Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is a 2020 UK / USA comedy by Jason Woliner. Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova and Mike Pence.
Follow-up film to the 2006 comedy centering on the
real-life adventures of a fictional Kazakh television journalist named Borat.
The film poster for Borat 2 is generating a little hype in France over the sequel's official worldwide poster. The poster features a reclining Borat, naked
save for a mankini fashioned from a coronavirus face mask. It seems that a few French Muslims have got themselves worked up over Borat's ring which is engraved with the Arabic word "Allah."
Social media posts seem to target the French
authorities for provocation and insulting Islam .
However the authorities are responding in support of free speech. In response to requests by bus drivers to remove the Borat 2 poster from the side of buses, the Paris transport authority
(RATP) has stated it would under no circumstances take this campaign off our network. RATP also denied social media claims alleging the Borat 2 poster led to stoning attacks on buses over Halloween weekend.
One area where the Borat 2
posters were removed from buses is the TICE network in the southern suburb of Ã?vry. The area has a large Muslim immigrant population. TICE management claimed the posters were not removed because of complaints but because the organization deemed the
offbeat humour on display to be inappropriate for public transportation.
Update: Kazakh community calls for Borat sequel to be banned from awards consideration
The Kazakh American Association wants Borat Subsequent Moviefilm banned from awards consideration.
The campaign group which is dedicated to preserving and promoting Kazakhstan's heritage and culture in the US - has hit out at Sacha
Baron Cohen's sequel for an alleged racist portrayal, and called on the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Directors Guild of America and BAFTAs to bar the comedy.
A letter, which is co-signed by the Hollywood Film Academy and Council on
American-Islamic Relations, spouts:
The Kazakh community worldwide is underrepresented and inherently vulnerable. Our nation is still recovering from an oppressive colonial past, which is why we do not have substantial
media representation.
Sacha Baron Cohen understands this fact and exploits Kazakhstan by hijacking our ethnic identity, whitewashing us by portraying us as Eastern Europeans, and inciting harassment toward Kazakh people worldwide.
Our people report countless cases of sexual and physical harassment as well as bullying due to the Borat franchise.
On November 3rd 2020, during #SikhGenocide awareness week, Facebook mass censored Sikh posts across the world.
The censorship largely focused on posts
related to the Sikh struggle for Khalistan, but also impacted posts on Sikh history, activism against sexual grooming that targets Sikhs, and posts relating to Kirtan (Sikh devotional singing). This mass censorship targeted a large number of accounts
from individuals to Sikh organisations and Gurdwareh, with posts being deleted as far back as 2010.
This was the second time this year that Sikh social media posts were censored en masse, following the blocking of the hashtag
#Sikh on Instagram in June this year, also during a period of Sikh genocide remembrance.
From analysis of posts targeted for removal a clear pattern is visible which shows most posts were targeted based on use of the following key
words: Khalistan, Sukhdev Singh Babbar, Gurbachan Singh Manochal, Avtar Singh Brahma, Jagraj Singh Toofan, and Jujaroo Jathebandia (Sikh military units) such as the Babbar Khalsa, Khalistan Liberation Force, and the Khalistan Commando Force.
From the simultaneous, widespread, and targeted removal of content it is clear that this recent wave of censorship has come from the Indian state which has long opposed any form of revolutionary Sikh self-expression centred on Sikh
sovereignty, adopting policies of genocide to violently annihilate any Sikh resistance. Khalistan, as a term and as a movement, has been demonised in Indian public discourse to the extent that in India Khalistan has become synonymous with terrorism. This
image is the product of decades of fascist Indian rhetoric and propaganda that has been used to justify the state's torture, enforced disappearances, mass rapes, arbitrary detention and genocide of Sikhs.
The November 3rd wave of
censorship coincided with the Indian foreign minister's arrival in the UK, which was preceded by news coverage in Indian media that highlighted the Indian State's suppressive laws targeting online speech. Under Article 69A of the Information Technology
Act, Indian agencies have been empowered to monitor, intercept, and decrypt any information generated, received transmitted or stored in any computer. This law has been used to stifle dissent and block online content that challenges the sovereignty and
integrity of India. These new laws are a modern rendering of the oppressive colonial era logic that makes sedition and political dissent a crime.
India today maintains that Sikhs are the aggressors and that only a small minority
of Sikhs demand Khalistan. Yet Indian laws, and the public discourse that was used to justify them, targets all Sikhs and expressions of Sikhi itself.
The censorship carried out by Facebook is an attack on Sikh memory and Sikh
being. It is an attack on Sikh struggle in the past, present, and future.
The signatories to this letter stand in solidarity against any censorship targeting the Sikh community and urge Facebook to become part of the conversation
-- specifically on Khalistan -- that is being censored. We expect immediate response detailing steps towards addressing this censorship.
We urge Sikhs and allies reading this letter to share it widely and connect with the Sikh
grassroots to build solidarity that exists outside frameworks of censorship.
Signed: World Sikh Parliament, Sikh Federation UK, Guru Nanak Darbar Gravesend, Saving Punjab, Federation of Sikh Orgs, Kaurs Legal, National Sikh Youth
Federation, Sikh Assembly, Everythings 13, Sikh Doctors Association, Sikhs For Justice, Lions MMA, Sikh 2 Inspire, Khalistan Center, Babbar Akali Lehar, Sikh Relief, Baba Deep Singh Gurdwara, Khalsa Jatha Central Gurdwara, United Sikhs, Khalsa Akhara Gym
Derby, Khalsa Foundation, Khalsa Akhara Boxing Coventry, Shere Punjab, Singh Sabha Committee Coventry, SHARE Charity, Calgary Sikhs, Birmingham Sikh Council of Gurdwaras, Naujawani, Khalistan Activist Federation, Kent Sikh Organisation.
A musician in Nigeria's northern state of Kano has been sentenced to death by hanging for supposedly blaspheming against the religious character Muhammad.
A Sharia court claimed that Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, was guilty of committing blasphemy for a song
he circulated via WhatsApp in March.
The singer who is currently in detention, had gone into hiding after he composed the song. Protestors had burnt down his family home and gathered outside the headquarters of the Islamic police, known as the
Hisbah, demanding action against him.
The song was controversial as it praised an imam from the Tijaniya Muslim brotherhood which appears to be a cult with beliefs that disagree with more orthodox islam.
The leader of the protesters that called
for the musician's arrest in March, Idris Ibrahim, told the BBC that the judgement will serve as a warning to others contemplating toeing Yahaya's path.
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is able to appeal against the sentence.
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is a 2020 UK / USA comedy by Jason Woliner. 
18th November 2020. See 
Open Letter to Facebook on Sikh Censorship 
A musician in Nigeria's northern state of Kano has been sentenced to death by hanging for supposedly blaspheming against the religious character Muhammad. 