Read more on Ofwatch

Following on from demands made by the Information Commissioner last year Ofcom have finally published censored versions of the minutes for the first 21 content board meetings. Unsurprisingly not a lot has been revealed , however one or two snippets are noteworthy and some of the censored sections make amusing reading. It would seem that paper CB 65(04) looked at safe guards and how security might be regulated if Ofcom decided to allow the transmission of R18 material. The content board also requested to see some R18 content for themselves (yet were not so keen on allowing others the right to view it on subscription television). Some members of the content board also asked about the availability of such content on the web and (presumably) were informed that access was very easy indeed.

The prize for the most censored minutes must go to the ninth meeting held in Riverside house on the 20th January. The agenda merely states that the purpose of the meeting was "The hearing and determination of a complaint", whilst the "minutes" are shown below, in their entirety, as published by Ofcom - a true masterpiece of censorship that will strike a cord with those of you who are familiar with the way in which our transparent regulatory friends deal with adult service issues. Strangely the announcement of the £25,000 fine imposed on Playboy for showing R18 rated content was made in early February, but whether the two are connected remains a secret. Why does the regulation of adult service cause such regulatory paranoia?

Present

In Attendance

[Withheld from published minutes]

By Invitation

Appearing on behalf of The Number

[Withheld from published minutes]

Appearing on behalf of [Withheld from published minutes]

[Withheld from published minutes]

Observers from Ofcom

[Withheld from published minutes]

Preliminary points

1. [Withheld from published minutes].

2. [Withheld from published minutes].

The Hearing

3. [Withheld from published minutes]

4. [Withheld from published minutes]

From MediawatchWatch

Magazinet, an obscure Norwegian Christian magazine, has incurred the wrath of the Supreme Islamic Council for re-publishing the Mohammed cartoons originally printed by Jyllands-Posten in Denmark.

According to Islam Online, the head of the Supreme Islamic Council, Mohammed Hamdan, has condemned the magazine “in the strongest possible terms”. When informed that Magazinet printed the cartoons in the name of free expression, Hamdan revealingly replied: What on earth does freedom of expression mean?

He hopes that the government of Norway will condemn the publication, unlike the Danish government who steadfastly refused to take action: Editors should not take free speech as an excuse to insult a certain religion; otherwise they risk an extremist response from the offended, which carries grave consequences.

In other words, shut up or we’ll kill you.
 

When UK Muslim dignatories were challenged for the homophobic opinions (see Gay Cartoon Hypocrisy) then they said: All Britons, whether they are in favour of homosexuality or not, should be allowed to freely express their views in an atmosphere free of intimidation or bullying. We cannot claim to be a truly free and open society while we are trying to silence dissenting views.

From MediawatchWatch

According to the Brussels Journal, the Norwegian newspaper which published the Mohammed cartoons in support of Jylands-Posten has withdrawn them from its website in the face of death threats.

Vebjørn Selbekk, the editor of Magazinet, received threatening anonymous emails, including one containing a picture of a burnt body. The e-mail with the pictures of the burnt body is the most frightening. But I am not afraid. This is of course unpleasant, especially for a family man. But I cannot go around being afraid said Selbekk.

Another Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, has also published the cartoons as a gesture of support.

From The Guardian

Saudi Arabia said yesterday it had recalled its ambassador to Denmark, saying the government had not taken enough action over newspaper cartoons seen as mocking Islam and the prophet Muhammad. The Saudi government recalled its ambassador ... in light of the Danish government's lack of attention to insulting the prophet Muhammad by its newspapers, a Saudi official said.

Denmark's biggest newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, ran 12 cartoons last September including one in which Muhammad seemed to be carrying a bomb in his turban.

Denmark's main industry organization, fearing a loss of business in the Muslim world, sought to distance itself Friday from a newspaper that published contentious drawings of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

The Confederation of Danish Industries urged Jyllands-Posten to explain its decision to publish the cartoons on Sept. 30 last year: Time has come for Jyllands-Posten to use its freedom of speech to explain how it views the fact that the paper's Muhammad drawings have offended large groups of people, the group's head, Hans Skov Christensen, wrote in a letter to the daily.

The caricatures have sparked a wave of denunciations across the Islamic world and from Muslim leaders in Denmark. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.

In Iraq on Friday, thousands of people condemned the caricatures during weekly prayer services and demanded legal action be taken against the newspaper.

Skov Christensen said Danish companies faced repercussions this week from customers in the Middle East, including product boycotts, dropped orders, and cancelled business meetings. The confederation claims the Middle East accounts for annual sales of at least $816 million for Danish companies.

Danish-based Arla Foods, Europe's largest dairy group, said it had noted sales dropping in Saudi Arabia because of protests over the drawings.
 

From MediawatchWatch

Shiite and Sunni clerics in Iraq have joined the chorus of condemnation against the Mohammed cartoons published first by Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, and then by a couple of magazines in Norway.

Ranting in his mosque in a Shiite district in Baghdad, Sheikh Hazem al-Aaraji said: They want to disfigure Islam and this we cannot accept. These cartoons directly attack the personality of the messenger of God. We say to them: they cannot attack Mohammed, nor any of the prophets. Mohammed is the symbol of humanity. He is not dead, he lives always among us through his teachings and through the sacred book

After the sermon, a crowd of about 100 charged through the neighourhood chanting: there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his prophet.

Meanwhile, an email memo to Norwegian embassies has been leaked which reveals that Norway’s government is trying to make amends by “apologising”: I am sorry that the publication of a few cartoons in the Norwegian paper Magazinet has caused unrest among Muslims. I fully understand that these drawings are seen to give offence by Muslims worldwide.

The cartoons in the Christian paper Magazinet are not constructive in building the
bridges which are necessary between people with different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Instead they contribute to suspicion and unnecessary conflict.

Let it be clear that the Norwegian government condemns every expression or act which expresses contempt for people on the basis of their religion or ethnic origin. Norway has always supported the fight of the UN against religious intolerance and racism, and believes that this fight is important in order to avoid suspicion and conflict. Tolerance, mutual respect and dialogue are the basis values of Norwegian society and of our foreign policy.

Freedom of expression is one of the pillars of Norwegian society. This includes tolerance for opinions that not everyone shares. At the same time our laws and our international obligations enforce restrictions for incitement to hatred or hateful expressions.

From The Times

Denmark faced the full fury of the Muslim world yesterday as a long-simmering row over newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad finally erupted.

There were street demonstrations and flag-burnings in the Middle East. Libya joined Saudi Arabia in withdrawing its ambassador from Copenhagen. Islamic governments and organisations, including the Muslim Council of Britain, issued denunciations and a boycott of Danish goods took hold across the Muslim world.

The Danish Government warned its citizens about travelling to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, and withdrew aid workers from the Gaza Strip.

Last night EU foreign ministers issued a statement in support of Denmark, and the European Commission threatened to report any government backing the boycott to the World Trade Organisation.

A spokesman for Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, said that if the Saudi Government had encouraged the boycott of Danish goods, Mandelson would take the matter to the WTO.

By yesterday governments across the Arab world were responding to public outrage. Libya closed its embassy in Denmark and the Egyptian parliament demanded that its Government follow suit. The Kuwaiti and Jordanian governments called for explanations from their Danish ambassadors. President Lahoud of Lebanon condemned the cartoons, saying his country “cannot accept any insult to any religion”. The Justice Minister of the United Arab Emirates said: “This is cultural terrorism, not freedom of expression.” In Gaza, gunmen briefly occupied the EU office in Gaza and warned Danes and Norwegians to stay away. Palestinians in the West Bank burnt Danish flags. The Islamic groups Hamas and Hezbollah and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood demanded an apology.

Supermarkets in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen all removed Danish produce from their shelves. Arla Foods, a Danish company with annual sales of about $430 million in the Middle East, said that the boycott was almost total and suspended production in Saudi Arabia.

The Muslim Council of Britain, whose leaders are to meet the Danish ambassador tomorrow, deplored the newspapers’ refusal to apologise for printing “sacrilegious cartoons vilifying the Prophet Muhammad”.

Per Stig Moeller, Denmark’s Foreign Minister, insisted in Brussels last night: We condemn blasphemy. We want respect for religions. But we cannot intervene. We have sent explanations but, as we have said before, freedom of expression is a matter for the courts, not for the Government

From al jazeerah

The publication of the Danish illustrations of the Prophet and their republication in Norway offers not one but two separate offenses to the Muslim world. The most obvious is that not only was the Prophet depicted in ten of the twelve cartoons, but also that one of the illustrations portrayed him as a terrorist. The second offense is that people in Denmark and Norway and no doubt in most of Europe and North America seem blissfully unaware of precisely how outrageous these images are to Islamic sensibilities.

What is so deeply disappointing is that the Danish and indeed Norwegian authorities have failed to adequately condemn the publication of the image or to directly apologize for the hurt it has caused to everyone in the Muslim world. Instead, we have heard the usual responses about freedom of speech and governments having no control over the press and media.

No one is talking about censorship... BUT... what Muslims are saying that with every freedom comes a responsibility. Something deeply painful to the entire Muslim world was published in a Danish newspaper. That in itself was an irresponsible use of the freedom of the press, which in no country anywhere is an unlimited freedom allowing journalists to vilify, libel or lie.
 

From The Independent

A Danish newspaper suffered bomb scares a day after apologising for cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed which prompted protests from Muslims and a boycott of Danish products in a dozen nations. The offices of Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen and Arhus were evacuated for a short tim

Stunned by the scale of the reaction, the newspaper - which received 9,000 e-mails on the subject in one day - moved to defuse the row with an appeal published on its website. Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief, said in the open letter, which was also published in Arabic: In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologise.

Under the headline "Honourable Citizens of the Muslim World", the editor defended the publication, arguing: The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark. The apology, which has prompted a fierce debate over freedom of expression, was welcomed by the Danish premier, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He said: I'm extremely happy that Jyllands-Posten has decided to take this very difficult step. I would now like to appeal to Muslim groups in Denmark to speak out and defuse the situation after Jyllands-Posten's apology.

From FortWayne.com

A Danish Muslim group accepted an apology from a newspaper that published offensive cartoons of the prophet Muhammad but said later that it had decided the statement was ambiguous.

The group did not elaborate, and it was unclear whether there would be any effect on protests and boycotts of Danish goods in Muslim countries.

From The Telegraph

Channel 4 is facing investigation by Ofcom, the television regulator, over a stunt in which a man was hung from a gallows on live television.

Jonathan Goodwin, an escapologist, was supposed to free himself from a noose within 30 seconds but the stunt was said to have failed and a friend had to step in to cut him down.

More than a dozen viewers complained about the programme, Death Wish Live! Channel 4 received six complaints from viewers and Ofcom received seven.

Ofcom is now investigating whether the programme has breached broadcasting guidelines.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: As a result of a pre-arranged safety measure, when Jonathan did not manage to escape within 30 seconds, his friend cut the noose. At no point was Jonathan's life in danger. Jonathan was immediately seen by paramedics on site who have confirmed that he is well and his only injuries are minor rope burns."

Goodwin said: I was told it was dangerous and stupid and it turns out that the advice was right. But despite a sore neck, I am fine and hope to be buried alive on Friday.

From The Observer

Comedian Rowan Atkinson today makes a last-ditch call for MPs to reject a controversial bill that would make it illegal to insult religions.

Atkinson, an outspoken critic of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which goes before the Commons on Tuesday, says the move would stifle freedom of speech. The Mr Bean star is part of a vociferous alliance of thespians, atheists and Christians who are lobbying against the bill, which is also being opposed by the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

Others opponents include Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre; Ian McEwan, a Booker prize-winning author; best-selling children's writer Philip Pullman; and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

The Lords voted by a majority of 149 to narrow the government's proposed new offence of inciting religious hatred to that involving the use of threatening words or behaviour. But Labour now plans to make it an offence to incite religious hatred through the use of insulting or abusive words.

I am deeply concerned for all performers and entertainers, because the climate in which we work will be very different if the government gets its way, Atkinson said. If the wording of the revised bill is read carefully, it can be seen that the new freedoms the government provides with one hand it deftly removes with the other.

Last night Christian groups expressed dismay that the government had opted to reject the Lords' amendments. Our previous relative relief that the Lords had delivered a workable and less extreme bill ... has now turned to alarm, said Dr Don Horrocks, head of public affairs at the Evangelical Alliance.

The practical effect will be to inhibit free speech and writing in such a way that people will worry about saying anything critical of religion.

Keith Porteous-Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, which was instrumental in co-ordinating opposition to the bill, said the legislation would be welcomed only by lawyers. There are an awful lot of litigious people around. Extremists are going to cow people into silence.

It is estimated between 20 and 30 backbench Labour MPs may rebel against the government, suggesting the vote will be very close.

Tuesday's vote will be the last and best chance for parliament to protect freedom of speech, said Lib Dem spokesman Evan Harris. Unless these safeguards are kept in place, the chilling effect of this new offence would be to stifle free expression and set community against community - each seeking to prosecute others for perceived insults.

From The Telegraph

An unlikely alliance of humanists, secularists, Muslims and evangelical Christians issued an eleventh-hour plea to MPs to reject the Government's proposed religious hatred legislation.

The appeal will increase the pressure on ministers to make significant concessions when the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill returns to the House of Commons for a critical vote today.

The group say in a letter to The Daily Telegraph today that the Bill, as it currently stands, will undermine free speech in a society where it is vital to allow debate: As people with strong views on religion, we know how easy it is to offend those with whom you disagree and how easy it is to resent what others say, and see insult in it, the letter says.

But we also recognise that a free society must have the scope to debate, criticise, proselytise, insult and even to ridicule belief and religious practices in order to ensure that there is full scope - short of violence or inciting violence or other criminal offences - to tackle these issues.

The signatories to the letter call on MPs to ensure that amendments to the Bill made by the House of Lords are not reversed in the Commons. Under the Lords amendments the new offence of inciting religious hatred would be restricted to threatening words and behaviour rather than a wider definition including insults and abuse.

The amendments would also require the offence to be intentional and specify that proselytising, discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence.

The signatories to the letter include two Muslims, Dr Ghyasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament, and Manzoor Moghal, of the Muslim Forum.

But the Government has indicated that it plans to reverse most of the changes made by the Lords.
 

The victory has rather been eclipsed by the embarrassment of Blair and speculation about his political future. It seems a bit of pity that we cannot celebrate the defeat of the most extreme parts of this bollox law in its own right.

From The Guardian

The government last night suffered a chaotic defeat over its bill to combat religious hatred when a lethal mixture of Labour rebels, abstentions and absentees from Westminster delivered an unexpected triumph to the combined Opposition in both Lords and Commons.

Though the racial and religious hatred bill came from Charles Clarke's Home Office team, and some MPs predicted that chief whip, Hilary Armstrong will today offer her resignation, Tony Blair contributed personally to the defeat by missing the night's second key vote - which was lost by just one vote, his own.

As the Home Secretary immediately confirmed to gleeful MPs in the Commons the two defeats - the first by 288 to 278 votes - mean that the bill will now go for royal assent in the version amended substantially by the Lords last autumn.

Ministers had made concessions to reassure religious critics - Christian and Muslim, as well as atheists and civil libertarians, who claimed the bill was unnecessary and would threaten basic freedom of speech. Several hundred demonstrators had protested outside parliament for much of the day.

During last night's debate on the disputed Lords amendments, it fell to junior minister Paul Goggins to assure MPs he had embraced the need to make changes which will clarify the law and protect the free speech of polemicists and comedians alike. Rowan Atkinson had been a vocal opponent.

Changes made in the Lords now mean that someone charged with an offence would have to be shown to have used "threatening" language - rather than "threatening, insulting and abusive" the test in race cases. It will also mean that the prosecution will have to show "intention" to foment such hatred by the accused rather than intention or "recklessness" as Goggins's compromise had proposed.

As Goggins struggled to make his case he admitted that the cartoons critical of Muhammad which have triggered boycotts and a political crisis in Denmark after being published there could attract prosecution under the bill.

The straight answer is [yes] if there was an intention to stir up hatred or if the person was behaving in a reckless way about the impact of his behaviour, the minister told Labour backbencher Gordon Prentice when MPs on both sides pressed him for specific examples of a likely offence. The disputed cartoons included one showing Muhammad, the founder of Islam, wearing a bomb-shaped turban, and another of him telling suicide bombers he had run out of virgins to award them. MPs offered other examples - such as the punishment of death for seeking to convert Muslims - as possible problem areas.

Based on an article from Manager Online

The Thai Information and Communication Technology Ministry (ICT) is taking another crack at banishing pornography from the country, this time by using hundreds of cyber snitches and closed-circuit television (CCTV) in post offices.

Just a few months after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said that the government would begin to shift its focus to an agenda aimed at curing social ills, including pornography, ICT Minister Sora-at Klinpratoom said earlier this week that today will see the start of an initiative that will be executed by hundreds of employees and backed by tougher regulations, with the aim of ensuring that the country’s decency laws are observed.

The ICT has been blocking illegal websites for years, but, according to a spokesman, it has been nearly impossible to stop people from surfing illegal sites, due to the open nature of internet communication technology and the proliferation of websites with obscene content. The ministry estimates that there are more than one million websites with content that violates the law, and these pornographic websites get about one million hits from inside Thailand every day, Sora-at said yesterday.

So far, the ICT has gathered a list of fewer than 2,000 websites with content that is deemed illegal, and has requested that internet service providers (ISPs), such as CAT Telecom (CAT), True and CS Loxinfo, block their users from accessing the sites.

Most internet users access the web through a handful of licensed service providers, all of whom can filter out material from banned websites, said a spokesman at CAT. Every [ISP] has a proxy server and all data go through that server before they appear on subscribers’ computers, he said. So, it is easy for ISPs to filter content. Users usually don’t even know about the filtration process, as banned sites will often come up with normal error messages or “request denied” pages, he said.

The ministry spokesman said that, although they are difficult to breach, filters can stop access to specified websites only, and the ICT has not yet been able to identify every website which violates Thai law.

To get around the problem, the ministry has employed hundreds of so-called “cyber inspectors,” who scour the internet to identify websites with nudity or other obscene material. The ICT has its own website, where citizens can report potentially illegal web content, and it recently began giving away parental control software.

Starting today, the ministry is sponsoring a radio show which parents can call to report illegal websites and receive advice on how to monitor their children’s internet usage. It has installed a telephone hotline and is monitoring post office boxes to catch people who send printed pornography through the mail.

People can rent post office boxes, but they don’t have to register their names, [and] so, they can use them to send [pornographic] DVDs, books [and] CDs. Starting [today], everyone has to register to have a post office box number, and we will soon have CCTV in some post offices, the ministry spokesman said.

The ministry does not have an estimate of the number of people it suspects of viewing online pornography, but if internet porn is as widespread as estimated by Sora-at, the government’s efforts to block websites will have little impact, said telecommunications analysts, who expressed doubt over the government’s ability to stop people from accessing online pornography sites, even with the new policies and the cooperation of ISPs.

From The Telegraph

Google, the giant internet search company, is to lead industry opposition to new proposals from the European Commission to regulate online content.

The company, which last week said it would self-censor its Chinese search engine to appease the country's government, objects to the commission's proposals to extend regulations in the Television Without Frontiers directive (TWFD) to cover video content shown on the internet.

James Purnell, the minister for creative industries, has backed Google's stance. He said: There is no benefit to the consumer that justifies this move. This increased scope could mean significant regulation of the internet and stifle the growth of new media services. That would raise prices for consumers and deprive them of potential new services.

Existing national laws that regulate TV broadcasting - for example, the British ban on tobacco advertising and child porn - were sufficient, he added.

If the proposals became part of European law, Purnell said: in 10 years our successors will bemoan the handicaps we gave to European industry and the restraints we put on free speech. For example, the proposals suggest that member states should ensure that media service providers. . . do not offer material which contains incitement to hatred on grounds of, for example, disability or age. I'm the last person to say that issues like this are not important and of course we have been discussing race and religious hatred in our own Parliament only recently.

But what that debate showed was that these are wide-ranging issues on which there are different, strongly and legitimately held opinions and where intervention must have the strongest justification. Some member states - and I don't just mean the UK - will have serious difficulties with such an approach on grounds of freedom of speech.

The plan to extend the scope of the TWFD is set to go before the European Parliament later this year. The new proposals, if implemented, will govern material shown on the internet which originates in EU member states. The internet industry fears that some content providers will move outside the trading bloc rather than submit to regulation.

The TV and internet industries are moving closer together as new technologies and faster download speeds make it easier to broadcast video on the web.

The Witch Who Came in from the Sea has been passed 18 uncut by the BBFC in 2006.

Amazon Review:

Here is an odd little gem of a film that fortunately ( at least for fans of offbeat cinema) has resurfaced on DVD, boasting a pristine film transfer. Descriptions of the film, the title of the film, and even the DVD cover itself do little to relate, or even hint at what is, as it turns out, an altogether strange, unsettling, humorous, and entertaining cinematic treat. The off kilter acting styles, unnatural tone, and dark humor of the film shares a kinship to the works of David Lynch ( who is too often misused as a comparative description) and is sure to surprise and delight viewers who have an affinity for the outré. Highly recommended.

From KTRE

The Los Angeles city attorney is alleging the makers of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game hid pornography inside it. The lawsuit also accuses Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive of making misleading statements and engaging in unfair competition.

The video game includes a secret "mini game" in which characters can engage in explicit sex. City attorney Rocky Delgadillo says the industry board that rates video games gave it a mature rating but would have given it an adults-only rating if it knew of the explicit content. The game's rating was later changed and some big retailers pulled it from shelves.

The game makers haven't commented yet on the lawsuit

Updated 28th January

From The Sun

A violent new British movie about “happy slapping” was facing calls to be banned last night. Nutters fear Kidulthood which features two scenes where yobs film attacks glamorises teenage violence. The movie came under fire days after a teenager was jailed for filming pals kicking a man to death. Lucy Cope, who founded Mothers Against Guns after her son was shot dead in 2002, last night led calls for the film to be banned. The movie set in west London has been compared by some critics to youth classics like Trainspotting and Quadrophenia.

A teenager said to be obsessed with a killer video game was yesterday found guilty of murdering his sister by torching his home in a twisted bid to slaughter his entire family.  The 16-year-old – who modelled himself on a half-human/half-demon PlayStation 2 character – also hit his brother with an axe leaving him brain damaged.  The lad always wore black Goth clothes and called himself Dante after the killer character in the 15-rated game Devil May Cry, the Old Bailey heard. 

Last night the pressure group mediawatch-uk accused the games industry of “living in denial” of the consequences of their products.

Based on an article from Christian Today

This week the nutter bait stage show, Jerry Springer – The Opera, begins with theatres across the country now bracing themselves for protests during the nationwide tour.

Local organisation Action Group has already planned a protest outside the Plymouth Theatre Royal and up to 50 nutters are expected to turn out to voice their concerns.

The 20-city, five-month tour will begin in Plymouth, Devon on Friday after a turbulent period where it was questionable whether the tour would go ahead.

A spokesperson for the Plymouth theatre said there is planned to be extra security on the opening night of the tour. The BBC reported her as saying, We are aware that there are people out there who aren't particularly happy with the fact that we have Jerry Springer. We have got more people who will be present front-of-house to ensure that there are no problems with people who want to come in and see the production and make sure they can gain access.

Previously, one third of the venues had backed down on plans to show the musical after receiving threats of protests by religious pressure group Christian Voice, according to Manchester Online.

The Independent newspaper reported that Stephen Green, the national director of Christian Voice, has announced the organisation's intention to prosecute any venue that shows the Jerry Springer show.

But theatres have joined forces and a deal was agreed upon with the producers, Avalon despite threats of protests. The Independent newspaper has reported that Stuart Griffiths, the chief executive of the Birmingham Hippodrome, said that the tour venues were "absolutely keen" it should go ahead.

But the Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, who described the TV broadcast of the musical as “gratuitously offensive” said he has no problem with the show coming to the city.

He said there was a “big difference” of issues because people could choose whether to buy a ticket, according to Manchester Online. "This production has been on stage before and there is a big difference between something on the television and the stage.

Bishop McCulloch said people had a right to “peaceful protest” but warned that violence or threats of violence are not acceptable: I want to distance myself completely from the kind of thing that happened after the televised performance when the lives of people were threatened. That is reprehensible and has nothing to do with any Christian concern.

From the Southport Visitor

Southport nutters have joined in the call against Jerry Springer: The Opera. Around 600 members of Southport churches have signed a petition calling on the Liverpool Empire and the Manchester Opera House to drop performances of the production.

Dave Allen of Elim Pentecostal Church organised the petition.

Spotted by  Mediawatch-UK

Tony Blair, responding to a question about violent computer games from nutter MP Keith Vaz said, in the House of Commons yesterday: My honourable friend has campaigned on that issue for a long time, and I pay tribute to his work. It was partly as result of his representations that we announced last year that we had commissioned our own research to establish whether there was any substance to the allegations of a link between playing violent computer games and violent behaviour in real life. The Department of Culture Media and Sport intends to publish the results of that research shortly. We are also aware of the Missouri-Columbia research to the same effect. We will look carefully at the research and study its impact. We will then have a debate on how we take it forward.

From The Independent

Google has become the latest technology company to founder against the Great Firewall of China with the news that it will censor its search engine to give it greater access to China's fast-growing market.

Google.cn, the company's site aimed at boosting its market share in China, was launched yesterday but will censor itself of politically sensitive material.

The new version could restrict access to thousands of sensitive terms and web sites and make searching for information on topics such as Tibet, Taiwanese independence and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre even harder.

There are 111 million internet users in China and the number is rising swiftly. A growing market of that size is too big to ignore. A survey during the summer showed Google was losing market share to companies such as the Beijing-based Baidu, in which it has a small stake. Domestic giants including Sohu.com Inc. and Baidu.com Inc., along with China sites operated by Yahoo Inc and Microsoft, all routinely block searches on politically sensitive terms.

Google said that it planned to notify users when access had been restricted and argued that it could play a more useful role in China by participating than by boycotting it.

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders described the launch as a black day for freedom of expression in China. It said that US firms were bending to the same censorship rules as Chinese competitors.

The Free Tibet Campaign described the move as an endorsement of censorship and repression. With this move, Google's motto 'do no evil' is in smithereens, said the campaign's spokeswoman Alison Reynolds. This also further contradicts those political leaders who attempt to convince us that foreign business can change China for the better.

The Free Tibet Campaign has already protested to Google about its service "Google Earth", in which the word Tibet is not recognised.

Updated 26th Janury

From The Observer

A late-night porn show, which has survived for more than 300 episodes, will probably disappear this month from Seattle's public-access television channel.

Tonight, the Seattle Community Access Network's board is scheduled to approve a definition of obscenity, months in the making, that targets the program's showcasing of porn-video clips. The new definition forbids showing sex acts that lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Station management has tried to remove or tone down the show, Mike Hunt TV, but decided not to revoke producer Mike Aivaz's access to airtime until clear rules could be written. Ann Suter, the station's executive director, says she didn't want to risk a free-speech lawsuit that would take up money and time.

Suter says the station has researched obscenity rules in other cities and believes the new definition can withstand legal challenges. Also, she said, the board's new rule is part of a broader rewriting of policy covering copyright protection, fair distribution of time slots, and content: Our contract with the city says you can't broadcast obscene material.

Aivaz said he should be allowed to show sex acts for a number of reasons: The program is unlikely to be seen by children in its 1 a.m. Thursday time slot; the same footage is sold at video stores, so he believes it doesn't violate community standards; and it is less offensive than violent acts the commercial networks show routinely.

Anthony Riddle, executive director of the national Alliance for Community Media, said many communities argue over obscenity, but Seattle is the only city he's aware of where genital contact routinely appears on a community-access channel.
 

The Seattle Post reported that the Seattle Community Access Network's board voted Wednesday night to enact stricter standards for obscenity in an effort to shut down a late-night sex show that appears on Seattle's public-access cable television station.

The report claimed that in a raucous meeting at the SCAN headquarters, the show's creator and about 30 of his fans said the board's action was censorship.

If you want freedom of speech to look like the Bible Belt, move to the Bible Belt, Mike Aivaz, creator of the show Mike Hunt TV, told board members shortly before they voted 7-1 to approve the new policies. After the vote, the report said that he and his supporters chanted "shame."

Shows can be taken off the air if they are deemed obscene by the network's content review board. Wednesday's vote specified several things that will be considered violations of that standard, including depictions of intercourse and masturbation.

The story claimed that Suter said she will begin enforcing the new rules immediately and said that Aivaz's program will be pulled off the air if he violates the revised policy.

Aivaz's attorney, Gilbert Levy, called the new standard too restrictive, noting that the community accepts sex scenes on cable movies and in adult videos.

The report concluded with Aivaz saying that he likely will challenge the policies in court.

From The Stage

Peers have voted to remove those sections of the Government’s controversial Terrorism Bill that the theatre industry had feared would threaten freedom of artistic expression.

Members of the House of Lords have agreed to take out parts of the bill referring to “glorification” of terrorist acts, which many in the industry believed would have led to artists being prosecuted for work dealing with controversial subjects. The recent Out of Joint production of Talking to Terrorists was one play that opponents to the legislation thought could have been affected. Campaigners will now lobby MPs to ensure the bill is accepted in its amended form in the Commons.

Speaking during the parliamentary debate, Lord Goodhart said: The whole question of glorification is simply going to confuse and trouble the courts. The definition is amazingly wide… If one is looking at past acts of terrorism within the very wide definition of terrorism in the [Terrorism Act 2000], the War of American Independence is a terrorist act. When one then looks at glorification, it includes celebration, so that act of terrorism is celebrated every July 4 on Independence Day.

The National Campaign for the Arts, one of the groups which lobbied for the change, said the wording of the bill was now clearer.

Director Victoria Todd added: When the bill started out it was hopelessly vague. Now it should be very hard to prosecute someone who, for example, puts on a play about terrorism. There had been a lack of clarity about what was prosecutable and what wasn’t, which meant theatre directors might say: ‘I don’t want to get involved in this’.

The NCA had also campaigned for the concept of “recklessness” to be removed from the bill. While that has not happened, the government has provided assurances that the test will be whether or not someone knew that they were being reckless in producing material that could encourage terrorism.

Updated 25th January

From the China Post

Films from India's prolific Bollywood movie industry, officially banned for decades in Pakistan but still watched by millions there, have become legal.

Pakistan outlawed public screenings of Indian films in 1965, the year the nuclear-armed neighbor countries fought the second of their three wars. But now, both countries are working hard on a sweeping peace process.

The Times of India newspaper quoted Saeed Rizvi, president of the Pakistan Film Producers Association, as saying the Indian film ban has been lifted:The censor board on Friday deleted the words 'Indian artiste' and 'Indian director' from the guidelines, which had earlier prevented release of films of Indian actors and directors in Pakistan.

India's Hindi language film industry, dubbed Bollywood, is the world's largest by viewership and the number of films it churns out each year. Millions around the world watch the exuberant song-and-dance features, even in countries where Hindi isn't understood.

Even during the ban, Indian films are hugely popular in Pakistan. Illicit copies are easy to find. Pakistani cultural products are legal in India, and Pakistan's poetry, songs and television dramas are widely popular there. Several Pakistani poets and singers are superstars in India.

The first Indian film to be shown in Pakistan with formal permission will be the 1984 romance Sohni Mahiwal a joint venture between a Russian and an Indian company.

From Hindustan Times

Pakistan on Monday said it would permit public screening of the 1984 Indian movie Sohni Mahiwal, a love story set in Punjab, but it denied having lifted a 40-year-old ban on viewing of Indian movies.

The government has allowed the exhibition of only one Indian movie Sohni Mahiwal on the basis of a court decision, Censor Board chairman Ziauddin said.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said he was unaware of any decision on the lifting of a ban on Indian films: I have no knowledge of any such decision, Ahmed said reacting to comments by office bearers of the Film Producers Association (FPA) and the Cinema Owners Association (CAO) that the Pakistan government has approved a request to delete the words "Indian artiste" and "Indian director" from censorship guidelines that prevented the release of films featuring Indian actors and directors.

An appeal was made to President Pervez Musharraf and the president has omitted this clause, Pakistan Film Producers Association President Sayed Rizvi had been quoted as saying. Rizvi claimed the changes were approved by Musharraf.

Updated 25th January

From the BBC

There is an air of confusion in Cambodia at the moment. Since New Year's Eve, three prominent human rights activists have been arrested and jailed pending trial for defaming the government.

Several activists and government critics have left the country rather than risk arrest. The leader of the main opposition party is in self-imposed exile - and has recently been sentenced to 18 months in prison for defaming the leaders of the governing coalition.

Human rights groups and diplomats alike say they are increasingly worried about the situation. The United Nations Special Representative to Cambodia on Human Rights, Yash Ghai, believes it is time for the world to worry about the direction Cambodia is taking: The people of Cambodia are deeply committed to human rights precisely because they have suffered so much from the denial of those rights.

The government has had an adversarial relationship with Kem Sokha since he founded the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights three years ago. But the events of New Year's Eve marked a serious escalation of that conflict. The rights worker was arrested and charged with defaming the government because of a banner displayed at a rally to mark International Human Rights Day in December. One of the rally's organisers received similar treatment, and a few days later one of Kem Sokha's colleagues was also arrested and charged.

It was the second round of arrests of government critics in recent months. In October, the government brought charges of defamation and incitement against seven people who also criticised the proposed border treaty. Five of them left the country before they could be arrested, and other critics of the government also fled as rumours swirled around Phnom Penh.

Defamation is a criminal offence in Cambodia, a legacy of the United Nations transitional regime in the early 1990s. Critics say it was a law for exceptional circumstances that should have been replaced by now.

The United States ambassador, Joseph Mussomeli, warned that the debate on the border issue was a real test of Cambodia's commitment to democracy, and it seems they are failing. But Cambodia's politicians are well aware that Western countries are reluctant to add conditions to the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid they provide every year.

The human rights campaigners who have so far escaped jail or arrest warrants are exasperated. They have heard both the government and donors argue that Cambodia needs time to establish a truly democratic system with freedom of speech.

From the BBC

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has dropped defamation charges against at least four activists who criticised him, after pressure at home and abroad.

The four - a journalist, union leader, and two human rights activists - were arrested after they accused Hun Sen of ceding Cambodian land to Vietnam.

Hun Sen said he was dropping the charges because he had received letters of apology from the accused. The four were freed on bail last week after a visit by a US diplomat. They were journalist Mom Sonando, union leader Rong Chhun, and activists Kem Sokha and Pa Nguon Tieng.

A fifth man, Yeng Virak, another activist, was freed on bail the week before. It was not immediately clear if Hun Sen was dropping charges against him too.

Hun Sen told reporters he had decided to tell his lawyers to withdraw the lawsuits and "put a smooth end to this affair through compromise".

Several other critics left the country last year before they could be arrested, raising fears about the strength of Cambodia's democracy. Hun Sen said he was prepared to forgive these people too if they also wrote him letters of apology.

But there is no sign of leniency towards exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who was sentenced in absentia last month to 18 months in prison for remarks he made about the governing coalition

From Brand Republic

GCap has apologised for causing offence over a talkback session on Capital Gold in which the presenter described a young, single mother as a "dirty slapper".

Two listeners complained about the programme, which was broadcast at 10.30pm on October 19. They were offended by remarks made by the presenter, Alex Belfield, as well as by language used by two callers in response to his remarks.

The topic under discussion was teenage pregnancies and Belfield referred to a report on a 16-year-old girl who had given birth to triplets.

During the discussion, he condemned the girl in the article and expressed his condemnation of young, single mothers in general, including expressions such as "dirty little tart" and "dirty little slapper". It was in response to these views that two callers to the programme then referred to him as a "cunt".

GCap Media, owner of Capital Gold, has apologised for any offence to listeners and fully acknowledged that the presenter's comments had been inappropriate and unacceptable.

Ofcom said that had taken the issue very seriously, and that the phone-in element was suspended for the rest of the programme that evening and internal measures had since been put in place to address the issues raised by the broadcast: However, the presenter's handling of the discussion was seriously ill-judged and the broadcaster should have taken appropriate steps to prevent callers from using such language live on air. ruling.

It found the station in breach of the rule on general standards.

From The Guardian

The Turkish authorities have dropped charges against the celebrated novelist Orhan Pamuk, thus avoiding the international opprobrium which would have mounted if he had been convicted of a crime for expressing his opinion.

The justice minister, Cemil Cicek, yesterday disavowed responsibility for the case and a municipal court in Istanbul dropped the charges, according to CNN Turk television last night.The EU had said the case raised concerns over freedom of speech in Turkey as it seeks to win EU membership by demonstrating its commitment to European values.

Pamuk was put in the dock last month in Istanbul amid ugly scenes, charged with a criminal offence and facing a potential three years in jail for saying to a Swiss magazine that 30,000 people had died in the conflict between Kurdish nationalists and Turkish security forces, and that a million Armenians had died in Turkey during the first world war - "and nobody but me dares to talk about it".

If the writer's observations may seem commonplace outside Turkey, they were met with protests in the country, which is sensitive to any charge of genocide, which it rejects, in relation to Armenia, and has struggled with armed Kurdish separatism. The decision to try Pamuk, author of the acclaimed novels Snow and My Name Is Red, shocked Istanbul liberals, outraged rights activists and the European Union, and embarrassed the reformist wing of the Turkish government.

A game of pass the parcel followed when the judge in the case adjourned the trial in December and ruled that the justice ministry had to decide on whether it should proceed. Cicek yesterday passed the problem back to the court which promptly said there was no case to answer.

While Pamuk supporters were pleased his ordeal was over, anti-censorship lobbyists noted that scores of others - writers, publishers, and academics - still face trial for "denigrating Turkishness" or for publishing books deemed to be offensive to Turkey's official self-image. The writer was charged under a catch-all article in the penal code which criminalises any belittling of "Turkishness" and also outlaws "insulting" all of the major offices of state as well as the military and parliament.

Updated 22nd January

From the Times of India

The information & broadcasting ministry is in the process of framing guidelines for TV that will make it difficult for private channels to circumvent loopholes.

Inspired by Ofcom guidelines framed by the UK in July 2005, the I&B ministry will introduce 'watershed' timings.

The guidelines will offer a window period after 10 or 11 pm for adult programmes. 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' or U certificate to be aired but unsurprisingly it is regularly flouted.

A committee under the I&B secretary is likely to finalise the guidelines by February. The other issues that will be looked into while framing the guidelines include the manner in which women are depicted or whether a programme reinforces superstition.

The guidelines are also likely to be stringent on nudity, glamorising use of drugs, smoking, solvent abuse and misuse of alcohol. The current code has only 1 or 2 sections on the parts that will be seen as objectionable. We are looking at detailing each segment so there is less ambiguity, an official said.

From DNA India

The government’s draft programming code says women cannot be depicted in a manner that emphasises passive, submissive qualities and encourages them to play a subordinate, secondary role in the family and society.

The draft guidelines, which have been prepared by a committee including members of the media and consumer groups, are still to be studied by the government.

The code lays down a separate time band, from 11pm to 6am, for programmes meant for adults only. It also says the broadcaster must edit movies “to fit the genre of adult movies for India”.

There should be no explicit sex, no full frontal or rear nudity, no overt sexual situations, and no pornography.

TV channels that get high TRPs by telecasting programmes on the occult also need to watch out.

Serial-makers are divided on these clauses. Producer Manoj Raghuvanshi said a character must evolve in a serial. I don’t mind showing a passive woman who metamorphoses into a confident person. On adult programming, he said, It’s a matter of interpretation in the absence of a clear definition of explicit sexuality.

From The Independent

Memoirs of a Geisha, the hit film based on a best-selling book, has run into trouble in China, home to its leading actresses. Prompted by fears that it will further inflame already rampant anti-Japanese feeling, Chinese film censors have cancelled the planned release of the movie next month.

China's two most famous actresses, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li, play the leading roles in the film, which was initially approved by the censors. But the state-run Film Bureau has changed its mind. Mao Yu, director of the bureau's propaganda and publishing section, believes Memoirs poses "complex" problems and is "too sensitive". There were complaints in Japan about Chinese actresses portraying Japanese women, but there is outrage in China, where many regard geishas as prostitutes. The 26-year-old Zhang, who shot to fame in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and has since become Asia's most famous actress, has attracted venomous criticism from her compatriots.

With Sino-Japanese relations at their lowest point in decades, the authorities are worried the film will revive lingering resentment over the Japanese treatment of Chinese women before and during the Second World War. Tens of thousands of women were raped by Japanese troops during the infamous Nanjing Massacre in 1937. Thousands more were among the estimated 200,000 Asians forced to work as "comfort women" in Japanese military brothels during the war.

Beijing authorities, who are struggling to maintain their traditionally tight control over creative matters. President Hu Jintao hosted a gala event last month for 700 luminaries of the Chinese film world at the Great Hall Of the People in Beijing. Mr Hu praised them for their part in the modernisation of China, but urged the filmmakers to "stick to the correct political direction all the time".

From Web India 123

Setting aside the Censor Board order directing the deletion of certain scenes and dialogues from the Hindi film Wounded, the Bombay High Court has cleared the film for public viewing.

The film is based on the life story of dacoit Seema Parihar, in which she had herself played a leading role.

A division bench comprising Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice Abhay Oak, who delivered the order on January 18, allowed the screening of the movie with an ''A'' certificate and passed a directive to delete certain scenes.

The film has received various international awards including the jury award in the Leicester International Film Festival, England.

Aggrieved with the Central Board Film Certification (CBFC) order, producer-director Krishna Mishra moved the HC arguing that the Censor Board had directed to delete those scenes which were an integral part of the movie and hence could not be deleted.

Adv Ranjit More, cousel for the filmmaker, argued that Seema Parihar had acted naturally in the movie. He cited the example of another Hindi movie Bandit Queen, which had also contained similar scenes and dialogues and it was allowed to be screened.

Adv R V Desai, appearing for CBFC, contended that the dialogues and scenes in the petitioner's movie were more abusive as compared to Bandit Queen

From The Times

Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, said yesterday that a European Union plan to introduce Internet regulation was unwelcome, arguing that new media were best left to themselves. If we want further regulation, then I believe the best approach is to rely as far as possible on self-regulation. She said that existing EU proposals in a draft directive were “as a whole … still unacceptable.”

The European Union is trying to overhaul the 1989 Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets out a baseline for broadcast regulation across Europe. Although Brussels insists it is producing a light-touch approach, it still wants to introduce new rules on the protection of children and the incitement to hatred. It is the first time that the Culture Secretary has taken a position on the subject, although her stance is in line with a speech made by Lord Currie of Marylebone, the chairman of Ofcom, in Liverpool last autumn. He argued that ordinary criminal law was a sufficient way to regulate the Internet.

From Aftenposten

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that Norway's practice of covering graphic sexual activity in porn films and magazines with black bars needed modernizing, Norway's Media Authority ruled that movies would remain censored.

The Supreme Court ruling was on still photographs. Our assessment concerns moving pictures, said MA director Tom Thoresen.

In December adult magazine editor Stein-Erik Mattsson was finally cleared of violating pornography laws after he provoked a legal crisis by distributing for free a special magazine edition entitled Frie Aktuelle Rapport, which contained images generally hidden behind a censorship bar.

While the MA is not ready to clear the way for uncensored pornographic films, they also made it clear that the depiction of sexual acts did not qualify as an automatic transgression of existing laws, and said that each case must be assessed on its own merits.

We interpret the Supreme Court ruling such that there is no basis in changing the practice we have had in the past few years. Films with an artistic form that show explicit sexual acts have been approved at times in the past. Mass-produced pornography will not be approved, Thoresen said.

Mattsson used a sampling of approved films to convince the Supreme Court that the standard for 'non-offensive' sexuality in films had changed dramatically since the existing law was formed.

From The Guardian

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport yesterday confirmed that Lord Currie would remain as chairman of media regulator Ofcom for a further two years beyond the end of his contract in 2007.

There had been speculation that Lord Currie would step down when his original five-year contract runs out in July next year.

From CNET News

US senators on Thursday blasted what they called an "explosion" in Internet pornography and threatened to enact new laws aimed at targeting sexually explicit Web sites.

At an afternoon hearing convened here by the Senate Commerce Committee, Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, lashed out at an adult entertainment industry representative, saying that the industry needs to take swift moves to devise a rating system and to clearly mark all its material as "adult only.": My advice is you tell your clients they better do it soon, because we'll mandate it if they don't, Stevens said.

Though it wasn't mentioned at the hearing, Web browsers have long supported the Internet standard called PICS, or Platform for Internet Content Selection. Internet Explorer, for instance, permits parents to disable access to Web sites rated as violent or sexually explicit.

In addition, mandatory rating systems have frequently been struck down by courts as an affront to the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. Judges have ruled it unconstitutional for governments to enforce the Motion Picture Association of America's movie-rating system. The Supreme Court has said that the right to speak freely encompasses the right not to speak--including the right not to be forced to self-label.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, talked up her bill that she and a handful of Democrats announced last year. It proposes a 25 percent excise tax on revenue from most adult-oriented sites and a requirement that all such sites use an age-verification system: Too few adult Web sites are taking the extra step to create another obstacle, another barrier, that can keep youngsters from accessing or stumbling on pornography.

From CNET News

Federal prosecutors preparing to defend a controversial Internet pornography law in court have asked Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and America Online to hand over millions of search records--a request that Google is adamantly denying.

In court documents filed Wednesday, the Bush administration asked a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., to force Google to comply with a subpoena for the information, which would reveal the search terms of a broad swath of the search engine's visitors.

Prosecutors are requesting a "random sampling" of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through Google's popular search engine, and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted to Google over a one-week period.

Google said in a statement sent to CNET News.com on Thursday that it will resist the request "vigorously."

The Bush administration's request, first reported by The San Jose Mercury News, is part of its attempts to defend the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which is being challenged in court in Philadelphia by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says Web sites cannot realistically comply with COPA and that the law violates the right to freedom of speech mandated by the First Amendment.

An attorney for the ACLU said Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL received identical subpoenas and chose to comply with them rather than fight the request in court.

Yahoo acknowledged on Thursday that it complied with the Justice Department's request but said no personally identifiable information was handed over. We are vigorous defenders of our users' privacy, said Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako. We did not provide any personal information in response to the Justice Department's subpoena. In our opinion this is not a privacy issue.

Osako declined to provide details, but court documents in the Google case show that the government has been demanding "the text of each search string entered" by users over a time period of between one week and two months, plus a listing of Web sites taken from the search engine's index.

Our understanding is that MSN and AOL have complied with the government's request, that Yahoo has provided some information in response, but that information wasn't completely satisfactory (according to) the government, ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine said.

AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein confirmed that the company received a subpoena from the DOJ but said the information from the ACLU was not accurate. We did not and would not comply with such a subpoena. We gave (the DOJ) a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms, and not results, from a roughly one day period. There were absolutely no privacy implications, Weinstein said. There was no way to tie those search terms to individuals or to search results. He declined to elaborate.

In a statement, Microsoft said it was, in fact, contacted by the DOJ. We did comply with their request for data in regards to helping protect children, in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers, the company said. We were able to share aggregated query data (not search results) that did not include any personally identifiable information, at their request.

Court documents reveal that the Justice Department has been pressuring Google for excerpts from its search logs for half a year. Prosecutors hope to use the excerpts to show that filtering software can't protect children online.

In a motion filed Wednesday, prosecutors say that compliance is necessary to prove that the 1998 law is more effective than filtering software in protecting minors from exposure to harmful materials on the Internet. Records from search logs would help to understand the behavior of Web users and estimate how frequently they encounter pornography, the motion says. For instance, Internet addresses obtained from the search engines could be tested against filtering programs to evaluate their effectiveness.

A subpoena dated August 2005 requests a complete list of all Internet addresses that can "be located" through Google's popular search engine, and "all queries that have been entered" over a two-month period beginning on June 1, 2005. Later, prosecutors offered to narrow the request to random samples of indexed sites and search strings. It's unclear what version of the request AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo complied with.

To analyze the logs, the Justice Department has hired Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Stark said in a statement that analyzing information from Google would let him "estimate the prevalence of harmful-to-minors" and the "effectiveness of content filters" in blocking it.

From The Observer

British artist Sam Taylor-Wood has made a porn film. It's quite rude. A man is walking in a desert. After a while, he stops. First, he takes off his T-shirt. Then he puts his hand inside his pants. Basically, he masturbates for eight minutes.

When Taylor-Wood was asked to take part in this project (other directors in the Destricted series include Larry Clark of Kids fame and the American performance artist Matthew Barney), her instinct was to turn it down but she rose to the challenge.

If people watch my film wanting to get excited, I think they'll be disappointed, says Taylor-Wood. I want you to feel the loneliness of it, this vast, empty landscape. What's going on in this man's head that has made him stop in the desert?  Does she think her film is erotic? Not at all.

The film is one of a series of new arty porn shorts that will open the Sundance film festival on Thursday

From AVN

Explicit sex scenes in Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas' latest film, Battle in Heaven, proved too hot for Sundance Film Festival officials last week after they abruptly pulled its Jan. 20 screening.

The film, which features a cast of amateur actors will be rescheduled.

Battle in Heaven received some acclaim, but was also widely criticized for its graphic sex and nudity at last year’s Cannes film festival. The film takes place in Mexico City and follows the life of a middle-aged chauffeur who takes up with the prostitute daughter of a Mexican general. It’s scheduled for release nationally in March through Tartan Films.

Note that the old format website is still running (and being updated) at Mediawatch-UK

Thanks to Dan

Mediawatch-uk have generated a new website in a new format:

www.mediawatch-uk.org.uk/portal

But their campaign hasn't changed. Seeking to hold broadcasters to account? More like seeking to stop
anyone viewing anything they disapprove of.

Updated 12th Jan

Updated 16th Jan

See www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla1.htm for the basis of the intolerance shown to homosexuality

From the Daily Mail

Interviewed on BBC, in which he called for "tolerance" of Muslim values, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, shameful head of the Muslim Council of Britain,  was asked whether he was tolerant of civil partnerships and homosexuality. He said same-sex relationships risked damaging the very foundations of society. He said that homosexuality spread disease and was immoral. Sir Iqbal said civil partnerships were "harmful" and not acceptable: This is harmful. It does not augur well in building the very foundations of society - stability, family relationships. And it is something we would certainly not in any form encourage the community to be involved in.

Speaking on BBC Radio Four's PM programme, Sir Iqbal underlined the importance of tolerance... BUT... asked if homosexuality itself was harmful to society he said: What is not acceptable, there is a good reason for it. Each of our faiths tell us that it is harmful and I think, if you look into the scientific evidence that has been available in terms of the forms of various other illnesses and diseases that are there, surely it points out that where homosexuality is practised there is a greater concern in that area.

But Sir Iqbal said everyone should be tolerant. We tolerate each other. We may not be happy with the views being expressed by others. But the difficulty comes in that at the end of the day we are human beings.

From The Telegraph

A British Muslim leader is being investigated by the police for allegedly homophobic remarks made during a radio interview. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that homosexual practices were "harmful" and civil partnerships "not acceptable" last week.

Interviewed on BBC Radio Four's PM programme on Jan 3, Sir Iqbal said: If you look into the scientific evidence that has been available in terms of the various forms of other illnesses and diseases that are there, surely it points out that, where homosexuality is practised, there is a greater concern in that area.

Asked if homosexuality was harmful to society, he said: Certainly it is a practice that doesn't, in terms of health, in terms of the moral issues that comes along in a society - it is. It is not acceptable.

Peter Rippon, the programme's editor, was telephoned by an officer at West End Central police station in London yesterday, who said that he was investigating a homophobic incident under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.

This makes it an offence for a person to use "threatening, abusive or insulting words" within the hearing of "a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress" as a result. The prosecution must also establish that the defendant intended his words to be threatening, abusive or insulting or that he was aware that they may be. It is a defence for the accused to prove that his conduct was reasonable. The maximum penalty is a fine of £1,000.

There is no suggestion that the BBC is facing prosecution and it rebroadcast Sir Iqbal's remarks in full on yesterday's PM programme.

Sir Iqbal declined to comment further, saying he had not yet been contacted by the police. Sir Iqbal defended his comments in a statement on his website last week. What I said was only to reiterate the well-known Islamic position that the practice of homosexuality is not acceptable, he wrote. It is a sin. This view is shared in other scriptures, such as those of Christianity and Judaism.

The investigation follows a letter in The Daily Telegraph on Jan 6, pointing out that Christians who expressed negative views of homosexuality had previously been contacted by the police and warned against their behaviour.

Maybe good progress, the letter states: We cannot claim to be a truly free and open society while we are trying to silence dissenting views.

Presumably these dignitaries will now drop their support of the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill and will support the right of the Danish Newspaper to publish their Mohammed cartoons. Perhaps even time to forgive Salman Rushdie and recognise his right to air dissenting views,

From MediawatchWatch

In response to to the police investigation of Sir Iqbal of Intolerance, a cross-section of Muslim representatives wrote a letter to The Times:

Sir, In light of the bizarre news that the Metropolitan Police is to “investigate” comments about homosexuality made by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, (report, Jan 12) we, the undersigned, Imams and representatives of various British Muslim organisations, affirm that Sir Iqbal’s views faithfully reflected mainstream Islamic teachings.

The Koran and, we believe, the Bible, together with all the Prophets of God, up to and including Muhammad (peace be upon them all), taught that marriage should be between man and woman, not between people of the same sex. The practice of homosexuality is regarded as being sinful in Islam.

We are deeply concerned about the breakdown of basic family values and the undermining of the key institution of marriage in Britain today. All Britons, whether they are in favour of homosexuality or not, should be allowed to freely express their views in an atmosphere free of intimidation or bullying. We cannot claim to be a truly free and open society while we are trying to silence dissenting views.

HABIBUR RAHMAN President, Islamic Forum Europe ABDUL HAMEED QURESHI Lancashire Council of Mosques MAWLANA ABDUL HADI UMRI, Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, Birmingham MAWLANA RASHID RABBANI, Jamiat-e-Ulama, Bradford MAWLANA MUHAMMAD ADAM, Bolton Council of Mosques ABDUL KARIM GHEEWALA Federation of Muslim Organisations, Leicestershire MAWLANA BOSTAN QADRI, Confederation of Sunni Mosques, Birmingham IMA ABDUL QADIR BARKATULLAH North Finchley Mosque, London DR SUHAIB HASAN, Islamic Shariah Council MR ZAHIR BIRAWI, Grand Mosque, Leeds IMAM DR ABDUL JALIL SAJID, Council of Mosques, London and Southern Counties DR MUNIR AHMED, Islamic Society of Britain MR AHMED SHEIKH, Muslim Association of Britain MR IDRIS MEARS, Association of Muslim Schools DR ABDUL FATTAH SAEED, Al Muntada al Islami, London DR YUNES TEINAZ, Regent’s Park Mosque, London DR HAFIZ AL-KARMI, Mayfair Islamic Centre, London MR ISMAIL PATEL, Friends of al-Aqsa DR MANAZIR AHSAN, Islamic Foundation, Leicester DR AHMAD HASAN, World Federation of Khoja Shia Ithnasheri Muslim Community MR MUNAWWAR RATTANSI, Council of European Jamaats MR YOUSUF BHAILOK, Former Secretary-General, The Muslim Council of Britain

The ultimate in Censorship

From the BBC

Bangladeshi authorities have ordered mobile phone operators to stop offering free calls after midnight, to protect the morals of young people.

A telecommunications regulator said it had received scores of complaints from parents that children were using the service to form romantic attachments. They said children were losing sleep and some indulged in "vulgar talk".

In a letter sent to all five of Bangladesh's networks, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission said the "free calls after midnight" offers were being abused by the young. A senior official at the regulator told the BBC they had received scores of complaints from parents.

The country's biggest mobile phone operator, Grameen Phone, says it will meet its competitors to try to come up with a joint response. The phone companies say they are surprised by the order, which the regulator says must be obeyed immediately.

One spokesman has been quoted as saying that if the authorities wish to stop young people meeting each other, by the same logic, fast food restaurants and universities should be shut down, too.

It seems that the US wrestling community appears to be fighting with the BBFC. Of course given the nature of US wrestling it could all be hype.

From Wrestlemag.com

At time of writing, there is no release date for the upcoming Superstar Billy Graham in the UK. WWE’s UK and European distributors Silver Vision currently have no plans to officially release the title, stating that the BBFC (the body who give releases in the UK a rating certificate) had wanted to cut material out from the DVD and as a result, it was felt that releasing a heavily edited version of the title would not be doing it justice.

From the Orlando Sentinel

The owner of an Internet site who was jailed on obscenity charges will turn over the Web domain name to the Polk County Sheriff's Office in a plea agreement that keeps him out of prison.

Christopher Wilson pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor counts of possession of obscene materials in Circuit Court on Friday and will be placed on five years of probation.

The prosecution dropped one felony charge and 295 other misdemeanor counts as part of the deal. Wilson was credited with time-served in the County Jail and will not be classified as a sex offender. Authorities wanted control of the Web address so that no one else could use it to distribute adult material.

It's the kind of case that's easy to resolve, said State Attorney Jerry Hill, adding that shutting the site down was the resolution he wanted. Wilson may continue running the site for up to 90 days, though, until official sentencing April 21. That bothers me, Hill said, but added that he agreed because it could take Wilson that much time to wrap up all the business details of the site, which has paying customers.

As part of his plea agreement, Wilson cannot have dealings with Internet businesses that relate to "adult" or nude content while on probation.

Letting his lawyer do most of the talking, Wilson explained in court Friday that he did not post the photos himself, but rather provided the format for others to communicate with each other via bulletin boards and post photos. Some were adult in nature, while others were not. His lawyers argued that he had a basic right to free speech and enjoyed the right of people to communicate with one another.

Polk County authorities, though, said what they viewed on the site was among the worst pornography they had ever seen and made no apologies about going after Wilson. The site also drew attention for gory war photos, although Polk authorities said those were not part of the obscenity charges. Soldiers who couldn't afford to pay to access the site could send in a photo to prove they were overseas and Wilson would give them free access.

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd acknowledges he had contact with the Army before Wilson's arrest, but said those images were not related to the obscenity charges. Wilson's lawyers said they have had no contact with the Army about the case.

The talk had the interesting snippet about a possible review of law. Has anybody else heard anything about this?

• The proposed new law on possession of extreme adult pornographic material
• The proposed new law on incitement to religious hatred
• A possible review of the law on incitement to racial hatred
• A possible review of the law on protection of minors in relation to adult pornographic material
• A possible review of the law on the test of obscenity in relation to adult pornographic material

By Roger Darlington on OfcomWatch

• The Internet cannot – and should not – be regulated like ‘old’ media.
• However, more can and should be done, especially in relation to harmful content.
• New initiatives should be low-cost, practical and promoted on a voluntary basis.
• Most problematic Internet content is not illegal or harmful and users must take appropriate responsibility while being advised on tools and techniques.

Contrast pointed out by Alan.

From Shitty_Bank

The Chatsworth, California branch of Citibank has recently, proactively closed some of its accounts because they were operated by adult entertainment organizations that Citibank deemed "not within their target market.

From indymedia (More detailed story here)

Providers of postal addresses to Fascist organisations in Leeds Mail Boxes Etc (UK) Ltd (MBE), were picketed on Tuesday.

The picket encouraged many people to challenge the management of Leeds City MBE. Several people who were collecting mail also said they would be cancelling their contract with MBE, rather than share an address with Nazis. There was one short disruption when two thugs tried to disrupt the picket. Through the time more than 300 leaflets were distributed.

Recently MBE branches in both Belfast and Brighton have taken a welcome decision not to play host to fascists, but so far the Leeds branch have refused to reconsider their position, despite being shown documentation on the British Peoples Party and their fascist activities. The 635 Group, who organised the picket, will be organising further protests.

The Definition of religion?: Preaching tolerance whilst practising intolerance.

From The Scotsman

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has caused controversy among non-Christian faiths by telling them that they needed to realise they live in a Christian country.

In comments described as "obnoxious", Cardinal Keith O'Brien said he "tolerated" people who lived differently, but added that he must take a stand when Christianity itself is questioned in this country.

The Church said the cardinal was not meaning to diminish the stature of other faiths as he set forward his mission to "re-Christianise" Scotland.

However, a spokesman for the Hindu Temple in Glasgow condemned the remarks that people of other faiths should realise they live in a Christian country. I think they are obnoxious. If you go to India there are more Christians there than there are in Britain. They have total autonomy and total freedom to worship and do anything they want, even welcome people into their faith. There is no grudge against that.

He called the suggestion that Scotland should be re-Christianised as "quite offensive".

Inyat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said: Mr O'Brien should be addressing his comments to Christians. I think Muslims are surprised that many Christians don't take their faith so seriously. Mr O'Brien perhaps needs to look at his own flock and question why people are not following Christianity as he would like to, rather than showing impatience with other faiths.

Glasgow Central MP Mohammad Sarwar said those of other faiths accepted Scotland had a massive Christian majority. But he added: I have one reservation - when he says that people should learn to live in a Christian way. I don't know what that means. It's very ambiguous. I'm a very tolerant person and we live in a democracy. People should be allowed to practise religion the way they want to.

Cardinal O'Brien chose a forthcoming BBC radio interview to repeat his call for Scotland to be "re-Christianised". He said Christianity had been present in Scotland since St Ninian landed at Whithorn in AD397, but that the country no longer lived up to Christian standards: I feel I must take a stand when Christianity itself is questioned in this country. In a re-Christianised Scotland I would certainly respect the beliefs of people of other faiths, the great world faiths, and acknowledge when they are celebrating their feasts, just as they acknowledge when we celebrate the feast of Christmas and these sort of things. But I would also like them to realise that they are living in Scotland as a Christian country.

Thanks to Barrie who asked the BBFC about some of their decisions regarding Jess Franco's works. The BBFC replied as follows:

The BBFC's guidelines only permit explicit real sex at '18' if (i) the work is not a 'sex work' - ie one whose primary purpose is to sexually arouse - and (ii) the images are exceptionally justified by context. In the case of Barbed Wire Dolls, which is an exploitation work whether or not one considers it a 'sex work', the images had no special justification or purpose and could not be exceptionally justified at '18'. We explained why we felt the images in Baise-Moi and 9 Songs were exceptionally justified at '18' in our News Releases. No such special justification was evident in this case.

As for the other Franco works we cut, our guidelines are very clear - any scenes that make sexual assault look sexy, exciting or desirable are likely to be cut. Most of the Jess Franco films fell foul of this test. By contrast, once the explicit penetration shot had been cut from Baise-Moi, the scene made rape look disgusting, horrible and unattractive. It was not there to titillate male viewers, eg by focusing and lingering on female nudity, but showed rape as a brutal and horrible and ultimately unsatisfying to all parties. We have no objection to scenes of sexual assault that show it as violent and horrible but we do have difficulties with scenes that emphasise and focus on female nudity in a sexually violent context.

Incidentally, Women in Cellblock 9 was rejected because one of the main actresses in the film (who is depicted in a very sexualised fashion) was underaged at the time of filming. The film was therefore illegal under the Protection of Children Act.

As for anime works, we have taken a policy decision that if sex scenes are made to look like hardcore porn (ie drawn in a realistic manner, showing penetration in a pornographic fashion) they will be treated on a par with live action porn as the intent - and level of offence - is the same.

From Stuff

A US appeals court declined to intervene on Thursday on behalf of Yahoo Inc, the world's largest media company, saying US courts have no jurisdiction in a case pitting free speech protections against a French law barring the sale of Nazi memorabilia.

In a case that pitted US freedom of speech rights against European anti-hate group statutes, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that had rejected French plaintiffs attempts to enforce French laws against US companies in US courts.

In a mixed decision, an 11-judge en banc panel said that because Yahoo had voluntarily complied "in large measure" with the French court's orders and barred the the sale of Nazi memorabilia from its site in France, Yahoo's free speech petition has become a moot issue: Unless and until Yahoo changes its policy again, and thereby more clearly violates the French court's orders, it is unclear how much is now actually in dispute, the court's majority said.

The only precedent is that when foreign plaintiffs try to impose censorship on US-based Web sites, US courts have jurisdiction, said Mary Catherine Wirth, Yahoo's former senior international legal counsel, now director of data protection.

The lower US court previously had declared as unenforceable a French court action against Yahoo by two French anti-Nazi groups, La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L'Antisemitisme (LICRA) and L'Union des Etuidiants Juifs de France (UEJF). A US district court initially sided with Yahoo in arguing that the French court's decision to require Yahoo to restrict access to hate group Web pages on Yahoo's global auctions site violated US free speech principles.

In the latest ruling, the 9th Circuit said that because Yahoo had largely complied with the French court's order by limiting the sale of some hate-group memorabilia on its auction site, "It is extremely unlikely that any penalty, if assessed, could ever be enforced against Yahoo! in the United States.

Susan Crawford, a law professor who teaches a course on cyberlaw at Cardozo School of Law in New York, labelled the decision a "missed opportunity" to decide whether "it is appropriate for one country to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over (Web) servers located in another country.The facts in this case allowed the court to avoid the difficult diplomatic issues raised by the dispute.

From Australian IT

An international journalism group has called on bloggers and web users to support its push to guarantee free speech online.

Reporters without Borders, (Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF) has issued a call for web companies to respect freedom of speech online when operating in "oppressive" countries. Targeted mainly at US tech companies, it suggests ways of preventing countries from blocking free speech online. RSF has called on bloggers and other net users to get behind the push by signing an online petition.

The proposal includes laws banning US companies from hosting email servers in an "oppressive" country in order to force those regimes wanting user email details to get them from the US, where requests would be subject to US judicial scrutiny.

Service providers and content hosts would also be prevented from hosting servers in countries under oppressive rule. The laws would be supported by a list of oppressive countries drafted using documents supplied by the US State Department, the group said.

RSF also calls for a ban on search engines and content hosts using keyword filters that search for terms such as "democracy" and "human rights" , as well as a ban on the sale of censorship software to repressive states.

US companies would be obliged to get the permission of the US Department of Commerce before selling internet surveillance technology or training services.

Thanks to Dan

From Mediawatch-UK

Many people will welcome the new proposals by the Government emphasising family life, through a National Parenting Academy, aimed at dealing with the anti-social behaviour that so disfigures our communities.

Speaking today, John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, expressed astonishment that anti-social behaviour depicted in film and on television has again been overlooked in the Government’s plans. He said: Almost every household in the land has a television and viewing is an integral part of the home environment. Entertainment violence has been a part of media culture for many years and it should be no surprise that young and impressionable people emulate the bad behaviour of their TV role-models and heroes. Our monitoring of films, over the last fifteen years, shows that depiction of violence involving firearms remains the most common, followed by violent assaults and use of offensive weapons, including knives.

The Home Secretary has called for the ‘whole’ of society to be involved in this initiative to restore respect but the absence of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order for film and television, to curb the damaging influence, is a very serious omission. We are writing today to the Chairman of the BBC, the Chairman of ITV and the Chairman of the BBFC asking what positive contribution, from their perspective, they will be making to the Government’s plans to restore respect.

Beyer's letter to the Chairman of the BBC:

Dear Mr Grade,

As you will know the Government has launched today a new initiative aimed at curbing the problem of anti-social behaviour.

The Home Secretary has said that the "whole" of society must be involved in tackling this problem and we believe that this should involve the broadcasting industry as well as a range of other agencies.

Our detailed monitoring of a number of films shown on television over the last fifteen years shows that depiction of violence involving firearms is by far the most common followed by depictions of violent assaults and the use of offensive weapons including knives. The latest British Crime Survey statistics show that it is precisely these types of crime that are on the increase.

Television is an integral part of our society and plays a significant role in shaping and forming our society and culture by portraying models of behaviour. Of course there are many good and praiseworthy programmes but in the realm of human behaviour portrayed on television, crime, violence, disorder and aggression command a disproportionate amount of time, particularly in the evening TV schedules.

We are writing to you today to ask, respectfully, what positive contribution the BBC will be making to assist and cooperate with the Government's initiative announced today.

From Dan

Some prize quotes from Beyer: It is not unusual for the story lines, which are about small communities and very far from normality, to include stabbings, shootings, robbery, arson, drug dealing and other criminal activity. As well as this marital infidelity and conflict is commonplace.

Would Mr Beyer prefer that soap operas wash crime, marital infidelity and conflict under the carpet and pretend it does not go on. Does he blame TV soaps for families breaking up and married couples cheating on each other? Obviously he does because he believes the public to be so stupid that they will be brainwashed into doing anything by Television. Marital infidelity and conflict happens because people cheat on each other, have arguments and generally don't always get along. Yet Mr Beyer believes TV is to blame for all that! He's a bigger nutcase then we thought!

Thanks to Dan

A cinema in Utah has pulled a scheduled screening of gay Western movie Brokeback Mountain at the last minute.

The Jordan Commons Megaplex in Salt Lake City is owned by Larry Miller, a prominent member of the Mormon church, which is against homosexuality.

Distributor Focus Features said the cinema "reneged on their licensing agreement" hours before it was to open.

Mike Thompson of gay rights group Equality Utah said it was disappointing people were barred from seeing it. It's just a shame that such a beautiful and award-winning film with so much buzz about it is not being made available to a broad Utah audience because of personal bias, he told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The manager of the cinema declined to comment on the cancellation of the screening.

The adult-rated film focuses on the enduring romantic relationship between two cowboys, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It has already gained a string of award nominations and is highly tipped as an Oscar contender.

Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, was in favour of the film being cancelled.: I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show

Updated 12th January

From Daze Reader

The 2005 season finale of South Park, entitled Bloody Mary, involved a local statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding out its ass. The faithful come from miles around to be healed by the miraculous blood. Pope Benedict XVI shows up to inspect the statue, rules that the statue is actually bleeding from its vagina, and declares: A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights predictably expressed outrage and called on Comedy Central to ban further showings of the episode. (The president of this alleged civil rights organization recently claimed, Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.) South Park offends some group or other nearly every episode, and the network has consistently backed the show's creators against complainants.

Follow up: Bloody Mary did not air. Bastards.

From MediawatchWatch

In the US recently, The Catholic League have been crowing about their success in getting an episode of South Park pulled. But it looks like they’re going to have to recork those champagne bottles.

The offending episode was entitle Bloody Mary. It featured a statue of the Blessed Virgin miraculously “bleeding from her ass” inspiring pilgrimages from far and wide. Pope Benedict visits to inspect and determines that the statue is actually bleeding from its vagina. He states: A chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle. Chicks bleed out their vaginas all the time.

The ultra-sensitive Catholic League declared the show “one of the most vile TV shows ever to appear” and wrote to Comedy Central urging them not to repeat it and undertake never to release it on DVD. They received a reply which suggested their wish had been granted, and indeed Bloody Mary was not repeated on Dec 7.

However, in a response to complaints from South Park fans and free-speech campaigners, Comedy Central has revealed that the episode was indeed repeated as scheduled and that it will not be excluded from DVD releases:

As satirists, we believe that it is our First Amendment right to poke fun at any and all people, groups, organizations and religions and we will continue to defend that right. Our goal is to make people laugh, and perhaps if we’re lucky, even make them think in the process.

Despite misleading claims from those who would like to claim victory, we have not permanently shelved the Bloody Mary episode from future airings due to outside pressure nor will we exclude it from future DVD releases.

Yay to Comedy Central. Ha ha to the Catholic League.

From The Scotsman

Naked rambler Stephen Gough was admonished by a sheriff for breaching bail conditions by failing to wear clothes as he left prison.

But his pleas of not guilty to two charges of breach of the peace on separate occasions last year were accepted by the Crown at Edinburgh Sheriff Court. Gough still faces sentencing on contempt of court charges for refusing to wear clothes for court appearances in December.

The charges against Gough, of Chamberlayne Road, Eastleigh, Hampshire, arose as he was carrying out his second marathon walk the length of Britain last year. The hearing was carried out in Gough's absence after he refused to put on clothes for the occasion. He has consistently defended what he claims is his right to appear naked in public.

Gough was jailed for two weeks in September last year for committing a breach of the peace by walking naked on the A701, near Bilston, Midlothian, earlier that month. But he was arrested moments after leaving Edinburgh's Saughton Prison on September 15 for refusing to cover up. He was bailed on September 16 at the city's Sheriff Court and continued his naked walk north.

But Gough was later jailed for two months at Dingwall Sheriff Court for breach of bail conditions and he was sent back to Saughton to serve his sentence. Once again, as he left jail on November 3, naked Gough was arrested for refusing to cover himself up.

Gough faced two separate charges of committing a breach of the peace on September 15 and November 3 by refusing to wear clothes in the public car park at Saughton Prison. His not guilty pleas were accepted by the court.

Gough's lawyer John Good told the court his client admitted breaching bail conditions imposed on September 16 by appearing naked in Saughton car park on November 3. Sheriff John Horsburgh ruled that Gough should be admonished in respect of that charge.

Gough was granted bail until his case is called again at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on March 1. He is expected to face sentencing after two sheriffs ruled on separate days last month that he was in contempt of court by refusing to dress for court appearances.

From Ofcom

Weeds, Sky One, 11 October 2005, 22:00

Found to be in breach of programme code

Introduction

This new drama series follows the life of Nancy, a suburban mother in California who, recently widowed, turned to drug dealing to try and make ends meet. A viewer was concerned at the apparent endorsement of drug-taking, underage sex and the use of seriously offensive language, including the word "cunt".

Decision

We consider that this series was appropriately scheduled at 22:00, well after the watershed. Although a comedy, it dealt with the themes of drug-taking and underage sex in a realistic manner which did not endorse or promote these activities.

Whilst audience research does show that generally young adults are more tolerant of seriously offensive language, the word "cunt" is considered to be one of the most offensive words to any audience. In the context of this drama, we do not believe that most viewers would have been offended by the use of this language, but there was a possibility that some viewers would have been unprepared for the amount and level of swearing in the first episode of this new series.

The Broadcasting Code requires broadcasters to provide "appropriate information to assist in avoiding or minimising offence" if programmes contain material which may cause offence. Announcements alerting viewers to potentially offensive material may not always be necessary.

This was a new drama, broadcast on a general entertainment channel, which was unfamiliar to the audience and it contained strong offensive language from the outset, including the word "cunt". The pre-publicity for this series would have given viewers an indication of the themes of this drama, but neither this nor the title of the series would necessarily have indicated the strength of language used. Given these factors, we believe that information informing viewers of the content should have been given. This would have provided viewers with the necessary information to make an informed decision whether to view this programme.

Breach of Rule 2.3 (generally accepted standards "appropriate information")

From Ofcom

The F Word Channel 4, 15 December 2005, 20:00

Found not in breach of programme code

Introduction

This is a new series featuring Gordon Ramsay looking at a wide range of aspects in the food and catering industry. Produced in a contemporary style, it features both light-hearted and more challenging items. In this episode, the presenter arranges for the slaughter of a number of turkeys in preparation for Christmas. The turkeys had been brought from a specialist free-range farm to live in the garden of Gordon Ramsay's family home at the start of the series.

27 viewers complained that the slaughter of the turkeys was distressing and that it was unnecessary to show it, particularly before the 21:00 watershed when younger viewers may have been watching.

18 viewers also wrote in support of the item and to counter reported complaints to Ofcom and Channel 4.

Decision

It was clear from the first programme in the series that the turkeys were bought specifically to be slaughtered for Christmas. In the introduction to that programme, Gordon Ramsay said: I live in the city. I want my children to learn and understand where their food comes from. His wife added:We are going to grow Christmas lunch. He [Gordon] wants to make the children understand that Christmas lunch comes from somewhere and not just the supermarket.

There were warnings at the beginning of the programme, which featured the slaughter, (broadcast on 15 December 2005) and before the event itself. The commentary to the programme said that the slaughter of the turkeys was performed by a licensed slaughterman and in a way that complied with current UK standards. Gordon Ramsay expressed the views that, nevertheless, this was a controversial event and, in some ways, hard to take when he pointed out that he felt in some way "guilty" as he prepared to bring the first turkey to the slaughter.

In our view, the issue as a whole was treated in a responsible and professional way. The clear intention from the outset was to explain both to the viewer and Gordon Ramsay's family the process which brings turkey meat to people's tables on Christmas day. While the procedure itself was shown in full, there were no unduly distressing scenes. We do not consider that the images were sufficiently distressing for them to have gone beyond generally accepted standards in this particular programme, on this channel at this time.


Jamie's Great Escape, Channel 4, 9 November 2005, 20:30

Found not in breach of programme code

Introduction

This series features the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver travelling around Italy in a camper van, sampling the cuisine and culture of different regions. In this programme, Jamie was visiting a hill farmer who invited him to help prepare for a family feast. For that reason, Jamie was encouraged by the farmer to select a lamb and slaughter it. This Jamie did.

30 viewers complained that this material was not suitable for pre-watershed viewing and/or that such a practice is illegal in this country, since the animal needs to have been stunned first before being slaughtered.

Decision

The early scenes in the programme, and the presenter's commentary itself, made it clear Jamie Oliver would be slaughtering a lamb. It was clear from the programme that the presenter found it emotionally difficult to carry out his task but the lamb did not struggle or make any distressing noises. There was almost no blood shown, and, arguably, it was hard to see what was happening at all. The sequence concluded with a comment explaining that such events go on all the time and that this particular process was part and parcel of life in the region.

The presenter went on to criticise mass, mechanical slaughter and suggested that if people had found the scenes distressing then perhaps they should consider becoming vegetarian.

We consider that the programme treated the matter responsibly and informatively. There were no graphic distressing scenes and the programme sought to reflect a tradition that has been going on throughout the world, and in that particular part of Italy, for thousands of years. Whilst it may be illegal to slaughter animals in the UK without stunning them first, the programme was clearly set in Italy and the audience would have been aware of that context, and the cultural differences that went with it. We also believe that it is unlikely that the programme would encourage anyone in this country to slaughter an animal illegally.

From Inquisition 21st Century

approach.

AOL is placing full page advertisements in the UK, and presumably in the US, newspapers. The one in the Sunday Times of January 1, 2006 read as follows: “Child abuse, terrorism, racism.” This headline was accompanied by pictures of a little child, an exploding bomb and a burning cross.

“Should censorship really be the only thing not allowed on the internet?”

This was followed with a section headed ‘Discuss’. It read:

The World Wide Web is a bit of an understatement. It just keeps getting bigger, with more and more information being added every day. And that’s the beauty of the internet – anyone, anywhere can put anything on it. It belongs to everyone. A place where freedom of speech can exist.

But is it so beautiful when the information put there is the views of paedophiles, terrorists and racists? With no-one regulating the internet, this information is now within reach of more homes than ever before. It is the World Wide Web after all. But who in the world should regulate it? Should it, and could it be regulated at all?

We have a view - that internet providers, governments and individuals can work together to keep the internet open, but safer too. Which is why one of the things that we do is support the Internet Watch Foundation, set up to monitor and minimise the availability of child abuse images online. But where does censorship begin and freedom of speech end?

As Inquisition 21st Century say:

We need full page advertisements, not calling for censorship, but hoping that our slide into the police state can be halted before it is too late.

Read their full reply to AOL here

Thanks to Dan

A cinema in Utah has pulled a scheduled screening of gay Western movie Brokeback Mountain at the last minute.

The Jordan Commons Megaplex in Salt Lake City is owned by Larry Miller, a prominent member of the Mormon church, which is against homosexuality.

Distributor Focus Features said the cinema "reneged on their licensing agreement" hours before it was to open.

Mike Thompson of gay rights group Equality Utah said it was disappointing people were barred from seeing it. It's just a shame that such a beautiful and award-winning film with so much buzz about it is not being made available to a broad Utah audience because of personal bias, he told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The manager of the cinema declined to comment on the cancellation of the screening.

The adult-rated film focuses on the enduring romantic relationship between two cowboys, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. It has already gained a string of award nominations and is highly tipped as an Oscar contender.

Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, was in favour of the film being cancelled.: I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show

From Press Of Atlantic City

A regional prosecutor said he would not file charges against a newspaper that published contentious caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, and Danish Muslim groups said Monday they would appeal.

We cannot understand the decision, said Ahmad Akkari, a spokesman for a coalition of 11 community groups, adding that they would take their complaints to Denmark's top prosecutor. He said the 12 caricatures, published Sept. 30 in the Jyllands-Posten daily, were a clear offense to Islam.

State prosecutor Peter Broendt Joergensen said Saturday the drawings were protected by Denmark's freedom of speech laws and did not violate bans on racism and blasphemy.

Egypt has been spearheading foreign criticism of Denmark over the cartoons. While Egypt respects freedom of opinion and expression, BUT we also realize the borders which must never be crossed, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said after he was informed of the prosecutor's decision by his Danish counterpart.

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen rejected calls that he intervene after the caricatures sparked harsh criticism from some Muslim leaders at home and overseas, saying the government has no say over media. But in a New Year's speech widely seen as an attempt to calm emotions over the issue, Rasmussen condemned any expression, action or indication that attempts to demonize groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background.

The dispute has created a backlash against Danish Muslim groups, who critics say blew the matter out of proportion by asking Muslim countries to pressure the Danish government to act against the paper.

Abdul Wahid Petersen, a leading imam in Denmark, defended the decision to request help from abroad. When someone offends the prophet, it is not only just a local problem but affects Muslims worldwide, he said Monday on Danish public radio.

From Index on Censorship

Turkish free expression groups are reporting that the authorities are using a new technique to censor the media – by accusing journalists who criticise court judgements of trying to ‘influence the judiciary’.

Five journalists from the dailies Radikal and Milliyet currently face charges under Article 288 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) and article 19 of the country’s Press Law which prohibit attempts to exert influence or prejudice the judgements of the courts, reported the online BIA news agency.

The five face trial for articles criticising an Istanbul court's decision to ban a university conference expected to cover the mass deportations and killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians under the Turkish Ottoman empire.

General manager Ismet Berkan and writers Erol Katircioglu, Murat Belge, Haluk Sahin of Radikal and Milliyet writer Hasan Cemal face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. The first hearing will be held on 7 February in an Istanbul court.

From Christian Today

A Scottish reverend has called on local registrars in the Galloway area of Scotland to follow in the footsteps of the Western Isles and refuse to conduct civil partnership ceremonies.

The call from Rev. Darryl Abernethy of Stranraer Free Presbyterian Church follows the first two civil partnership ceremonies in the Galloway area of two same sex couples on Wednesday. Abernethy responded to the recent civil ceremonies by praising the decision by the Western Isles to refuse to conduct civil partnership ceremonies and called on local registrars to follow suit: God as the creator, judge and king of all men instituted marriage between men and women at the beginning of time for the betterment and multiplication of mankind. We call upon all right thinking registrars to adopt the same position as those in the Western Isles and refuse to participate in these nefarious ceremonies.

Councillors in the Western Isles of Scotland voted to officially outlaw civil partnership ceremonies for same-sex couples which begin in Scotland on 21st December 2005. The Western Isles, where Presbyterianism remains the bedrock of values, will become the only part of the country where gay couples will not be able to take part in civil partnership ceremonies.

The decision means that homosexual couples wishing to take part in a civil partnership ceremony will either have to travel to the mainland or make do with legal registration.

All registry offices will be legally obliged to perform basic registrations, at which gay couples will sign an official civil partnership document before two witnesses, under the Civil Partnerships Act, passed last year at Westminster. Councils across the country are also offering to conduct ceremonies similar to heterosexual civil weddings.

From The Nation

PM’s Office Minister Suranand Vejjajiva said yesterday that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was frustrated by the media’s choice of programming and wanted to see more constructive content, especially for children: What the government has been frustrated by is the difficulty for law enforcement [to enforce laws] because of vested interests. Although we have laws in place, games shops and printing houses pay bribes to police.

The minister also accused soap operas of “intoxicating” adults and youths with superficial values: These programmes [soaps] instil young people with lavish and superficial values. Children [learn to] value comfort and materialism. They want to earn a living from being a minor wife for instance. Thai dramas are teaching Thai kids to live in a vicious circus.

Prime Minister Thaksin will next week announce policies to deal with media issues, including establishing a media-rating institute to monitor content. Censorship will be harsher. Blurring images of people smoking cigarettes and revealing imagery only makes children more curious to see [what has been blurred], Suranand said.

Communication technology such as the Internet and 3G technology, which integrates telephones with televisions and computers, will also be tightly monitored.

The government may provide funds to create children’s programmes such as news presented by children and a project to promote reading.

From Media Week

Kojak's lollipop has fallen foul of the first Advertising Standards adjudication of the New Year.

The ASA rulings upheld complaints against ITV for its poster advertising the remake of classic police drama Kojak, which showed the word "Mothersucker" with the cop's iconic lollipop superimposed over the letter "o".

ITV's defence that it had sited the "Mothersucker" ads away from residential area was not enough for the ASA to drop its charges of breaching codes on decency and advertising to children: The ad would be seen by some people to refer to a deeply offensive expletive

From The Independent

Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites.

The 38 million subscribers to MySpace, which News Corp bought for $629m (£355m) last July, discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens.

The intervention by News Corp in the traditionally open-access world of the web - in particular the alteration of personal user profiles - provoked a storm of angry posts in online "blogs".

This is soooo like Fox and News Corp to try and secretly seal our mouths with duct tape, wrote "Alex" to Blog Herald.

The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites such as Friendster, Linkedin, revver.com and Facebook.com, News Corp relented and restored the links.

However, MySpace managers promptly shut down the blog forum on which members had complained about the interference. An online notice said the problem was the result of "a simple misunderstanding".
The explanation did not, however, calm the bloggers. There was an outcry by some members after MySpace's acquisition by News Corp. People were afraid they might start monitoring or censoring MySpace, Ellis Yu wrote to the Blog Herald. At the time, their CEO said nothing like that would happen. Well, now it has. MySpace was built on an open community and now they're trying to censor us, putting business interests above its members!

MySpace is supposed to be a personal forum!" wrote "makisha" at the blog site Supr.c.iliu.us. Now it's owned by some corporation and it's being sensored [sic]! The beauty of it has been ruined. Better wise up MySpace or you're going to loose [sic] a good portion of your subscribers.

A spokesman for MySpace said it would not explain how the blocking of YouTube came about, nor how it was resolved, nor whether in future it would continue to block links to rival websites or censor messages between MySpace customers.

But will the service feature real porn?

No doubt a tie up between two leading control freak companies will result in a service where the customers has no rights whatsoever.

From The Times

BSKYB has forged a deal with Microsoft allowing it to launch a video-on-demand service for personal computers next week, extending its push into broadband and giving millions of its subscribers access to films and sports highlights on a new format.

From Tuesday BSkyB subscribers who own PCs with Microsoft’s Media Centre software, a user-friendly version of Windows, will be able to access video-on-demand features through the recently announced Sky By Broadband service. The service will be available to BSkyB’s premium movies and sports subscribers.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, said the tie-up with BSkyB, in which News Corporation, parent company of The Times was in preparation for the arrival of the much talked about “digital lifestyle”.

As Britain’s take-up of high-speed broadband internet connections has increased, media and telecoms groups are preparing for the internet to become the main source for television, music and telecoms services. Video-on-demand technology will allow viewers to watch what they want when they want.

Gates said that content from MTV, the US music channel, will also be made available through a similar partnership: We’re working with BSkyB and they’ll be setting up through our alliance a video-on-demand capability — they have got over eight million subscribers in the UK who will be able to do those downloads.

The announcement reiterates BSkyB’s interest in expanding its broadband offering. BSkyB has said that nearly half its satellite TV customers have broadband access.

In October, the company announced a £211 million takeover of Easynet, the broadband telecoms specialist. The Easynet deal enables BSkyB to offer “triple-play” services — a combination of broadband, television and telephony. This will help the group to compete with NTL and Telewest, currently in the process of merging, which both offer triple play.

But will the service feature real porn?

From CNET News

Google plans to sell television shows and sports programming that customers can download from its Web site, a source familiar with the deal told CNET News.com.

Users will pay an undisclosed fee to download content supplied by partners that Google has lined up. These include TV broadcasters and the National Basketball Association.

Mountain View.-based Google is expected to debut the new service at the Consumer Electronics Show Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. A Google representative responded to an interview request by saying that the company anticipates "many exciting announcements" on Friday.

A slew of companies, including Apple Computer, are trying to seize turf in the tiny video-on-demand market, even though studies indicate that the public has remained cool on the idea of replacing their TVs with a PC.

According to a Jupiter Research survey, only one in four people were interested in downloading video via the Internet. Just 28% of poll participants between the ages of 18 and 24 had ever watched a video online.

It's safe to say that only a small minority of the population are doing anything with downloadable video, said Todd Chanko, a media analyst at Jupiter, adding that he had no reason to believe a surge of interest in downloadable video is just around the corner.

Nitin Gupta, a media analyst for research firm Yankee Group, said the surging interest in mobile products will spur sales of downloadable video and the market is too new to gauge public opinion: Services like this are the foundation for innovation. Companies here will find new ways to package video content, make interfaces more active...I don't know the economics of Google's model for this, but with their track record, I'm betting they have found a way to make money on this.

From the ASA

Complaint:

Objections to a poster for rapper Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson's new album, Get Rich or Die Tryin, which was the soundtrack to his forthcoming film of the same name. The poster featured an image of 50 Cent from the rear, naked from the waist up with a weapon tucked into the waistband of his trousers; he was holding a baby over his right shoulder. The complainants objected that the ad was offensive and irresponsible because it glamorised and condoned gun crime. Several complainants were especially concerned that the ad had appeared in an area, which had recently been associated with gun crime that involved children.

Adjudication: Complaints upheld

Universal Music Group (UMG) said the image chosen for the album ad was taken from the promotional material created for the film of the same name and was designed to communicate the narrative of the main character's struggle to escape the ghetto in which he grew up. They maintained that the image was intended to show the choice that Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson's character had to make between the child and the violence represented by the gun. UMG said the poster was no longer in use.

We noted the relationship between the image in the poster and the narrative of the film. We considered, however, that Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson had such cultural credibility, especially among young people, that his association with gang culture and criminal behaviour was likely to be seen as glamorising and condoning the possession and use of guns. We also considered the combination of the title, Get Rich or Die Tryin, and the image of Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson carrying a gun could give the impression that success could be achieved through violence. We concluded that the image was likely to cause serious or widespread offence and was irresponsible. We told UMG not to repeat the approach.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) is also considering a move to allow Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), which is currently banned in the UAE -- much to the annoyance of the majority expatriate population, which wants to make cheap calls to families, mostly in Asia and Europe.

State-controlled Etisalat enjoys a monopoly throughout most of the country, blocking cheap VOIP phone calls and enforcing a federal ban on Internet pornography and gambling.

At present a few thousand homes and offices in Dubai, served by niche telecoms operator TECOM, are exempt from a national ban on sites considered "unIslamic."

Mohamed Al-Ghanim, director general of the TRA  warned that it must abide by UAE censors, who last week banned access to the online version of Britain‘s popular The Sun newspaper: The Internet will remain censored for cultural reasons. We have to keep our culture protected will have to abide by the rules.

Dubai‘s free zones have lured scores of media brands, including CNN and the BBC, on the promise of freedom from censorship, which is the norm in the Arab world. Some observers fear online censorship within the zones could undermine their reputation as creative hubs.

I don't know how the study trumped up these results but they run counter to any other results I have ever seen. Porn viewers simply do not like condoms.

From the New Zealand Herald

The New Zealand Chief Censor, Bill Hastings,  is considering labelling porn films for depictions of unsafe sex after finding that more than half of a group of regular porn viewers thought showing unprotected intercourse was "inappropriate".

The study of 65 regular porn viewers living in Hawkes Bay, carried out by Victoria University for the Office of Film and Literature Classification, asked what they thought of unsafe practices on screen.

A total of 56% felt it was "inappropriate" (44 per cent said it was not and 3 per cent had no opinion).

A total of 71% said that such portrayals might encourage unsafe sex, though the study did not ask if they had practised unsafe sex as a result.

75% said they had tried something they had seen on a sex video, reinforcing the idea of a link between visual stimuli and behaviour.

While the survey's participants were self-selected and thus not wholly representative of New Zealand, says Chief Censor Bill Hastings, the finding of the study "is cause for concern".  As a result, his office is floating the idea that films depicting unsafe sex should have a label or classification making that content clear. One thing we can feed to the New Zealand public is whether people want to see a separate category - maybe an R18 - for unsafe sex, he said.

The people who found on-screen unsafe sex inappropriate had five broad opinions:

• It was wrong or did not portray a good image of sex movies.
• It was a bad example.
• It could increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases among actors.
• Porn film-makers were hypocritical by prefacing their movies with health warnings promoting safe sex but not demonstrating it.
• The adult movie industry had a responsibility to promote safe sex.

Some found unprotected movie sex more stimulating.

From Information Week

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday confirmed that it took down the blog of outspoken Chinese journalist Zhao Jing, saying that it was complying with China's laws.

Blogger Rebecca MacKinnon, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, first reported that Jing's blog was taken down New Years Eve by Microsoft's blog-hosting service MSN Spaces. The blog has been replaced with the message, "This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

Zhao is among a number of Chinese bloggers that have grown in popularity in the Communist nation where the general media is government controlled.

China last year started tightening its control over Internet services, but has yet to launch a major crackdown on bloggers. Experts believe the government is still struggling with media control without stymieing the country's emerging Internet businesses.

Microsoft said in a statement that the decision to unplug Zhao was inline with its practice of ensuring that products and services comply with global and local laws, norms, and industry practices. Strange that this attitude does not seem to apply to trade and competition laws, Microsoft are regularly being taken to court.

Most countries have laws and practices that require companies providing online services to make the Internet safe for local users, the company said. Occasionally, as in China, local laws and practices require consideration of unique elements.

It is not unusual for U.S. search engines, such as Google, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo, to censor their Chinese-language search results at the request of the government.

A potential improvement...BUT...

Will one entry of a PIN be enough to last until the end of the film or will it need re-entering after channel hopping?

From Digital Spy

Sky is to use its new PIN-protection software to broadcast 15-rated movies in a teatime slot from next month.

In order to watch the films, viewers will have to first key in their personalised PIN number before they are granted access to the channel. The mechanism provides some protection against children inadvertently accessing the material.

The movies will appear on a new channel, Sky Movies 10, which will air from 5pm to 3am daily from February 1. Sky Movies 9 will similarly slash its hours and adopt the same format.

15-plus titles on the slate in the first month include Layer Cake, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Identity and Anger Management.

Sky Cinema 1 and 2 will relocate to EPG positions 313 and 314 respectively to accommodate the new station and future launches.

From the BBC

An anti-violence comic by a Christian police group has been banned by the Metropolitan Police after being accused of ignoring other faiths. The comic book, Cops and Robbers, has first-hand stories from criminals who have embraced Christianity.

But Scotland Yard said it will not distribute the comic without wider consultation with faith groups. Commander Alf Hitchcock, of the Metropolitan Police, said: I welcome the involvement of the Christian Police Association - the Cops and Robbers publication is an innovative and positive concept. However, it is important that effective consultation takes place, in relation to the material, and that the needs of other faith groups are also considered as part of the ongoing work being undertaken by the Custody Directorate.

Pc David Turtle, deputy chairman of the CPA, said: We would express our disappointment to the commissioner and the Metropolitan Police Authority. We would be seeking ways in which this can be reversed.

The CPA is believed to have around 1,000 members within London's police force. The comic was designed to be given out to youths being held in custody cells.

Des Brown, a convicted killer who now works in a Christian youth group, says he wants criminals to become Christians. The purpose of this comic is to put forward a story that people's lives can be changed by the power of Jesus Christ. That's the point of the comic.

Based on an article from The Daily Times

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has not banned 35 foreign channels but they have been put off air temporarily, Shahid Humayun, the executive member of PEMRA, has said.

Talking to journalists, Humayun said that the authority had told foreign channels to get landing rights to broadcast their transmission in Pakistan otherwise the authority would put them off-air. He said 50 percent foreign channels had applied for so far and the authority had taken action against rest of the channels.

He shamefully said that the authority did not believe in pre-censorship... BUT... it had given broad outlines to licensees in the form of code of conduct for self-regulation. He said the foreign channels which contravene the authority’s rules and regulations would be proceeded against.

He said the authority had taken number of steps to control obscenity and pornography and taken action against illegal cable TV operators across the country. He said the authority had made arrangements to grant licences within three days to set up FM radio stations in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Northern Areas. He said licences had been issued temporarily for a limited period so that earthquake victims could be advised and informed about important post-disaster measures and precautions to be taken.

From The Guardian

Two of Cambodia's most prominent human rights activists have been arrested and detained for defaming the government. The US ambassador warned yesterday that the arrests further tarnished the country's veneer of democracy.

The director of the Cambodian Centre of Human Rights, Kem Sokha and Yeng Virak, the head of the Community Legal Education Centre, were charged on Saturday over allegedly offensive material displayed at a workshop on December 10 to mark international human rights day.

Information minister Khieu Kanharith said banners on the CCHR booth at the event branded the prime minister, Hun Sen, a "communist" and "traitor who has sold away [Cambodian] land to Vietnam", referring to a border demarcation deal signed in October.

Kem Sokha was arrested after a three-hour standoff at his office while Yeng Virak was detained separately.

Ou Virak, a CCHR advocacy officer, told the Guardian he is convinced Hun Sen is trying to silence the opposition by arresting his critics. This is a major step. It shows this country is walking backwards in democracy. Indeed that we no longer have a democracy.

Their detention comes 10 days after Sam Rainsy, the head of the main opposition party, was convicted in absentia of defaming Hun Sen and the national assembly speaker. It brings to nine the number of government critics and rights activists who have either been jailed pending trial or have fled rather than face imprisonment in the last few months.

The US ambassador, Joseph Mussomeli, described it as another step down the wrong path for Cambodia, adding: There is not much left to a real democracy. He said the government was afraid of free speech. And when governments are afraid, they make foolish decisions, and this is foolish and unfortunate.

Freedom of Information (FoI) has hardly proved very revealing when applied to secretive and unjustified decisions made by Ofcom.

On the other hand, the BBFC have proven to be very open outside the jurisdiction of FoI. Perhaps when organisations have to comply they simply hide away their private data in even deeper holes. I wonder if the FoI legislation will be extended to the BBFC? and would it do more harm than good? But saying that, it would have been beneficial in the secretive Ferman era of the BBFC.

From the BBC

The government is considering changing the year-old Freedom of Information Act to limit so-called frivolous inquiries.

Writing in the Guardian, the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said the new laws had successfully cracked open "the culture of secrecy in Whitehall". But a minority of requests had been made simply to feed the "wilder fevers of journalistic wish-lists".

Lord Falconer told the BBC the scope of the Act could be widened to include private bodies running public services.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000, which became law on 1 January 2005, means people have the right to access information held by 100,000 public bodies. Police forces, hospitals, schools, local councils and the government are obliged to reply to requests for information. But privately run public services are not covered by the laws.

Lord Falconer said he could see a case for widening the provisions of the act to include such bodies. He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: They have not been included in the first wave, but there's a provision in the Act which allows the Act's provisions to be extended to bodies like privately run prisons or city academies.

He suggested a consultation on which bodies they should be extended to should be undertaken.

From The Telegraph

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to Washington, accused the Government of making "threats" against him over the publication of his highly controversial memoirs, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

He also claimed that the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, Sir Michael Jay, had made an "unpleasant insinuation" about his commercial motives in writing the book.

In the months before DC Confidential was published last November, ministers and senior civil servants went to great lengths to see Sir Christopher's manuscript, sparking an ill-tempered exchange of correspondence and the accusation that he was breaching diplomatic secrets.

The letters have been seen by the Sunday Telegraph and details can be revealed for the first time. They also show how Tony Blair was concerned about the book divulging his private conversations.

The exchange started on June 30, 2005, when Heather Yasamee, a middle-ranking Foreign Office official, wrote to Sir Christopher after seeing a "trailer" for his book on the Amazon website. She wrote: I thought I should remind you that as a former member of the Diplomatic Service you are covered by the rules set out in the Diplomatic Service Regulations and Diplomatic Service Code of Ethics.

These made it clear he must consult the Foreign Office before writing books, Yasamee wrote. She asked to see the "draft manuscript for approval". Sir Christopher replied on July 12 to protest at her reminder of his duties being made "at this very late stage".

The Government's big guns then got involved. On July 26, Sir Michael, the permanent under-secretary of the Foreign Office, wrote to Sir Christopher reminding the former ambassador that he was bound by the Official Secrets Act, and stating that Blair had been worried about the potential for Sir Christopher to break confidences.

In a discussion about what might or might not damage the public interest, Sir Michael wrote: [This] is a matter of judgment which cannot be assessed reliably by one individual acting alone, particularly if the individual in question left the Civil Service more than two years ago. I called you on June 4 last year to relay concerns expressed by ministers, including the Prime Minister, that some of your public comments appeared to be straying towards the revelation of confidences gained in conversations in which you had taken part. I would also emphasise that your assessment of whether any particular disclosure would be damaging to the public interest will inevitably be conditioned by the fact that … you have a commercial interest in the success of the book.

Sir Michael's intervention appears to have riled Sir Christopher. On August 7 he replied: You make a rather unpleasant insinuation that money might warp my view of the public interest. In fact, he had always said he would give any serialisation money to charity, Sir Christopher claims.

From Red Herring

China tries to find porn web sites by monitoring payments over cell phones.

Censorship experts said  that China will likely be unsuccessful in finding pornographic web sites by monitoring payments made through mobile phones, but they cautioned it could lead to overzealous censorship of individuals.

Customer payments of “fairly high” amounts will be flagged for further investigation as possible porn purchases, Zhao Shiqiang, a director at China’s Bureau of Public Security, said at a press conference. If the government sees that the site receiving the payment is purveying illegal content, officials will shut it down.

The plan is the latest attempt by the Chinese government to combine Internet censorship with mobile phone monitoring in order to crack down on what it considers “unhealthy” content of a political or sexual nature

Censorship experts said the plan probably won’t lead to the dismantling of many sites, but could turn into a way to monitor individuals more closely.

Broadly monitoring transactions is always a cause for concern, said Nart Villeneuve, director of technical research at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab: Surveillance that is not done in a transparent way is generally what leads to the abuse of such systems.

Danny O’Brien, activism coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, pointed to Europe as an example. Data-collecting regimes there, in which telecommunications companies keep governments informed of transactions they’ve flagged, were originally meant to combat terrorism. But O’Brien said parameters have been broadened to the vague term “serious crimes,” which includes media piracy.

Once you cross the line of surveillance for one purpose, it becomes a tool for all purposes, warned Mr. O’Brien.

Based on an article from TMC Net

Chinese police have closed 598 Web sites in a crackdown on pornography, but online gambling and fraud are growing, state media said Friday.

The communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but has launched repeated campaigns to repress material deemed obscene or subversive.

The latest crackdown, launched in March, led to 25 arrests, the China Daily Newspaper said, citing figures announced Thursday by the Ministry of Public Security. That figure was low compared with more than 500 people arrested in the previous year.

Online obscene video chats, gambling and frauds have become serious crimes in recent years and are still rising, the Xinhua News Agency cited Wu Heping, a ministry spokesman, as saying.

The police ministry handled 14,000 cases of Internet-related actions over the past year, the newspaper said, citing Zhao Shiyuan, director of the ministry's Web security department. Police received more than 12,000 tips from the public, Zhao said.

In the heaviest reported sentence for online obscenity, a 20-year-old Web site operator in eastern China was jailed in 2004 for 15 years for selling downloads of sexually oriented movies

From the Jakarta Post

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) are to forward a draft bill to parliament aiming to prevent Indonesian Muslim women from being divorced too easily by foreigners.

If passed into law, it would prevent foreigners from marrying Indonesian Muslim women unless they put up what looks like "collateral" of Rp 500 million (£29500), so that if their husbands ever divorce the woman they would "win" that amount of money to live on.

Many observers have difficulty understanding the motivation behind this draft bill, and indeed there are many questions to be asked regarding this particular legislative endeavor.

If it is a matter of providing some kind of financial security to Indonesian divorcees, why do we require only foreign men to take such a degree of responsibility, while ignoring the fact that there are a far greater number of Indonesians who have divorced their wives?

Second, setting that kind of "price tag" suggests that we are selling our women to foreigners as if they were commodities in need of foreign buyers. The collateral to be paid before tying the knot would turn marriage into a business contract rather than a holy institution. And nobody believes that a foreign man in his right mind would waste half a billion rupiah on a contract of this kind.

Third, if the real aim is to provide financial security to divorced women, why start with women who marry foreigners? This category of women are mainly from the middle- and upper-classes including celebrities who do not desperately need financial support.

Divorced women who do desperately need financial security are from the lower economic classes, some of whom have been forced into prostitution to support themselves. They have been neglected, but the (Indonesian) men who divorced them are not being required to pay huge sums of money like that being required of foreigners in this new draft bill!

Fourth, if it is a law, then it must apply to all citizens and residents alike and must not apply only to believers of a certain religion. But even so, why has the draft bill originated from the MUI and not the Indonesian Inter-Religious Dialog Forum?

Also, what about Indonesian women who marry foreigners abroad and bring them home? Likewise, would this attempt not encourage Indonesian women and foreign men to get married abroad instead of at home? And again, would this law apply retroactively -- for the sake of fairness?