Asia Pacific Censorship News

China has released a new set of oppressive rules that require all mobile app users as well as the App Store to have a real name registration and to maintain activity logs from users for a period of 60 days.

According to Reuters , the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) wants to get a full censorship grip on the rapidly expanding app market.

According to the South China Morning Post, the new rules cover information services through mobile Internet apps as well as app store services on the Chinese mainland.

Based on the new rules, users are required to register their real names with the app provider before they will be allowed a public alias or username.

The app provider then verifies all the information collected by mobile numbers or any other means. They are also required to regulate accounts or user profiles that violate the rules on the publishing anything that the state does not like.

A anonymous app operator commented to the South China Morning Post:

Many users like to comment on social and political news on live-streaming and news apps. Now they will need to think twice before making any comment that authorities could claim spurred public scares or rumors.

Channel 4's Sex Box has been axed from New Zealand TV2's new line-up.

TVNZ responded to a petition with over 10,000 signatories and ditched plans to screen a controversial British reality TV show in which participants had sex during the programme.

TVNZ said that they were responding to the feedback the network had received about the show, and agreed that after taking a closer look at Sex Box the show was not the right fit for the public broadcaster. A spokesman added:

We typically get a range of viewer opinions expressed about our on-air and online content. Not everyone will agree with every decision we make but we do listen

An online petition launched by Ann-Maree Quinn to see TV2 axe the show has been signed by 10,184 prudes. The petition read:

Yet another bizarre reality TV show to occupy our screens, but this one is particularly troubling on a number of levels. It is not prudish to object to Sex Box. Some things ought not to be for sale, ought not to be promoted with evocative storylines, solely to grow viewership.

Some things simply require a level of good taste and decency. Sexual intimacy is not just a recreational activity to be viewed, scored and analysed in such a public setting,

American singer Lady Gaga has once again joined the ranks of musicians and artists banned in China. Previously she was banned for being raunchy, but this time it was for meeting the Dalai Lama.

So Lady Gaga is no longer allowed on television, radio or available for online downloads in China (at least on officially sanctioned media), says China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. The ban came after she had met with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader to discuss the power of kindness and how to make the world a more compassionate place.

A Turkish man has been found guilty of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for likening him to the Gollum character from the Lord of the Rings .

A court gave Rifat Cetin a suspended one-year jail sentence and stripped him of parental custody rights.

He has insisted his images, comparing Erdogan with the grotesque-looking Gollum in 2014, were harmless. In 2014, Cetin published on Facebook three photos of Erdogan, then a prime minister, beside three pictures of Gollum with similar facial expressions.

Article 299 of the Turkish penal code states that anybody who insults Turkey's president can face a prison term of up to four years.

However, Cetin said he would appeal because Erdogan was not president at the time the pictures were published, Turkish media report.

Australian film censors are the OFLC have banned 3 campervans decorated with slogans and images alluding to drug use. The 3 banned vans are:

• The right side of Wicked Camper GCT799 has an image of the head and upper body of a smiling dwarf. He has a hand to his very orange nose. Text in large red letters beneath the windows reads Do What You Feel .

The left side has a large image of the head and shoulders of the fairy-tale character, Snow White, dressed in her traditional blue and red costume. She holds a thin white tube to one nostril and there are two lines of a white substance on a flat surface beneath the end of the tube. Her eyes are shut. Text in large white letters beneath the windows reads Snow White .

Text in white capitals beneath the van's back window reads, There's no way I was just born to pay bills and die.. The description of the image of the character Snow White in the submission from Ford Sumner lawyers is inconsistent with the image itself. Plainly Snow White appears to be about to inhale white powder rather than powder her nose.

• The right side of Wicked Camper JKC408 has a large image of the head and part of the upper body of a well-known stoner character, Shaggy, from the children's television programme Scooby-Doo. The character holds what appears to be a cannabis cigarette and his facial expression suggests that he is drug-affected. The name Shaggy , in large green lower-case letters, appears under the van's windows.

The left side shows the head of the dog Scooby-Doo, mouth open and eyes gleaming with characteristic doggy excitement. The name Scooby-Doo , in purple capitals outlined in yellow, appears under the van's windows.

Text in white capitals beneath the back window of the van reads, Someone pass Shaggy the baggy so he can roll Scooby a doobie

• The right side of Wicked Camper JLT886 has a large image of the head, hand and part of the upper body of the Dr Seuss character, the Cat in the Hat. The character holds a bong to its nose, and its face shows pleasure. A speech bubble beneath the van's windows contains four lines of text in black capital letters, reading, I did a bong / I did, I did! / A bong! A bong! / A bong I did!

The image on the left side focuses on the face of the same character, who looks extremely ill. Text in large red capitals, outlined in white, reads, Bad trip.

Beneath the van's back window text in white capitals reads, It's easier to get forgiveness than permission!

The censors explained their ban:

The public availability of Wicked Camper JLT886, Wicked Camper GCT799 and Wicked Camper JKC408 in their current form is likely to be injurious to the public good and they are therefore classified as Objectionable.

In a framework set by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, classification decisions must be reasonable and demonstrably justifiable. Freedom of expression entails a certain tolerance for the depiction of drug use in various media. Films or DVDs, for instance, allow a high level of control over the manner and circumstances of viewing, including access. This same agency and control is not available when the medium is a campervan designed specifically for public display as a business promotion.

The imagery and text on the campervans are expressions of a view but not political opinion or particularly meaningful satire: they are not making a greater point about social or cultural matters other than celebrating drug use.

Significant injury to the public good, in particular the promotion of criminal behaviour to children and young teenagers arising from the display of these vans is likely. The nature of the medium in this case means that this injury to the public good is not able to be adequately addressed by a restriction to those over a specified age.

The likelihood of injury to the public good arising from the availability of the campervans, specifically the harm caused to children and young teenagers who view the images and text dealing with criminal drug use, has been identified. The protection of children and young teenagers from harmful material is paramount in this instance. This is not an unusual or excessive limitation of commercial free speech. The promotion of other potentially harmful activities to children, such as the consumption of alcohol or tobacco is also prohibited.

Five publications have been banned by the Malaysian Government as it was claimed that the books contain elements which could confuse easily confused muslims and cause moral harm.

In fact the government was trying silence criticism over the persecution of young bloggers who made a minor joke about bacon.

The government book censors claimed that Alvin Tan's Sex, Pork, And Persecution: How's One Young Man's Fight Against Conformity Led to Imprisonment and Vilification was banned as it was likely to be prejudicial to morality as it contained pornographic elements.

The publication of Grey (Fifty Shades of Grey As Told By Christian) was also banned for being supposedly prejudicial to morality as it contained pornographic elements.

Three other books were also banned but these are not internationally known:

Orang Ngomong Anjing Gong Gong was banned for supposedly being detrimental to public order, security and morality as it contained elements against the Malaysian norms and moral ethics.

Ajaran Makrifat Syekh Siti Jenar and Israk Mikraj: Tinjauan Saintifik Di Sebalik Kontroversi were banned as they were found to be prejudicial to public order and contained elements which could confuse and harm the faith of Muslims.

It is an offence under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 for anyone to print, import, produce, reproduce, publish, sell, issue, circulate, offer for sale and distribution, as well as to possess such banned publications. Those convicted of the offence can be sentenced to a jail term of up to three years and a fine not exceeding RM20,000 or both.

Pop star Selena Gomez has quietly canceled her August tour dates in Guangzhou and Shanghai, it is reported that she was forced to do so by the Chinese government.

The ban its not related to the content of the music, but is due to pictures posted on the internet showing Gomez with the Dalai Llama.

The picture appears to be from two years, when both Gomez and the Tibetan spiritual leader were in Vancouver to host We Day, a youth empowerment project that takes place in cities around the US and Canada. According to a Daily Mail report , the singer captioned the pic: words of wisdom. #speechless.

I am Chut Wutty is a 2015 UK / Cambodia animation biography by Fran Lambrick and Vanessa de Smet.
Starring Helen Mirren, John Lynch and Donal McCann.

In one of the last remaining wildernesses in South East Asia, Cambodian community activists are struggling to defend their forest home. Their leader, Chut Wutty, defies threats and intimidation to investigate the corrupt logging syndicates. At an illegal, military controlled site in the Cardamom Mountains Wutty is stopped and shot dead. Featuring exclusive footage with Wutty in the months leading up to his death, I am Chut Wutty asks why did he die, and can his network fight for the forest without him?

Cambodia's Ministry of Censorship Culture has banned a screening of a documentary film about murdered environmentalist Chut Wutty and threatened strong action against the venue if films continue to be shown without first being cleared by the government.

Set to be screened on April 20 at Phnom Penh's Meta House Cafe, Fran Lambrick's I Am Chut Wutty chronicles the fight against deforestation in Cambodia through the life of Wutty, who in 2012 was shot and killed while documenting logging activities in Koh Kong province.

A letter sent from the Ministry to Meta House yesterday states:

The film has not been subject to a content check and was made without permission for shooting from the ministry and competent authorities.

By email yesterday, Lambrick confirmed she had not submitted the film to the department but would do so now. However, she disputed the claim that she was legally obliged to.

This is just an excuse from the Department of Cinema and Cultural Diffusion, but it is not constitutional. Cambodia still has freedom of expression and association, at least according to the law.

Meta House founder Nico Mesterharm could not be reached for comment.

Chhay Bora, president of the Motion Picture Association of Cambodia noted that often films have been shot and screened without permission and the blocking of I Am Chut Wutty may be because this is a sensitive topic .

Thailand has banned imports and sales of the November 2015 edition of the French women's magazine Marie Claire over an article it said carried content insulting to its royal family and offensive to its people.

Criticism of Thailand's monarchy is outlawed by draconian lese majeste laws that regularly bring jail sentences of up to 15 years for each perceived insult.

An announcement in the Royal Gazette, signed by Thailand's police chief, said the article was defamatory and malicious to the royal family, affecting national security, peace and order and the morale of the people . The order said any copies found would be confiscated and destroyed.

Vietnam is going to further repress online nudity with a new rule that will ban models and winners of beauty contests from taking nude photos and publishing them online.

The nastiness seems to have been kicked off by a photo of model Vu Hoang Diep. She appears partially nude in a photoshoot recently published by several local media outlets.

The rule, which will take effect on May 15, has been introduced by the censorship culture ministry. It also goes as far as prohibiting offensive clothes that expose sensitive body parts. Those violating the rule will face working ban and have their beauty titles stripped.

However an official from the fine arts department at the culture ministry dismissed the rule as a violation to personal freedom which will affect both photographers and models. You should only ban pornographic photos, the official said anonymously. But a ministry spokesman, said it is very hard to tell artistic nudity from pornography.

Fang Binxing is known as the 'father' of Chine's repressive censorship infrastructure known as the Great Firewall of China. He has been caught evading his own monstrosity during an institute lecture on South Korean internet censorship.

According to local reports, Binxing attempted to display a South Korea website, which he said showed the views of South Koreans attempting to build similar infrastructure to China's firewall, but was blocked by said censorship system. Fang then had to resort to setting up a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent the censorship, in full view of the lecture attendees, to display the site.

Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-newspaper, said that the university terminated a planned discussion session after Fang was criticised within the lecture and later resoundingly mocked online for having to circumvent his own creation, labelling it as an embarrassing display of the Chinese mainland's censorship regime