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. 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 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.