Hamshahri evening edition has been banned. The reason for banning this publication was the propagation of untruthful news with the aim of creating disruption in the country's economic condition, reported the official news agency, IRNA.

Hundreds of Turkish people gathered for the call of the Association of Intellectuals for Democracy to protest the shutting of Hayat TV. The group faxed the protest text Turn On My Television to the Ministry of Interior, the Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTK) and Trksat A.S.

A press release organized by the Association of Intellectuals for Democracy supported Hayat TV, which is banned from broadcasting right at the centenary celebration of the end of censorship in Turkey.

Writer Adnan Özyalçiner read the press release said that shutting of Hayat TV was an arbitrary measure: That Hayat TV helped another TV station by becoming its voice cannot be true, because Hayat TV does not have this kind of technical capability.

He declared they would continue their action until a just solution was implemented.

A new crime, the ‘cyber insult,' and expansion of the ‘real names system' could stifle freedom of expression in South Korea.

The government will impose punishment against administrators of Internet portals if they do not respond to defamation claims by deleting messages, raising questions about censorship. The move is expected to curb the freedom of expression and undermine the use of the Internet as a positive tool for communication because it could prompt Internet portals to voluntarily remove messages from their Web sites they deem objectionable in order to avoid possible punishment.

In addition, the government plans to expand the “real names system” on the Internet and introduce a new crime, the “cyber insult,” which will allow police to punish Internet users who post messages with defamatory content.

On July 22, the Korea Communications Commission announced a flurry of measures titled, Comprehensive Measures for Information Protection on the Internet, which place heavy penalties on Internet portals for rule violations and expand coverage of the real names system. Under the proposed measures, the operators of Internet portals and peer-to-peer Web sites will be required to immediately remove a message from the site if a third person claims to have been defamed. The operators of the Internet portals and P2P Web sites will be punished if they do not accept the third person's demand.

Coverage of the real names system will be expanded to include Internet portals with more than an average of 100,000 visitors daily. If the measure goes into effect, Internet users will be required to register with their real names in order to log on to small- and medium-sized Web sites, as well as to most of the large portal sites, to post a message or reply. Currently, the real names system is mandatory for Internet portals with more than an average of 300,000 visitors per day and Web sites owned by media companies with more than an average of 200,000 visitors daily.

Two Britons accused of having sex in public on a Dubai beach have been charged with the most serious offences open to the authorities.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors had hoped to escape with a caution after they publicly apologised to the police officers involved in the case.

But the pair, who as part of their bail conditions are unable to leave Dubai, have been charged with three offences which could mean a maximum sentence of six years in prison if found guilty.

The triple charges are indecent behaviour, having unmarried sex and having consumed alcohol.

Update: Just Kissing

16th August 2008

The couple were summoned to appear before Dubai's Court of First Instance yesterday in a hurried hearing organised in a bid to ward off the intense media interest the case has generated both in the Muslim country and abroad.

They admitted consuming alcohol but denied the other offences. Legal sources said that unusually, they have opted to represent themselves in the case.

Judge Hamad Abdul Latif yesterday adjourned the case and both Palmer and Acors were ordered to stay in the country until the next court hearing, which according to some reports will be on September 2.

China will create three "protest pens" in the capital's parks to allow people to demonstrate during the Olympics, an official said.

This will allow people to protest without disrupting the Olympics, said Ni Jianping, the director of the Shanghai Institute of American Studies, who had lobbied for the creation of the zones.

But Human Rights Watch attacked the decision, arguing that the restrictions undermined the right to demonstrate under international law. Nicholas Bequelin, a spokesman for HRW, said: The obstacles and deterrents are so high as to negate the right to demonstrate. We are also concerned about the possibility that the authorities might use the existence of these zones to justify repressive measures against demonstrators outside of the zones.

Protest zones have been created at previous games, including Athens in 2004, because the International Olympic Committee's charter bans demonstrations or political, religious or racial propaganda at Olympic venues or sites.

We have dedicated places for demonstrations at several parks, Liu Shaowu, the director of the security department at Beijing's Olympics organising committee, told a news conference. He stressed that under Chinese law all demonstrations must be approved by police in advance, but declined to say whether that applied to the zones, or whether approval would be granted for protests outside them.

Meanwhile Reporters Without Borders said police arrested a prominent internet dissident this week supposedly for violating his probation terms. Du Daobin, given a suspended sentence for subversion after posting essays online in support of another dissident, was arrested this week for posting articles on overseas websites and receiving guests without permission.

The family of another dissident, Ye Guozhu, said he was due for release this weekend after serving four years for organising protests against forced eviction, but had been taken away by police. His brother, Ye Guoqiang, said: We believe that the police took him away to silence him during the games, and that he will not be released until after the Olympics, when most foreign journalists will have left Beijing.

Russia's highest Muslim council on Saturday issued a protest against a ban on some Islamic publications considered by the authorities to be "extremist".

The Council of Muftis has taken a decision to request that the relevant institutions of the Russian Federation carry out a repeat analysis of the books, the council said in a statement.

Starting last year, the authorities have compiled a regularly updated list of publications seen as breaking sweeping new laws against extremism. Most of the banned books are linked to Islam.

Dozens of black-clad emo (emotional hardcore punk) music fans protested Saturday in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk against plans by Russian lawmakers to ban their style from the country's schools.

The protesters, many of them with piercings, streaks of dyed hair and studs, held up placards reading: Kill the State in Yourself; Why Do We Have To Think The Same? and A Totalitarian State Encourages Stupidity.

How can you stop people from expressing themselves, from dressing how they like, from living a way of life that doesn't harm anyone?" one woman said.

Russian lawmakers last month gave broad approval to a broad concept for the spiritual and moral education of children, including plans for curfews, bans on emo and goth fashions in schools and censorship of text messages.

The proposals are to be examined as draft laws over the next year.

On July 10, the Brazilian Senate passed the Digital Crimes Bill. The proposal will now be proceeding to the House of Representatives for a review of the last amendments, and the next step is its approval or veto (in full, or any of its articles).

Thanks to the pressure from many fronts, the initial draft proposed by Senator Eduardo Azeredo, which gathered unanimous rejection by the blogosphere, has been re-written for the better. The demand for user identification before they can take any action on the Internet, such as blogging, e-mailing or chatting, has been dropped, and some advances have even been made with the inclusion of an article to criminalize online racism.

On the other hand, many acts that would be considered trivial conduct when surfing the Internet are still typified as a crime, while the online pedophilia issue, which was supposed to be the main motivation behind the new law, has been touched only superficially in just one of the proposed articles.

Bloggers and Internet users in general demand more transparency and are mobilizing to fight for it. However, there is still a lot of confusion around the issues and many people are still referring to the earlier pre-amendment text to question the law. This doesn't come as a surprise considering that the public has not been invited into the debate and that only agreeable people were allowed to attend the open sessions discussing the law at the Senate.

It is a general consensus that the matter was not debated enough, and to help with it a blog carnival against censorship has been called for July 19.

An online petition in defense of freedom and progress of knowledge on the Brazilian Internet created by some very respected Brazilian cyberculture academics and activists has been signed by over 58,000 citizens in just one week.

At a March concert in Shanghai, China, Björk took time out from Volta's "Declare Independence" to shout out "Tibet!"

Shortly after the incident with Björk, the Chinese Ministry of Culture issued a statement claiming her outburst broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings, with an additional suggestion that the nation would increase restrictions on foreign performers.

This week, the Chinese government made good on that suggestion with a declaration of its own: as noted in a Reuters report, all overseas entertainers (including those from Hong Kong and Taiwan) posing a threat to China's sovereignty will be banned from performing in China.

A statement on the Ministry of Culture's website reads: Any artistic group or individual who [has] ever engaged in activities that threaten national sovereignty will not be allowed in. What's more, any entertainers who threaten national unity, whip up ethnic hatred, violate religious policy or cultural norms, or advocate obscenity or feudalism and superstition during live events will also be banned from performance.

Beijing has also banned pop festivals and tightened the rules for approval of outdoor events in advance of this summer's Olympics in and around the city. Nothing that has not been approved will be allowed to be performed, the Ministry of Culture said.

The Porn star is Candidate for a seat on the Sao Paulo City Council

Known to everyone in the porn industry of Brazil and internationally successful, Kidd Bengala says that he is more than just a porn star veteran. He announced his candidacy for the office of city council with the support the PPS (Party Popular Socialist).

He received the nickname Kidd Bengala from a producer in Rio de Janero when he first started in porn because of his 33 centimeter penis, and it has followed him for 27 years since he first participated in an erotic movie. “Bengala” means “cane” in Portuguese, and “Kidd” is a reference to the cowboy icon Billy the Kid's shooting talents.

In his 53 years, Kidd Bengala has worked with the biggest producers in Brazil, and also some major international players. In a market where women rule the box office, Kidd Bengala has the distinction of being one of the only straight male porn stars to draw fans. His name is so powerful that he is running under the name Kidd Bengala for city council, instead of using his birth name.

Kidd Bengala opted for the PPS because he shares the same liberal concepts of the party, and mentions that they did not have any objections about his pornographic career. The PPS has supported me a lot, and so has the GLB community (Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual) of São Paulo.

The elections will be held in October of 2008. Until then, Kidd Bengala will keep his career as a porn star active, and his dream of his future in politics alive.

India's cybercafés could be headed for extinction as a nationwide clampdown in the name of anti-terrorism threatens their existence

Why the crackdown? Officials in states like Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, and Haryana in the north believe that getting tough with cybercafes will help them nab terrorists, hackers, pedophiles, and porn users, says Ashish Saboo, president of the Association of Public Internet Access Providers.

As a result, café owners are expected to secure half a dozen licenses to keep their enterprises afloat, and users are now getting grilled by café owners for personal details. It's the only way to keep tabs on nefarious activities, many of which, we believe, originate from Internet cafés, says an Internet café registration officer in Mumbai.

The clampdown has become more visible in Mumbai in the past six months. Five years ago, the city was the largest cybercafé market in India, with a 20% share. There are only 600 outlets left in the city, down from 2,000, a 70% drop since 2006. The shrinking numbers are also attributed to the growing affordability of home PCs. In the past two years, average PC prices have fallen to $420 from $930.

At the same time, higher real estate costs, registration fees, a dwindling clientele, and the constant fear of cops swooping down are forcing entrepreneurs to wind up their businesses. There is no one reason to trigger a raid. It could be a bomb blast, an abusive mail complaint, or even a tip-off on adult sites' usage, says Dilip Sawant, a cybercafé owner and activist.

A lawmaker in the Philippines has introduced a bill designed to prevent minors from purchasing violent video games.

The measure proposed by Rep. Narciso Santiago could imprison retailers for up to one year for selling mature-themed games to underage buyers.

Santiago cited studies showing increased aggressiveness following violent game play. The lawmaker commented: [The state has] compelling interests to prevent violent, aggressive, asocial behavior [and] prevent psychological harm to minors who play violent video games, and prevent physical harm to the victims of violent minors, including other minors.... It is also the responsibility of the state to eliminate any societal factors that may inhibit the psychological and neurological development of the youth and facilitate the health development of the youth into well-meaning productive adults.

Eutelsat, the French satellite operator that suspended an independent TV station's broadcast to China on June 16 blamed a technical “anomaly” for the shutdown.

Yet the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB) has obtained evidence that it says shows the shutdown by Eutelsat was a premeditated, politically motivated decision, openly violating the free flow of information.

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) and RWB called on Canada and France to urge the France-based satellite provider to immediately resume NTDTV's broadcast.

Katherine Borlongan, executive director of RWB Canada, said the organization procured a recorded conversation on June 23 between a Eutelsat employee in Beijing and someone the employee thought was an official of the Chinese regime's propaganda department.

The recording exposes that the CEO of Eutelsat, Giuliano Berretta, stopped NTDTV's broadcast under pressure from the Chinese regime, she said.

It revealed that when Eutelsat's W5 satellite suffered technical problems and had to shut down several transponders, Berretta deliberately chose one that would stop the transmission of NTDTV.

Eutelsat has been attempting to sign lucrative contracts with China for several years. In the recorded conversation, the employee said Eutelsat had received complaints and reminders from the Chinese government about NTDTV, and Chinese authorities had told Eutelsat two years ago to turn it [NTDTV] off before we can talk.

Founded in 2001, New York-based NTDTV is an independent, not-for-profit station that has been broadcasting via satellite into mainland China and across Asia since 2004. It is the only Chinese-language media broadcasting news into China that is uncensored by the communist authority.

Turkey's Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTK), the TV censor, has announced that it will ban scenes in TV series in which alcoholic drinks are shown.

According to a Zaman report, RTK president Zahid Akman said the body was preparing for an amendment to the existing RTK regulation, noting that its aim was to prevent any broadcasts that encourage alcohol consumption in society.

Zaman wrote that RTK is planning to have program makers censor their production during filming instead of censoring images of alcoholic drinks, by blurring such images when they appear on screen. RTK experts will decide to what extent an image of an alcoholic drink on a TV program might promote alcohol consumption among individuals and they will then decide whether to punish the producers of that TV program.

Germany's journalist union and the German chapter of Reporters Without Borders have called on China to stick to its own rules regarding press freedom during the Olympic Games, which are due to open in Beijing next month.

The head of the German Union of Journalists (DJV), Michael Konken said that Chinese officials should grant journalists free access to cover the games.

We call on the Chinese authorities to honor the rules for foreign journalists in China, he said, referring to directives issued by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2006 that were meant to make it easier for reporters to work in the country during the Olympics.

The directives call for journalists to only need to get the permission of organizations or individuals they want to interview, but not state authorities. Konken said that officials had begun to prohibit interviews or threaten Chinese interview partners.

Konken welcomed an official Chinese apology for a botched live broadcast of German public broadcaster ZDF from the Great Wall. Officials had blocked the broadcast by holding their hands in front of the cameras.

The Egyptian government is reportedly reviewing a draft law, sponsored by the Ministry of Information, which would tighten the state's control on audio and visual transmission in Egypt.

Independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm published a draft law which the Minister of Information Anas El-Fiqi has allegedly written and sent out to several governmental bodies to review.

The law, which creates new legislation giving the government authority to control all audio and visual transmission in the Egypt, also includes the establishment of a supreme censorship authority to monitor will monitor media.

Human rights watchdogs and journalists were outraged by the proposed law.

We are facing the latest innovations of the Egyptian government for achieving its ultimate goal, which is placing the Egyptian citizen inside the ‘spiral of silence,' said Magdy El Gallad, editor-in-chief of Al-Masry Al-Youm in his column: The draft law for the National Authority for the Regulation of Audio and Radio Transmission … is the most dangerous in the legislations arsenal and the procedures restricting general freedom.

The law for regulating audio and visual transmission and censorship on all broadcast media will be presented to the People's Assembly for approval at their next round, which is scheduled to start in September, a.

The draft law, which includes 44 articles, includes all visual and audio visual mediums as potential subjects for monitoring in a wide definition that also incorporates “computer networks.”

The law would also make the minister of information the head of the proposed monitoring body, the National Authority for the Regulation of Audio and Radio Transmission.

Under the draft law, the authority would protect the welfare of the public and the producers, providers and distributors of these services [audio and visual transmission] and monitor the material transmitted to ensure the retention of traditions and peace in society.

The draft law requires those responsible for “transmission” to observe the audience's right to receive accurate information and not to have a negative affect on social harmony, national unity, nationalism, public order and public moral.

A British woman caught having drunken sex on a beach in Dubai is to be charged with three offences, police said yesterday.

Michelle Palmer faces up to six years in jail if found guilty of having a sexual affair, public indecency and insulting a police officer.

Prosecutors have yet to decide what charges - if any - will be laid against Kent businessman Vince Acors, the man she romped with on the sand of Jumeirah beach after an all-day drinking binge.

Miss Palmer will face a Dubai court once she has been formally charged. She has already been sacked from her £28,000-a-year tax-free job with ITP Publishing.

A police officer spotted the couple having sex on the sand and let them off with a caution. But they ignored the warning and were arrested when the officer returned to the scene.

According to police sources, Miss Palmer launched an angry tirade at the policeman after being disturbed for a second time. She is alleged to have hurled abuse and tried to hit him with her high-heeled shoe before being restrained and taken to a cell

Sex outside marriage is illegal in the Islamic federation of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai police chief Major General Khamis Mattar al Mazeina said: 'The United Arab Emirates has certain traditions and values and is an Islamic country: It does not tolerate such behaviour and everyone must respect our culture as we respect theirs.

Police are so concerned about the city's drunken daytime parties that they are intending to mount a special 'brunch patrol' to catch misbehaving Britons. Undercover officers will be posted in hotel restaurants on Friday afternoons, a time when most local Muslims are at the mosque but the top hotels host lavish parties - and most of the fun occurs.

All internet cafes will have to close by midnight daily and operate only from the ground floor of buildings once Malaysian guidelines to control them are enforced.

Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin said that under the new guidelines, cyber cafe operators were also banned from using tinted glass: Operators must ensure their shops can be seen from the outside. The new rule also requires those below 12 years old to be accompanied by their parents or guardians to cyber cafes and they are only allowed to stay until 10pm.

The guidelines have been drawn up and the ministry is going to start enforcing them as soon as possible.

Hamzah said cyber cafes were also banned from other co-business activities, including having games, gambling, pornography, music and publications with negative elements: Cigarettes and alcohol cannot be sold or consumed at these premises.

Hamzah said operators were required to keep a register to record the entry and departure time of their patrons: The owners of the business must also send the names of students who come to their premises to their schools.

Cyber cafes which did not comply with the guidelines would be blacklisted.

See full article from The Inquirer

Internet gaming establishments in Marikina, Manila have been warned against allowing students to play during school hours, under pain of losing their business licenses.

Chief Superintendent Sotero Ramos said: We are strictly implementing our ordinance that strictly prohibits Internet establishments from allowing students to use their computer equipment especially during school hours.

Police authorities in Marikina are also using the opportunity to monitor Internet cafés for any violation of anti-pornography laws. Ramos urged the Internet cafés catering to students doing projects, homework and research, to block off pornographic websites.

Australian euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke could be hit with a fine of up to $NZ10,000 for publicly showing a euthanasia film in New Zealand that has yet to be classified there.

Part of the short film, in which an elderly woman teaches individuals how to use an oven bag to end their lives, was played to about 50 people attending a public meeting on voluntary euthanasia held by Nitschke in Dunedin.

The film is banned in Australia and could run foul of New Zealand's censorship laws.

It is one of a series of three films called Doing It With Betty which describe the steps involved in taking their own lives using helium and a plastic bag.

Nitschke said he had shown the films in public in Australia without rebuke since the recent change in government, but had only ever shown stills from the film in New Zealand. However, the film was available online.

Chief censor Bill Hastings said Nitschke risked prosecution if they were shown and found to have required classification first.

Beijing's Olympic Plan for the mainland China-based portion of the blogging and BBSing netosphere is starting to take shape.

While on one hand it's coming coated in talk of self-restraint and uses words like “professional” and “responsibility”, the wording in an official notice [zh] which appeared online this week and is being spread by webmasters of sites that stand to be affected suggests that the coming month will see a similar massive shutdown similar to the one we saw leading up to the seventeenth National People's Congress last year.

...Read full article

MP Hamidreza Hajbabaii has said the Majlis [Iran's parliament] is going to put to the vote a plan on imposing tougher punishments on anti-social offenders.

If the plan is ratified, those who endanger the society's psychological security will be sentenced to death, Hajbabaii told the Mehr News Agency.

Offences endangering the society's psychological security include armed robbery, rape, brothel keeping, blasphemy, human trafficking for sexual slavery, kidnapping, and running websites and weblogs which promote prostitution, he explained.

The offences are not suspendable and the criminals' property will also be confiscated, the lawmaker stated.

In addition, a special center will be set up to discover crime evidence, combat the crimes, and enforce the sentences, he remarked. According to the plan, officials who fail to pursue the criminal cases or facilitate the escape of criminals will face capital punishment, Hajbabaii explained.

After a madman documented his plans to go on a stabbing rampage on a mobile Web Site, Japanese ISPs think the world would be a better place if they censored such content to prevent that sort of thing ever happening again.

Mobile telephone content providers have promised to set safeguards to protect young people after Tomohiro Kato posted dozens of messages warning of plans for a massacre as he drove a rented two-tonne truck to Tokyo.

Now the mobile content industry has announced restrictions on mobile online sites that would label such content as unsuitable for minors. Mobile phone websites to be labelled as 'safe' would have to closely monitor postings and report suspicious messages to the coppers.

The government said it would research new technology to filter messages on the Internet, because censorship is very effective at stopping homicidal maniacs committing random acts of mass murder because they are lonely.

The Israeli Knesset Economics Committee heard views on a controversial Internet content-filtering bill which would establish a public council to judge which Web sites are inappropriate for minors.

The bill has already passed its first reading. It seeks to shield children from violent and obscene material on the Internet, but critics say the mandated filtration would violate privacy rights and be a vehicle of censorship.

Shas MK Amnon Cohen collaborated with Eti Bendler, the committee's legal adviser, to amend the bill to address the constitutional issues that might arise.

In the bill's original version, the communications minister would decide which Web sites to filter out so that children could not access them. In addition, those who did not indicate whether they wanted filtration of sites would lose Internet service altogether.

However, the updated version of the bill allows all existing customers to continue receiving service whether or not they have indicated a preference for the filtration service.

Despite these changes, Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan, who opposes the bill, said it allows Big Brother to see everything and compared the role of the proposed council to that of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Representatives of advocacy groups who attended the meeting said the correct balance between protecting minors and protecting freedoms had still not been reached by the new version of the law because the censorship had the potential to go too far.

People have varying world views and the world view of the council's members is what will decide if a Web site is appropriate," said attorney Ron Gazit, who is acting head of the Israel Bar Association: Except for a few cases such as terror, pedophilia and racism, it is not right for the state to have a say in the educating of children because that is the job of parents.

Some at the meeting were worried that the result of involving such a council in resolving the issue would yield the opposite of Gazit's prediction and would result in too little filtration. The council will only block a minimal amount of material, in essence putting a stamp of approval on material that some parents may find inappropriate, said Yitzhak Kadman, director of the National Council for the Child.

A public service announcement showing a kiss between two men which was banned was finally aired on Croatian television this week.

The video Protect Every Kiss which was produced by a German film academy in an anti-violence campaign, was aired by Croatian Television (HTV) editor Aleksandar Stankovic.

The video was first offered by the Queer Association, but was rejected by HTV because the television deemed that it showed an explicit kiss between two men.

The HTV council did promise to the Croatian gay association, however, that all sides will be heard in a program focusing on violence against homosexuals.

The topic of the show in which the video was aired dealt with homosexuality, the rights of gays, the Church, and political messages coming from the altar.

Stankovic's guest Ivica Šola said that he is against all censorship as it leads nowhere. Speaking of the position of the Catholic Church in the contemporary world, he said that Catholicism is the only societal prejudice that is allowed today.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a Muslim group's complaint against Maclean's magazine.

The long-running case came before the Commission after the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) complained that the highly-regarded magazine published an article in October 2006 likely to expose Muslims to hatred and contempt.

The article, entitled The Future Belongs to Islam, by Canadian writer and commentator Mark Steyn claimed that Muslims were on the verge of taking over Europe and the West because of demographic shifts.

The article said that their greater numbers will eventually allow Muslims to dominate Western countries, pointing out that: Muslims are reproducing like mosquitoes.

In January this year, Steyn, writing in the Calgary Herald, said: That line certainly appears in my text, but they're not my words. Rather, they were said by a prominent Scandinavian Muslim, Mullah Krekar, to a respectable Norwegian newspaper. The imam was boasting at how Islam would outbreed Europe . . .

This is the nub of the complaints against Maclean's: They're objecting to a Canadian magazine quoting accurately the statements of leading Muslims. And at least two of Canada's ‘human rights' commissions, to their shame, have accepted their absurd proposition that accurately quoting leading Muslims is somehow ‘Islamophobic'.

According to this report, The CHRC concluded last week that the views in the article: When considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature, as defined by the Supreme Court.

But The Commission noted that Steyn's writing is: Polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Nothing wrong with that, in any country that values freedom of expression!

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV)'s broadcasts into Asia have been disrupted since June 16, 2008, with some fearing that it is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party's media censorship.

NTD is one of the few independent television networks broadcasting into mainland China and carries many reports on issues such as Falun Gong, Tibet, human rights in China, and the international movement to quit the Chinese Communist Party.

The satellite provider, EutelSat, told the New York-headquartered station that their W5 satellite unexpectedly stopped because of a "technical anomaly," and that they did not know when it could be repaired.

EutelSat told the station that four of the five transponders for the satellite had experienced an anomaly to part of its power generator subsystem, which affects the operating transponders used by NTD and prevents NTD from using the alternate transponders.

This incident has meant a complete shutdown of NTD's broadcasts into Asia.