World News

From the Washington Post, By Bashir Goth, the first Somali blogger

Even worse than the official censorship is censorship imposed by the community, which then becomes self-censorship. Friends, colleagues and even ordinary acquaintances all impose strict censorship rules on me under the guise of being concerned about my personal safety or honor. They demand that I tone down my strong views about sensitive issues.

Freedom of the press in the Muslim world cannot be separated from freedom of expression in general. Journalists, due to their conspicuous public role, risk their lives everyday. They have been targeted and killed in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia, Sudan and other countries. The Muslim world is not a friendly place for freedom of speech at all.

Journalists, creative writers and artists all share the same fate. The writer in a Muslim society is in shackles. Every time I put pen to paper it is a struggle against the tyranny of community-imposed self-censorship. Nowhere is Rousseau's statement that Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains, truer than in the House of Islam.

Everything is a taboo. Whenever a Muslim writer takes up a pen he starts tiptoeing in a minefield. You have to follow the flag signs of religious, cultural and social taboos. You should tread carefully avoid shame, social estrangement or even death.

The beheading of the Sudanese journalist Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed in early September was the latest example of community punishment of a journalist/writer.

Writers have to endure internet blockages and black ink splashed on their art magazines and school textbooks. One of the most bizarre censorship actions I have ever seen was the blotting out of the sexual organs of a historical picture of donkey standing in an old Arabian market.

In the House of Islam, you cannot have a principle other than that of the community. Every thing you do is referred to Islam. The mantra is that's stupid BUT...But we cannot do this because we are Muslims. One hears this expression ad nauseam. In the Islamic world you cease to be a human being. You become only a Muslim, whatever that entails.

You are not allowed to be a person with vices and virtues, you cannot follow your own reasoning, and you cannot be unpopular or defend an unpopular idea. You cannot go out of the circle. To express yourself freely means to risk death. And death indeed if you change your faith. Invention itself is considered as an act of blasphemy.

I am obliged to remind my readers however that Islam had its good days of freedom of speech in the middle ages when the Mutazilites and Asharites debated in public and in the royal courts about sensitive issues such as the creation of the Koran. This golden period has since been buried in the thick dust of history. With the rise of Islamic extremism in the present age, one can only hope for the return of such rationale.

With Somalia now under the grip of extremist Islamists who have already banned all kinds of artistic works and dissenting voices, freedom of press is their last priority.

Censorship in the Islamic world is instilled at childhood. Children are taught that there are two angels sitting on the shoulders of every person entrusted with the task of monitoring every good and bad deed the person does or says. This has prompted me to write in a piece of fiction about the character of a little boy who dived into a pond and vented out his demons under water where no angels or people could censor his words.

To survive in such unfriendly atmosphere like this, journalists in the Muslim world have become like parrots that only echo the official line. Torn between the call of professionalism and that of censorship, they have to always adhere to the call of the latter. If it takes a village to raise a child in Africa, it takes a community to kill a writer, artist and a journalist in the Muslim world.

Therefore, to talk about how to promote freedom of the press in the Muslim world may be a question that could trigger another clash of civilizations.

Based on an article from Times of Oman

Cable television distribution firms in India's entertainment capital of Mumbai have suspended services following a row with police over erotic content on TV channels, industry officials and police said.

Cable covers almost three million homes in the teeming city, of the 3.3 million with a television set. The firms struck late on Monday complaining that they were being harassed by policemen trying to enforce a court order banning sexually provocative programmes on TV.

The police action came after the Bombay High Court rapped them last week for not complying with its order delivered last year asking them to prevent such content on television. Police raided the offices of nine cable distributors on Monday and seized transmission equipment and decoders on charges that they had violated the court order.

Last year's court order came in response to a petition by a Mumbai resident which said erotic content on TV was corrupting society and polluting young minds.

Adult entertainment and pornography are illegal in India and are not shown on cable TV. Last year's court petition targeted semi-nudity and steamy scenes in mainstream Hollywood cinema, titillating music videos and fashion programmes shown by cable channels.

There was a court order against adult programmes on TV. We are enforcing the order , said a Mumbai police officer.

From IBN Live

A landmark Bombay High Court order is all set to firm up the requirement that all forms of TV must be suitable for children at all times

Expanding the scope of its earlier order passed on December 21, 2005, the High Court has said that apart from cable operators, both broadcasters and DTH service providers will have to follow the programming and advertising code and restrain from telecasting adult movies.

The order has also been made applicable to foreign channels which are downlinked in India from any foreign territory.

The cable operators bearing the brunt of police action in the last two days have welcomed the order since even the broadcasters have been made accountable in case of any adult movie being aired.

The court also came down heavily on the cable operators for shutting television signals for the last two days. The cable operators have also been instructed not to collect service charges for those two days when signals were blacked out.

The order also means that any movie with an 'A' certificate will now have to seek cuts to 'Universal' certification from the Censor Board in order to broadcast on television.

All eyes are now trained on the Broadcast Bill which is reportedly working out a provision to air adult content post 2300 hours IST.

Based on an article from Mumbai Mirror

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked cable operators in Mumbai and Maharashtra to stop screening a message saying certain movie channels are off the air because of the high court’s order.

This is a clear misrepresentation of the high court’s order to the consumers at large , said the division bench of Justice R M Lodha and Justice S A Bobde. The court made it clear that though its August 23, 2005 order put the onus of implementing the Cable Television Networks Act, 1995 on the broadcaster (along with cable service providers), it never banned the movie channels themselves.

It clarified that the channels are only expected to show films which have got U (universal) or U/A (universal/adult) certificate from Censor Board.

After the August 23, 2005 police raided cable operator's offices and seized decoders of nine movie channels. Following the police crack down channels such as HBO, Star Movies, etc went off the air in many parts of the city and even in other parts of the state.

In their place, the cable operators are displaying the message that this channel was not available “pursuant to the honourable Bombay High Court's order”.
 

From the Times of India

The TV viewing need not be sanitised completely. The government is likely to review the ban on adult films on television and give those with explicit language and material a late night time slot.

A suggestion to this effect has been mooted by Censor Board chief Sharmila Tagore, and information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi has said the government is ready to consider it.

In an interview to a TV channel, Tagore had said she she was opposed to the blanket ban on showing adult films on TV and said there should be a specified time slot for telecasting such movies.

Tagore said the board was planning to go back to the I&B ministry and ask it for a review of the decision to ban adult movies on TV.

She said the films could be safely shown between 11 pm and 4 am and also revealed that the I&B ministry was thinking of creating an adult viewing time zone on TV.

In the interview, Tagore also suggested that instead of censoring movies, ‘A+’ or ‘X’ rating could be given to those meant for adult audiences.
 

From the Times of India

The moral police might have pulled the plug on adult programming on television but there is hope yet. The information and broadcasting ministry is likely to allow films with 'A' certificate after 'watershed' timings.

I&B minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said, I substantially agree with the Censor Board's proposal. Adult films and serials can be shown during late hours.

The ministry's nod gains significance after the recent Bombay High Court order banning all content except that with universal or 'U' certificate from being screened on TV.

Films, serials, advertisements and music videos could soon be shown during the adult viewing time zone (between 11 pm and 4 am). Dasmunsi added a committee had been set up to draft the content code for TV and its recommendations will be made public soon.

The content code is likely to be based on the lines of 'Ofcom' (office of communication) guidelines framed by the UK. Officials said that there would be 'watershed' timings — a window period after 10 or 11 pm for adult programmes — as popular in the West.

Anything before the watershed time (that is 9 pm for UK) should be appropriate for children. At present, there is a general broadcast code in existence that allows only programming with 'universal' tag to be aired.

According to new rules, even advertisements will have to be cleared by the Censor Board before being screened.

From the BBC

To save its culture from supposed "pernicious modern influences", official action is currently being taken against everything from adultery to video phone calls in Cambodia.

At the turn of the year, a hapless young singer-cum-presenter was forced to make a grovelling apology on live TV after the prime minister announced that she had insulted Cambodian culture.

Her crime? Wearing a backless dress. That incident set the tone for the rest of the year.

Things which have been declared "against the culture" have included mini-skirts, dyed hair, dating agencies, beauty contests and third generation mobile phones (the kind that allow high-speed internet access).

Of course, a lot of people are wondering why on earth all this is happening now. Conspiracy theories abound, but one thing that cannot be discounted is the influence of Prime Minister Hun Sen's wife, Bun Rany. She was certainly instrumental in the rebuke to the TV presenter with the offending dress. And she was the driving force behind a petition against third generation mobile phones.

Along with other powerful Cambodian women, Bun Rany decided that these cutting-edge phones would allow would-be mistresses to bombard rich and influential men with suggestive material, leading them into temptation. We are all very concerned that bad people will use modern communication and information technology in the wrong way, and this will have a serious negative effect on morality and social welfare, said the petition from the group some have called the "Phnom Penh Wives".

Soon after, the prime minister ordered the phone operators to postpone their upgrade plans. He said it might be 10 years before Cambodian society would be sophisticated enough to use the new technology responsibly.

The authorities told Phnom Penh's first and only dating agency that its radical concept of helping women find partners was 50 years ahead of its time. And then the Miss Cambodia pageant got the thumbs down. Not only was the contest offensive to Cambodian culture, the prime minister said, it was also wrong to hold such an event while the country was still recovering from three decades of war.

To top it all off, a couple of weeks ago the National Assembly voted to make adultery a criminal offence. Unfaithful husbands or wives now face up to 12 months in jail.

In fact, many of the people I talk to think there are political reasons for the apparent moral crackdown. A friend who promotes safe sex said that if the government really were on a crusade, they would have shut down the brothels and karaoke joints where sex is sold. In fact those establishments remain in staggering numbers.

From Refused Classification

The (Australian) Classification Board is hosting the International Rating Conference to be held next year in Sydney.

The primary focus for the conference will be to explore the impact of an increasingly global marketplace for film, games and other consumable entertainment media. This will include identification of current and forecast trends in the global marketplace and attempts to define the ongoing business environment. In this context, the place for local systems regulations in a global environment, the nature of community standards in a diverse and increasingly borderless world and classification of new and emerging content formats will also be considered at the conference. You’ll also hear outcomes of the latest research into the area, including impacts of exposure to entertainment content.

If you work in the area of films, computer games and other emerging interactive media formats and have an interest in classification issues then you must attend this landmark event. The conference will be relevant for classification officials, content regulators, film industry representatives, computer game developers and producers, mobile phone content developers and providers, broadcasters, members of community interest groups, academics, social and market researchers, professional bodies and students.

From The Guardian

A British artist is facing up to three years in prison after he was arrested yesterday and charged with insulting the Turkish prime minister's dignity.

He was protesting outside an Istanbul courthouse about  another freedom of speech trial.

Police detained Michael Dickinson after he refused to put away a poster-sized collage he had made depicting the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as a dog attached to a Stars and Stripes leash.

The day had a feeling of deja-vu for Dickinson, who has been living and working in Istanbul for 20 years. He went to court in the morning in support of a Turkish anti-war campaigner, Erkan Kara, who was charged with insulting behaviour for exhibiting a similar piece of his work depicting President Bush pinning a rosette on to Erdogan at a dog show.

Dickinson insists he hung his collage without the exhibition organisers' knowledge.

In his indictment of Erkan Kara, the prosecutor described Dickinson as "ill-intentioned" but declined to press charges for "lack of evidence". I think he [the prosecutor] was under pressure from the outside, from the government, said Hasan Gungor of Initiative for Freedom of Speech, an Istanbul-based group. Turkey's under big pressure from the European Union over the issue of freedom of speech, and they didn't want the trial to become international news.

Since hitting headlines in March 2005 for suing a cartoonist who portrayed him as a cat tangled up in a ball of wool, Erdogan is believed to have earned at least £115,000 in damages from insult cases. The Turkish press have labelled him "damages-rich".

From The Times

Turkey's faltering hopes of European Union membership look set to be dealt a blow this week when Elif Shafak, one of the leading members of a new generation of Turkish female novelists, faces charges under the country’s draconian restrictions on freedom of speech.

Shafak is being tried under article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which makes it an offence to insult “Turkishness”. Her alleged crime is that a character in her latest bestselling novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, describes the massacres of Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as a genocide — an interpretation which, although widely accepted internationally, is still vigorously denied by the Turkish state.

Although other Turks have faced charges for referring to the events of 1915-16 as a genocide, Shafak is the first writer to be prosecuted for words spoken by a character in a work of fiction.

From The Times

A Turkish court secured a small victory for freedom of expression yesterday by acquitting the writer Elif Shafak of “insulting Turkishness” through the characters of a novel.

However, the unusually swift outcome to the case elicited only qualified applause from rights campaigners and the European Union, who have urged reform of the laws under which the author was charged.

Hours after Shafak was acquitted Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister who has been criticised for failing to speak out against a tide of similar cases against writers and intellectuals, suggested that the Government might be prepared to revise Article 301 of the penal code, under which they are brought.

Chief judge Irfan Adil Uncu cleared Shafak because of lack of evidence that she had committed an offence. Even the prosecutor, who had originally been obliged to take on the case by a higher court, read out a statement saying that the writer should be acquitted, which she was, with a speed even the most optimistic of her defenders had not expected.

But Richard Howitt, a European Member of Parliament, said: We have been talking to the Turkish Government about this since late 2004. We have prosecutors and lawyers who are wilfully misinterpreting this law, and for this reason it needs to be abolished completely.

From The Telegraph

A Briton who was facing up to two years in a Turkish prison after he produced a collage depicting the country's Muslim prime minister as a dog was freed yesterday after the case against him was dropped.

Michael Dickinson, a teacher who has lived in Turkey for 20 years, was taken into custody 10 days ago after he displayed the picture during a demonstration in support of an anti-Iraq war protester presently on trial in Istanbul.

He was charged with criminal defamation for superimposing the head of Recep Tayyip Erdogan on to the body of a dog with a Stars and Stripes leash.

The artist was released after pressure from British diplomats and an appeal by the Labour MEP Richard Howitt.

From The Times

Thailand's self-appointed military rulers arrested their opponents, banned political meetings and prohibited television stations from broadcasting viewer opinion yesterday, as the newly formed junta consolidated the success of Tuesday’s lightning coup.

Despite its insistence that it would hand over power to a civilian prime minister within a fortnight, the “Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy” is permitting no expressions of opposition to its authority. By yesterday all media organisations that formerly supported the democratically elected Government of Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed Prime Minister, had been suppressed or converted to the junta’s cause.

Broadcasts on foreign satellite television were jammed repeatedly whenever Thaksin appeared in news reports. US diplomats in Bangkok interviewed staff of the BBC and CNN yesterday in preparation for a formal complaint about the interference.

General Sondhi summoned newspaper editors and television managers to spell out the new conditions under which they can operate — reporting of “public opinion” is discouraged, including live interviews, phone ins and text messages from viewers that Thai television stations display in the form of a “ticker” at the bottom of screens.

The council asks for co-operation from all types of media and media operators, as well as reporters, to report their stories accurately and constructively in order swiftly to restore normality to the country, an official announcement said.

At least eight supporters of Thaksin were in detention under martial law ordinances that allow detainees to be held for a week without charge. They include the manager of a pro-Thaksin national television station, an outspoken columnist and the former Deputy Prime Minister, Chitchai Wannasathit, who was described as having accepted an invitation to remain indefinitely inside army headquarters in Bangkok.

The two latest detainees were the Cabinet ministers Newin Chidchob and Yongyuth Tiyapairat, who obeyed a summons to present themselves to the army at noon yesterday, having gone into hiding after the coup 36 hours earlier.

From The Nation

A total of 54 radio stations in two northeastern provinces have stopped broadcasting temporarily, following an order by the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy (CDRM).

Provincial authorities instructed 53 stations in Roi Et and one in Amnat Charoen to comply with the coup leaders' order.

An official in Roi Et said another 20 unregistered stations in the province had decided to stop broadcasting at the request of a local military office.

Another 100 stations in Khon Kaen are still operating. Chanadda Harris, head of the Khon Kaen Public Relations Office, said the stations were still broadcasting until further notice or a request to stop was made by the Second Army Region, which oversees units in the entire Northeast.

She added that her office was drawing up interim broadcast regulations with the CDRM, which were expected to take effect soon.

From The Times

A newspaper cartoonist has dared to defy a taboo on depictions of China’s leaders — and has had his wrist slapped.

Kuang Biao, who works for the News Express in the southern city of Guangzhou, has been suspended for a month for his cartoon, which showed a weeping Hu Jintao, the Chinese President.

Kuang is allowed to continue to draw — but only under a pseudonym. He told The Times that he always worked under pseudonyms and said he would continue to work at the newspaper as editor of the cartoon page. I will spend a month in self-reflection. I will pay more attention in future, he said. His newspaper seemed to have taken the decision in a move aimed at protecting him from punishment by the powerful propaganda authorities in Beijing. Even though his cartoon was tame by Western standards and made no attempt to caricature the President, who is also the leader of the Communist Party, such depictions are unheard of in China.

His drawing was a far cry from the political satire that permeates cartoons in the West. This is no caricature poking fun. It is a sympathetic portrait of a leader in tears. But it marks an astonishing precedent in China, where cartoons of leaders do not exist.

By my observation practically every murder that makes the headlines is either inspired by religion or else is blamed on the media. Now if we had the choice of eradicating one of these 'causes,' I wonder which would be most effective. And I wonder why politicians, the world over, make the other choice.

From the Daily Mail

The gunman who went on a shooting rampage in a Canadian college said on an internet blog that one of his favourite computer games was about the Columbine high school shootings.

Kimveer Gill opened fire at Montreal's Dawson College near Montreal. He was later shot dead by police. The attack killed one person and wounded 19 others.

A police official said officers had searched Gill's home. In postings on a website called VampireFreaks.com, blogs in Gill's name show more than 50 photos depicting the young man in various poses holding a rifle and donning a long black trench coat and combat boots.

One photo has a tombstone with his name printed on it - below it the phrase: Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse.

He said on the site that he liked to play Super Columbine Massacre, an internet-based computer game that simulated the April 20, 1999, shootings at the Colorado high school.

From Reporters without Borders

Iran's Government press commission closes three publications for indefinite period

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemned the closure of three leading reformist newspapers for an indefinite period: This wave of censorship is totally unacceptable. Political repression is now compounding the judicial harassment that Iran’s journalists have been undergoing in recent weeks.

The closure of the reformist daily Shargh and the monthlies Nameh and Hafez was ordered yesterday by the Commission for Authorising and Monitoring the Press, an offshoot of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

The commission claimed it had sent Shargh 70 warnings calling for its managing editor, Mehdi Rahmanian, to be replaced, but Rahmanian denied ever receiving the warnings in an interview.

The closure was also reportedly prompted by a cartoon of horse and a donkey on a chessboard. As the donkey was outlined in white, it was seen as an allusion to a comment by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in which he said he had felt himself surrounded by light when he addressed the UN general assembly last year. The authorities therefore saw the cartoon as an unacceptable portrayal of Iran’s debate with the western countries about its nuclear programme.

Shargh has been the target of harassment ever since it was launched four years ago. It has been under threat from the courts twice and was already temporarily closed down in 2003.

A monthly magazine sympathetic to the liberal opposition, Nameh was one of the few remaining Iranian publications to maintain their independence. Its open, critical style and the fact that it ran articles by journalists and intellectuals who were banned elsewhere had always disturbed the government.

The commission gave no reason for closing Hafez.

From The Guardian

The founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its users, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries.

Jimmy Wales challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing.

Wikipedia, a hugely popular reference tool in the West, has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia.

Wales said censorship was ' antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there's no one left on the planet who's willing to say "You know what? We're not going to give up."'

Wikipedia's entry on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 includes the government's official claim that 200-300 died and the Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross's estimate of 2,000-3,000 deaths.

Wales said: 'I think it's an interesting question whether they're prepared to understand the difference between advocating one set of figures or another versus simply reporting on what the controversy is. I can understand that they would be upset - although of course I still don't think they have any moral right to ban anything - if we were pushing one set of figures in contrast to their objections, but if we are reporting both, to me that's exactly what an encyclopaedia should do and they should be comfortable with that.'

Wales will meet senior Chinese officials in an attempt to persuade them to allow the website's 1.3 million articles to appear there uncensored.
 

From Editor and Publisher

The online interactive reference site Wikipedia has announced that the site had apparently been made accessible in China, after being blocked for just over a year by the country's government.

Wikipedia reported on its site that it had received word from multiple users in the country on Chinese-forums.com that the site had been restored. The most recent blocking was the third such outage reported by Wikipedia.

The previous  block referred to came allegedly in response to an article posted on the site as the country approached the 25th anniversary of the Tienneman Square massacre. The country subsequently initiated a mass edit of political articles on the site.

There has been much speculation over the cause of this block, writes Wikipedia. Possible reasons offered include controversial articles in Wikipedia itself and recent controversial events in the news that Wikipedia has covered.

From the Daily Mail

US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter. And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident.

The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week.

But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted a swift reaction from the Kazakhstan government, which is launching a PR blitz in the States. Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev is to fly to the US to meet President Bush in the coming weeks and on the agenda will be his country's image.

A spokesman for the Kazakhstan Embassy says it is unlikely that President Nazarbayev will find the film funny. Roman Vassilenko said: The Government has expressed its displeasure about Borat's representation of our country. Our opinion of the character has not changed. We understand that the film exposes the hypocrisy that exists both here in the USA and in the UK and understand that Mr Cohen has a right to freedom of speech.

I cannot speak for the president himself, only for the government, but I certainly don't think President Nazarbayev and Mr Bush will share a joke about the film. The bottom line is we want people to know that he does not represent the true people of Kazakhstan."

From Reuters

China announced new rules requiring foreign media to seek approval from its state news agency to distribute news, pictures and graphics domestically..

The rules, released by Xinhua and with immediate effect, also empowered the news agency to censor news distributed in China by foreign media and delete contents deemed forbidden.

The rules said foreign news, pictures and graphics can be sold in China only through agents approved by Xinhua. Xinhua will conduct annual reviews to decide whether to renew business licenses of foreign media. Violations can elicit warnings or a grace period to correct mistakes. Business licenses of foreign news agencies can be suspended or revoked if they break the rules such as publishing objectionable news or directly developing clients.

The rules said foreign news agencies should not carry reports that endanger national security, fan ethnic hatred and racial discrimination or promote cults and superstition. News that violates national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity will also elicit punishment.

The regulations, which also apply to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan news agencies.

From the Daily Mail

A campaign is underway in China to find and exile a British man whose blog about his sexual antics with Shanghai women is causing rage throughout the country.

The self-confessed British bounder, who calls himself Chinabounder on his Sex and Shanghai blog, is being hunted by furious Chinese men who have threatened castration, among other things.

In his blog, the author, who claims to be an English language teacher at a university, describes himself as a "wastrel, lacking in moral fibre, but coping with the situation".

The blog's audience has swelled from 500 hits to 17,000 in recent weeks.

The blog has sparked outrage among China's men, one of whom, Zhang Jiehai, has launched a campaign to find the bounder and kick him out of the country. Jiehai, a professor of psychology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, wrote under a post entitled The Internet Hunt for an Immoral Foreigner: I have something to tell Chinese men: please think about how these foreign trash have dallied with your sisters and made fun of your impotence. This piece of garbage must be found and kicked out of China!

Chinabounder has defended his blog and condemned the campaign to oust him by arguing that a goodly number of local men were no different to him.

From Asian Sirens

Chinese internet users are miffed about a blog apparently penned by a British teacher in which he recounts his sexual exploits among Shanghai women. The English-language bog, called "Sex and Shanghai" has been shut down because it has sparked online vigilante behaviour from Chinese males who were indignant at the content.

Apparently written by a bloke called Chinabounder, the bog has been subjected to attack by no less than Zhang Jiehai, a professor of psychology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Zhang says on his own Chinese language site "we need to find this foreign filth and kick him out of China."

Ironically, the bog is a hoax. Chinabounder was written by a British man, an Australian woman, two Chinese men and a Japanese woman who for some reason have never walked into a pub.

The authors have decided to close the blog down because they are frightened for the safety of expatriates in Shanghai.

Based on an article from The Guardian

A six-point package has been  unveiled by EU interior ministers regarding a European response to terrorists threats. Part of this package of measures involves censorship of the media and Internet.

John Reid, the home secretary, said that they wanted to make the internet a hostile environment for terrorists and those who seek to radicalise young people. A new legal framework is to be developed by June next year to ensure that illegal material such as manuals or instructions for homemade explosives or bombs are removed from the internet. Websites that incite others to commit terrorist actions will be blocked.

The EU commission will also report next month on satellite channels that propagate extremism with a view to possible diplomatic steps.

From Business Day

Print and broadcast media could be the subject of strict censorship if changes to the Film and Publications Act proposed by the home affairs department became law, three media freedom watchdogs warned.

The Film and Publications Act regulates films and publications by censorship, and currently has a clause that exempts the news media from its provisions, enabling print and broadcast news to operate without interference.

The proposed amendment includes bringing news media under the act, which means both print and broadcast media would be subjected to the dictates of the Film and Publications Board, a censorship body.

The South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), the local chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-SA) and the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) said the exemption dated back decades, and it was even honoured by the Nationalist apartheid government

Home affairs spokesman Nkosana Sibuyi said he was not aware of any proposed amendments that would affect news media. He said if the amendments infringed on the freedom of the media, people were welcome to air their views to the home affairs portfolio committee.

However, Sanef councillor Raymond Louw, who received a copy of the proposed amendments earlier this week, said that on the surface it looked like an attempt to bring media under the act.

He said it was difficult to discern the department's motives, but we think that it is an attempt to censor the press.

From the BBC

Authorities in Malaysia have fined the organisers of a recent Pussycats Dolls concert for flouting decency laws.

Promoters Absolute Entertainment have been fined 10,000 Ringgits (£1,436) for allowing the female US act to perform "sexually suggestive" routines.

The penalty was imposed by the council which manages the Kuala Lumpur suburb where the event took place on 26 July.

The fine followed a complaint from Malaysia's culture minister Rais Yatim, who said the group's concert featured "scantily dressed performers" and "sensuous elements": I believe the way the Pussycat Dolls behaved on stage amounted to gross indecency.

Based on an article from Out in America

Uganda's government has banned a performance of The Vagina Monologues as contrary to Ugandan values.

Information Minister James Nsaba Buturo said the government took the decision to ban the one-day show because it did not focus on sexual violence as activists had said, but on women's private parts: This is the stuff that homosexuals and pornography promoters feed on .

The Vagina Monologues is based on interviews with more than 200 women about their memories and experiences of sexuality. It was an off-Broadway hit in New York after opening in October 1999.

From Out in America

Canada Customs have seized copies of Cherry , by the British author, Charlotte Cooper, which were en route to the Bleeding Rose bookshop in Victoria, British Columbia, last week. Canada Customs also confiscated numerous copies of the book that had been sent to its distributors in North America. Cherry is an erotic novel about a woman's adventures in London's lesbian scene. It is published by Red Hot Diva, an imprint of Diva Books, which itself is a subsidiary of Millivres Prowler Group. The standard Customs form indicated that the book had been seized because it contained sexual scenes deemed obscene.

Whilst novels such as Irvine Welsh's Porno and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis are allowed into the country, books by small independent homosexual publishers are refused. Mark Macdonald of Little Sister's Bookshop said: Canada Customs' decision to ban the book Cherry just shows their flagrant disregard for the directions of the Supreme Court of Canada. Their actions continue to be heavy-handed and blatantly homophobic. While this book is seized en route to queer suppliers, it can be ordered from Amazon.ca and other 'straight' retailers across the country. We are outraged that Customs continues to apply the obscenity legislation so clumsily and so inconsistently, and in ways that do not reflect current Canadian jurisprudence.

The list of authors whose work has been confiscated because of Canada Customs'
obscenity policies include, amongst many others, Kathy Acker, Dorothy Allison, Susie Bright, Patrick Califia, Dennis Cooper, Diane DiMassa, Marguerite Duras, bell hooks, John Preston, Jane Rule and David Wojnarowicz.

Cooper said: Whilst I am honoured to find my name amongst these venerable writers, and whilst I look forwards to the publicity and sales this ban will - ironically - bring me, state censorship by Canadian authorities is absolutely sickening.

From Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the Singapore government for putting pressure on on the Far Eastern Economic Review and four other foreign publications to censor themselves.

The authorities are looking for effective ways, including fear of prosecution and heavy fines, to intimidate these publications into censoring themselves , the worldwide press freedom organisation said. This is the latest threat against the foreign media, which are the only means of reporting independently on political and economic events in the country since the local press is controlled by the government.

The information, communications and arts ministry gave the monthly Far Eastern Economic Review until 11 September to comply with section 23 of the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act. The magazine has been registered as a foreign publication since it criticised the government’s domestic policy in 1987 but had an exemption from some legal requirements which has now been cancelled. It must have a legal representative in the country by the ministry’s deadline and pay a deposit of 200,000 Singapore dollars (100,000 euros). For other foreign publications, the International Herald Tribune, Time magazine, the Financial Times and Newsweek, have been ordered to do the same when their licences come up for renewal.

This crackdown follows an interview in the Far Eastern Economic Review with opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, who the magazine called a national “martyr” because of the many lawsuits against him.

The ministry said the press law serves to reinforce the government’s consistent position that it is a privilege, and not a right, for foreign newspapers to circulate in Singapore and that foreign media should simply observe the local scene and not interfere in the domestic politics of Singapore.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 140th out of 167 countries in its 2005 worldwide press freedom index.

From the BBC

Israel's ambassador to Norway has complained to press regulators about a cartoon showing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert as a Nazi concentration camp commander. Miryam Shomrat told the BBC that the caricature in Oslo's Dagbladet newspaper went beyond free speech.

Shomrat made the official complaint to the Norwegian Press Trade Committee following the publication of the cartoon on 10 July.

Lars Helle, Dagbladet's acting editor-in-chief, said the newspaper was taking the complaint seriously. He said the caricature was: within the bounds of freedom of expression. I do not fear that Dagbladet will be found guilty .

The cartoon shows Mr Olmert standing on a balcony in a prison camp. He is holding a sniper's rifle and a dead man is seen lying on the ground.

Based on an article from Mainichi

Malaysia's disinformation minister has called for news Web sites to be subjected to strict government supervision to prevent them from publishing false or inflammatory articles.

Such measures were not intended to curtail press freedom... BUT... would instead minimize any online misreporting that could jeopardize public order and racial harmony, said Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin: From one perspective, controls on media content would raise the credibility of a Web site because the public would know that the published news is accurate and not based merely on rumors

Independent Malaysian news Web sites and Web journals with political content have become increasingly common in recent years. The government has pledged not to censor Internet content, but does so anyway with reminders to 'practice responsible journalism'.

Zainuddin did not elaborate on whether authorities would consider issuing formal guidelines or penalizing news Web sites.

Many of the sites are run by activists who say they want to offer an alternative to mainstream media such as newspapers and television, which operate under tight licensing and sedition laws that critics say has led to self-censorship.

From Asia Media

Malaysian Energy, Water and Communications Minister Lim Keng Yaik has come out to clarify the haze of confusion generated by Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin over the freedom of the Internet.
Lim said that the government would keep the previous adminstration’s pledge not to censor the Internet: It's difficult (to control the content) especially when you had given a promise when promoting the MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor). You have to go back on our word. Part of the article of guarantees of MSC was no censorship,

Asked if the ministry planned to regulate it in future, he reiterated: Not that I am aware of. Not at the present moment because we've given a bill of guarantees to the MSC.

But then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi added to the censorship worries by issuing a warning against those who spread "incorrect information and slander" on the Internet.

In addition, there are tensions over groups debating religious freedoms, sparked by several cases involving conversions linked to Islam.

The Prime Minister has also warned those spreading vicious rumours through short message services (SMS): We cannot allow the Internet or SMS to become a platform for people to spread rumours or threaten others. These people are practising the sort of freedom where they spread lies if they feel like doing so. How can we have that? Where can you find that sort of freedom in the world?

The government has come under pressure to get tough after last Friday's pepper spray incident involving Dr Mahathir in Kelantan. Minutes after the attack, facts and rumours about what actually happened began to spread over cyberspace and via SMS. These included talk that he had been abducted, that police special forces were involved or that the attack was an assassination attempt. Police issued a warning to those who put out such unsubstantiated statements, making it plain that action could be taken against them.
 

From The Star

Police reports will be a form of control against Malaysian bloggers who post seditious, malicious and defamatory articles on the Internet.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said although the Government would not censor the contents, investigations would be conducted once a police report was lodged against a blogger: The police report will be a form of control by the Government to ensure bloggers do not the break the law

 He said individuals with proof that information published on the Internet was seditious, malicious and defamatory could lodge reports. The police could also direct the Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and Mimos Bhd to conduct investigations.

Certainly, there is room for dissent... BUT... bloggers must realise that they cannot to publish lies, he said.

Apart from the police reports, Dr Lim said that the Government, through the MCMC and Mimos, had been monitoring certain websites to ensure that they did not cross the line. He advised people not to abuse the Government’s decision to leave the Internet uncensored.

In Kuala Lumpur Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Fu Ah Kiow said some bloggers should be more sensitive of the items they post on websites. He said there should be some self-censorship of articles so as not to offend any group or religion or cause disharmony.

From The Telegraph

Paris chic

A threat to impose spot fines on women who sunbathe topless or in thongs on Paris Plage, a summer beach on the banks of the Seine, has left the city's mayor struggling to maintain his carefully nurtured image as a modern civic chief.

In a country where going topless on real beaches is almost de rigueur, incredulity has greeted news that city hall officials and police have been moving among sunbathers, warning them of the ban on "indecent" dress.

What is especially embarrassing for Bertrand Delanoë, Paris's openly homosexual mayor, is that Paris Plage, now in its fifth year, is intended to reproduce the ambience of a Mediterranean beach.

But the order forbidding the exposure of flesh declares: Behaviour must conform to good morals, tranquillity, safety and public order.

The penalty for going nude, topless or in a thong is 38 euros (£26). No fines have yet been imposed but the beach does not close until Aug 20. City officials insist that the rule dates from Paris Plage's origins in 2002.

From Pak Tribune

Members of Afghanistan’s fledging news media are up in arms over a recent government directive that they say is the first step toward imposing censorship on journalists.

The uproar began last month when the National Security Directorate first circulated a list of restrictions on journalistic activities. According to the document, the news media are prohibited from publishing reports or interviews that are against the government’s foreign policy with regard to neighboring countries.

In addition, all contact with members of the Taliban was banned and reporters were ordered not to interview or film commanders or combatants of "terrorist groups" or to relay "provocative statements."

The term "warlord" is not to be used for leaders of the former mujahedin - the militia groups that fought first the Soviets, then each other and finally the Taliban. Many of these leaders now sit in the Afghan government or parliament. Emigres who came back after the demise of Taliban rule in 2001 to take up posts in government must not be described as having been "westernized."

Finally, the directive said media must not represent the Afghan National Army as weak, and should instead promote a "spirit of resistance and courage in the armed forces."

At a meeting at the Center for International Journalism in Kabul, participants condemned the new regulations, saying they amounted to a "censorship document" that would destroy freedom of speech and of the press. The restrictions run counter to Afghan’s constitution and media law, they said. Article 34 of the constitution stipulates, Freedom of expression is inviolable. Every Afghan has the right to express his thoughts through speech, writing, illustration or other means. ... Every Afghan has the right to print or publish material without submitting it in advance to the state authorities.

But President Hamid Karzai, while not willing to put his name on the document, indicated that his office supported the restrictions and urged journalists to consider what he described as the country’s current difficult security environment.

From 365 Gay.com

Robert Mugabe's government of Zimbabawe has made it a criminal offense for two people of the same sex to hold hands, hug, or kiss.

The "sexual deviancy" law is one of 15 additions to Zimbabwe's criminal code quietly passed in Parliament last week. The sections involving gays and lesbians are part of an overhaul of the sodomy laws. Until now laws against sodomy were limited to sexual activity. The revised law now states that sodomy is any act involving contact between two males that would be regarded by a reasonable person as an indecent act.

Mugabe has a long history of homophobia. He regularly refers to gays and people he suspects to be gay as "less than pigs and dogs". Mugabe said that same-sex marriage is a threat to mankind and condemned churches that bless gay unions. He said his government would jail and clergy who performed a blessing ceremony for gay couples in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is not the only African country where gays are in danger. Botswana, Kenya, Cameroon, and Mozambique punish sodomy with imprisonment. Nigerian law has a 14-year prison sentence for homosexuals, but in Muslim northern Nigeria, where Islamic Sharia law is in force, it is punishable by death.

From Rediff

Bloggers in India are getting together to protest against

 the sudden blocking of popular Google-owned blog-hosting site Blogger by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Powersurfer, Airtel Broadband and Sify.

On July 15, Mridula Dwivedi, a teacher of management studies in Gurgaon first discovered that visiting any blogspot blog -- such as, say Mumbai Help -- returned the message, 'Site Blocked!' Her ISP, Spectranet, confirmed they had blocked some sites based on government directives.

J Grewal, Spectranet's Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, told this reporter that, on July 15, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said the list ran into some 22 pages.

Now, several bloggers have organised themselves into a Bloggers' Collective and are planning to file a Right To Information application to obtain the list.

Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the Indian DoT [Department of Telecommunications] contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!’s Geocities. The list is confidential and I can’t make it public , said Saxena.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure ‘balanced flow of information.’ Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.

Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.

From Zee News

Facing stiff opposition from Internet service providers and net surfers against blocking of 18 websites following Mumbai train blasts, the Department of Information Technology today sought to play down its action saying it wanted to censor only a few pages of just one site but technology in India did not permit a limited curb.

The blockage was ordered in a bid to check hate or intimidating messages on the net in the wake of the blasts that left more than 200 dead in railway stations in Mumbai on July 11.

A top official of computer emergency response team (CERT), who did not want to be named, said the DoT was told to block four pages of a particular website. However, technologically it is not possible to block a particular page of a site and hence it resulted in blocking of a number of websites completely.

Asked if DoT would lift the ban on so many websites, concerned officials said the department is talking to officials in the DIT to resolve the problem.
 

From IT World

The Indian government late Thursday told ISPs  to stop blocking entire blog Web sites such as Google Inc.'s www.blogspot.com .

The move comes after Indian bloggers and the media found that most blog Web sites were inaccessible to them, although the government's Department of Telecommunications (DOT) had notified ISPs on July 13 that they had to block only 17 Web sites and blogs.

Some ISPs blocked entire domains such as www.blogspot.com rather than the sub-domains that they had been instructed to block, said Deepak Maheshwari, secretary of the ISP Association of India. The ISP Association advised its members earlier Thursday not to block entire domains, but only the Web sites and blogs specified by the government.

The DOT in a statement Thursday said it had instructed all ISPs in the country to provide unhindered Internet access except for the Web sites and Web pages specifically mentioned in its earlier order. The DOT also sought explanations from ISPs about why action should not be taken against them for blocking unintended Web sites and Web pages.
 

From World Net Daily
By Dr. Rusty Shackleford runs the banned website The Jawa Report.

Two days after the Mumbai bombings last week that killed more than 180, the government of India issued a directive banning 17 websites. These websites were singled out because, according to the Indian government, they might incite religious violence. The nine American websites banned by India are all critical of the Islamist movement. Not a single website of Islamic extremists justifying and even celebrating the Mumbai bombings has been banned.

Why did India ban these websites? And what is the larger meaning of this action? As proprietor of one of the banned websites, I am in a unique position to answer those questions.

The short answer to the first question is that we offended Islamists, and India is afraid of its own Muslim citizens. The short answer to the second question is that liberty may not be able to exist where there are large populations of Muslims.

Some time ago, a false story began to be circulated in the mainstream press that a detainee's Quran had been put in a toilet at Guantanamo Bay. Some Muslims reacted by protesting, some rioted, and some were killed as a result.

So, the reaction of our websites was to make fun of this overreaction. Oddly, mocking the intolerant is now considered a form of intolerance by many in the world.

The specific reason for India's ban was that our reactions to the Quran-flushing story could cause religious violence. Since it was only websites deemed offensive to Muslims that were banned, we know precisely who it is that India fears.

From The Telegraph

A Chinese reporter who posted essays on foreign internet sites criticising the ruling Communist Party was jailed for two years for subversion yesterday.

Li Yuanlong, a reporter for the Bijie Daily newspaper in the southern city of Bijie, was detained in September and had pleaded not guilty during his two-and-a-half-hour trial in May.

Press freedom groups say China is the world's leading jailer of journalists, with at least 42 behind bars, most of them on charges of violating vague subversion or security laws.

From The New Anatolian

Musa Kart, the lead actor in the cartoon row which made headlines in Turkey for some time, is this year's "2006 Freedom of the Press Award" winner, along with Judge Mithat Ali Kabaali.

According to the Turkish Journalists' Association (TGC), while the Grand Jury unanimously decided to give an individual award to both Kart, a cartoonist from Cumhuriyet, and Eskisehir Third Civil Court of First Instance Judge Kabaali, the award for institutions was presented to the Turkish Penal Code Association.

The Grand Jury presented the individual award to Kart on behalf of all cartoonists after his drawing depicting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a cat entangled in a ball of thread sparked a legal struggle, and to Judge Kabaali, who ruled that the cartoon was not an attack on personal rights.

The Turkish Penal Code Association received the award for institutions for its systematic approach to encourage freedom of speech. It criticized the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), the Press Law and the Anti-Terror Law during every stage, from the drafts until the laws were passed. The TGC said that the association organized forums, published academic papers and worked together with journalists and bar associations to raise social awareness and to draw attention to freedom of the press.

From BIA

The Initiative for Freedom of Expression has expanded its civil disobedience action launched together with more than 20 intellectuals last March to embrace weekly Armenian Turkish Agos newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrant Dink whose 6 month suspended prison sentence for an article in the paper was upheld by the Turkish Court of Cassation last week.

Although Dink will not serve the prison sentence unless he commits a "similar offence" within the next five years, the appeals court verdict criminalizes opinions he expressed in his February 2004 column in Agos on "the Armenian Identity".

Dink was found guilty of "insulting Turkish identity" under Article 301 of the criminal code despite the prosecutor's opinion that an offence of that nature had not taken place.

The initiative and those involved in its civil disobedience campaign are now collecting more signatures from those willing to denounce themselves as co-offenders of Dink and publicly state that they too participated in his "offence". The public declaration will then be published through the media in the form of advertisements.

We declare that on behalf of freedom of expression we defend Agos newspaper Editor-in-Chief Hrank Dink's article which was regarded as an offence under article 301 of the new Penal Code and that we participate in this offence a statement issued by the group and circulating on the internet for more signatures says.

In a separate development, the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has said in a statement that it "was baffled" by the appeals court decision to uphold Dink's sentence for referring to the 1915 genocide against the Armenians.

RSF said, Turkey's criminal law is among Europe's most repressive towards freedom of expression. It is unacceptable that criticism of institutions or offences of opinion should be liable to prison sentences. The criminal code, particularly Articles 301 and 125, should be urgently amended to conform to European standards.

From Asian Sex Gazette

Six United Russia deputies have submitted legislation to the State Duma that would restrict erotic programming on television and ban television ads for phone sex and sex-themed cell phone messages.

The amendments to media and advertising laws are aimed at reducing the number of television shows of an erotic character , primarily on MTV Russia, Muz-TV, Ren-TV, CTC and THT, Deputy Vladimir Medinsky said.

An increasing number of various sex-related services, such as ads for erotic pictures for mobile phones, erotic SMS chats and phone sex, are distributed as a rule on teen and music channels, Medinsky said in an explanatory statement attached to the bill. A spokeswoman said he had received a lot of complaints from the elderly demanding that sex-themed shows and ads be taken off the air.

Under the proposed amendments, advertising of sex-related services would be restricted to pay television and specialized erotic print media. The current media law allows erotic shows to be shown on national channels from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m: Thus, the advertising of sex-related services will be available to a significantly smaller number of viewers who purposefully choose these television shows and erotic magazines.

Amendments would be passed in the fall and come into force next year.

From Light Blue Touchpaper by Richard Clayton

The Great Firewall of China is an important tool for the Chinese Government in their efforts to censor the Internet. It works, in part, by inspecting web traffic to determine whether or not particular words are present. If the Chinese Government does not approve of one of the words in a web page (or a web request), perhaps it says not found, then the connection is closed and the web page will be unavailable, it has been censored.

This user-level effect has been known for some time but up until now, no-one seems to have looked more closely into what is actually happening..

It turns out [in the specific cases we've closely examined] that the keyword detection is not actually being done in large routers on the borders of the Chinese networks, but in nearby subsidiary machines. When these machines detect the keyword, they do not actually prevent the packet containing the keyword from passing through the main router (this would be horribly complicated to achieve and still allow the router to run at the necessary speed). Instead, these subsiduary machines generate a series of TCP reset packets, which are sent to each end of the connection. When the resets arrive, the end-points assume they are genuine requests from the other end to close the connection and obey. Hence the censorship occurs.

However, because the original packets are passed through the firewall unscathed, if both of the endpoints were to completely ignore the firewall's reset packets, then the connection will proceed unhindered! We've done some real experiments on this and it works just fine!!

Ignoring resets is trivial to achieve by applying simple firewall rules and has no significant effect on ordinary working. If you want to be a little more clever you can examine the hop count (TTL) in the reset packets and determine whether the values are consistent with them arriving from the far end, or if the value indicates they have come from the intervening censorship device.

NB: There's also rather more to censorship in China than just the Great Firewall keyword detecting system, some sites are blocked unconditionally, and it is necessary to use other techniques, such as proxies, to deal with that. However, these static blocks are far more expensive for the Chinese Government to maintain, and are inherently more fragile and less adaptive to change as content moves around. So there remains real value in exposing the inadequacy of the generic system.