The BBFC has told Edge it is taking legal advice after observing that the newly-proposed 'traffic-light' PEGI symbols bear a striking resemblance to its own.

The BBFC believes such a system is around already. Our classification symbols have been colour-coded since 1982. They're very widely recognised, and in fact they are trademark and copyright protected, a company spokesperson told Edge.

We're happy for ELSPA to make sensible improvements, but not if they encroach on the protection of the BBFC's symbols. We have these symbols using colours, using circles and using numbers, so we are now taking legal advice.

The police are deciding whether to investigate whether a joke broadcast on last week's Have I Got News For You was homophobic.

However, the BBC said the gag was designed to show up the persecution of homosexuals in Iran.

One viewer complained following the comment, which came amid a discussion over a failed Iranian bid to create to the world's biggest ostrich sandwich.

Host Alexander Armstrong said: On the plus side they do still hold the record for hanging homosexuals.

And guest Skinner joked that homosexuals are often ostracised.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed: A member of the public has made a complaint regarding comments made in the programme. The complaint is currently being reviewed.

But the BBC said: The presenter never intended for this comment to be homophobic - quite the opposite. Viewers are more than familiar with HIGNFY use of satire - in this instance aimed at the Iranian regime and not the Iranian gay community.

Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said: I interpreted it as an anti-Iran joke, exposing and mocking Iran's murderous homophobic regime. It was parody and satire, I think, not an endorsement of executions.

The BBC has ordered a fundamental review of taste and decency standards across the network in an attempt to end the row about the prank phone calls that has engulfed the corporation.

The controller of Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, one of the most influential figures in the radio and music industries, was forced to resign, while Jonathan Ross, the highest-paid man in British broadcasting, has been suspended for 12 weeks without pay. His Radio 2 presenting colleague Russell Brand resigned on Wednesday.

The BBC Trust ordered an on-air apology to licence fee-payers for serious and deliberate breaches of editorial guidelines, and asked the director general, Mark Thompson, to write a personal apology for the scandal. He declined to comment on the future of more junior staff involved but promised to conduct a review of broadcasting guidelines.

Last night's edition of Never Mind the Buzzcocks was also cancelled as it featured Brand – a subsequent version of the show was broadcast in its place. The BBC said it had no plans to show the program at a later date.

The BBC announced a raft of measures it was taking to prevent something similar happening again, including a review of compliance procedures across radio output, and a study into where the appropriate boundaries of taste and standards should lie across all BBC output. Sessions will be held with senior staff on the lessons to be learnt. The director of BBC audio and music will also ensure that all programmes are re-assessed for editorial risk and those with high risk will have additional... oversight.

Wowser Stephen Conroy:  I am not a wowser ...BUT... some material online, [such as hardcore porn] is illegal

The government election promise to censor the internet looks to be in trouble as Senate opposition grows.

The Rudd Government promised families far-reaching measures to block prohibited content at the internet server level. However Communication Minister Wowser Stephen Conroy extended the idea to censoring adults.

The idea now faces a concerted backlash against the proposal by the internet industry.

If the Liberals oppose legislation imposing server-level filtering, the Government will need the support of the Greens, Family First senator Steve Fielding and South Australian senator Nick Xenophon.

But the Greens have added their voice to Coalition concerns about the plan, with the Greens' communications spokesman calling the proposal daft.

Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam told The Age yesterday that he was concerned the Government was trying to implement a policy that was technically difficult and very expensive for taxpayers. Senator Ludlam said server-level filtering imposed a kind of censorship that runs counter to what the internet is all about. The Government would be better investing the filtering money in law enforcement and education: I think it's really quite misguided.

The industry says mandatory filtering by internet service providers - as distinct from a net nanny that families can put on their own computers - will slow internet speeds significantly.

Nutter Senator Fielding has signalled he wants a range of material blocked, including hard-core pornography and fetish material. Senator Xenophon has indicated he wants access to offshore gaming sites restricted.

The Government is still a way from producing legislation to effect its policy, but indications are that it will be difficult to achieve consensus in the Senate.

Communications Minister Wowser Stephen Conroy has launched a defence of the policy, hitting back at claims by the internet industry that the Government wants a sweeping ban on controversial content: I will accept some debate around what should and should not be on the internet - I am not a wowser [...BUT...] I am not looking to blanket-ban some of the material that it is being claimed I want to blanket-ban, but some material online, such as child pornography, is illegal. [Hardcore porn is also illegal on the internet in Australian but somehow Conroy doesn't say anything to counter the idea that it should therefore be blocked]

In response to arguments that the proposal would affect basic civil liberties and the principle that households should be able to be their own internet policeman, he said: We are not trying to build the Great Wall of China. We are not trying to be Saudi Arabia, and to say that is to simply misrepresent the Government's position.

No Clean Feed

Based on article from blogs.smh.com.au

If you're concerned about the government's plans for filtering the internet, it's time to speak up before it's too late. Visit NoCleenFeed.com, run by Electronic Frontiers Australia, for information on how to voice your concern. Do it quickly, before some holier-than-thou git decides you're not allowed to see it.

There are also protests planned for Saturday November the 1st outside each state parliament house. For more details see:

• www.myspace.com/nocleanfeed
• www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=32318174194

Indonesian bikini compromise

Indonesia's parliament has passed an anti-pornography law despite furious opposition to it.

Islamic parties said the law was needed to protect women and children against exploitation and to curb increasing immorality in Indonesian society.

The law would ban images, gestures or talk deemed to be pornographic.

Artists, women's groups and non-Muslim minorities said they could be victimised under the law and that traditional practices could be banned.

The law has prompted protests across Indonesia, but particularly on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali - a favourite destination for tourists.

Critics particularly do not like a provision in the bill that would allow members of the public to participate in preventing the spread of obscenity. We're worried it will be used by hard-liners who say they want to control morality, Baby Jim Aditya, a women's rights activist, told Associated Press news agency.

This law will ensure that Islam is preserved and guaranteed, said Hakim Sori Muda Borhan, a member of parliament from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

The bill must be signed by the president before it comes into effect.

Violators face up to 12 years in prison and hefty fines.

CAAN (Consenting Adult Action Network) extends a warm welcome to Human Rights Campaigner and co-ordinator of OutRage!, Peter Tatchell, who is the latest high profile supporter to align with their cause.

This follows their successful demonstration in Parliament Square on Tuesday, when they joined forces with Ben Westwood, in their continuing campaign against government attacks on individual sexuality.

Explaining his decision, Peter Tatchell said: The government has gone way beyond a legitimate desire to stop sexual exploitation. It is now legislating in ways that violate the sexual human rights of its citizens.

The current bill outlawing so-called extreme pornography will criminalise images of sexual acts that are perfectly lawful.

There is no evidence that Harriet Harman's proposed outlawing of soliciting for sex will help rescue the victims of sex trafficking and enslavement. It will merely drive sexual abuse and exploitation further underground, making it even harder to regulate and police.

Clair Lewis, for CAAN, said: Our focus is on sexual interaction between consenting adults. We have a simple statement of principle, which politely asks government to stay out of our bedrooms. Unless sexual activity is non-consensual, it is no business whatsoever of government what adults get up to in private.

Despite this, recent legislation – not only on extreme porn, but also on safeguarding vulnerable people – is designed to criminalise and exclude from jobs anyone whose sexuality does not meet the Government's approval.

Twenty years ago, a common accusation levelled at the Gay community, was that children were not safe left in the company of homosexuals. We now recognise this for the bigoted nonsense it always was. Yet government today are attempting the same trick when dealing with consenting adults whose sexuality does not conform to their preferences, despite the fact that what an adult does in private bears no relation to children's safety, whatever the adult's sexuality.

The government should be ashamed of themselves.

Reporters Without Borders condemns Turkey's censorship of Google’s blog services, Blogger and Blogspot, by a magistrate’s court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir as a result of a complaint by the Turkish TV station Digitürk. The station claims that video footage over which it has exclusive rights has been posted on blogs hosted by these services.

The blogs on these services were suddenly closed without any warning to users and without any court summonses being issued, Reporters Without Borders said: This is not just about copyright and piracy. This is yet another example of how, in Turkey, entire websites are closed just because of problematic content on a single page or blog. We call for Blogger and Blogspot to be reopened. Their closure has handicapped thousands of Internet users in Turkey.

Access to some 10 websites, including very popular ones such as YouTube, Dailymotion and Google Groups, have been blocked in the course of this year in Turkey as a result of court decisions. In most cases, access was blocked under Law 5651 on the Prevention of Crime Committed in the Information Technology Domain, which was adopted by parliament in May 2007 and took effect the following November.

Reporters Without Borders warned of the danger this law represents for online free expression when it was approved by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer on 22 May 2007.

Commenting on the latest developments, Reporters Without Borders said: All this arbitrary blocking of websites has demonstrated that this law is the main source for the deterioration in online free expression. Furthermore, ISPs are forced to do the blocking of access to sites that break this law. This makes them accomplices to censorship.

The press freedom organisation added: We call for Law 5651 to be amended as quickly as possible. Rather than block an entire website, only the content regarded as ‘sensitive’ should be the challenged before the courts.

List of websites currently blocked in Turkey

- www.blogger.com
- www.blogspot.com
- www.youtube.com
- www.slide.com
- www.googlegroups.com
- www.antoloji.com
- www.gundemonline.com
- www.wordpress.com
- www.geocities.com
- www.kliptube.com
- istanbul.indymedia.org
- www.eksisozluk.com
- www.gazetevatan.com
- ateizm.org
- superonline.com
- richarddawkins.net

China's Internet censor has ordered 10 online video sites to shut down and warned another 17, resuming an aggressive policy on such sites that had been relaxed during the summer.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said in a notice on its Web site that under the Internet Audio Video Program Service Management Regulations, there are still some Web sites posting audio and video programs containing pornography, violence and terror, endangering national security.

The 10 sites ordered to shut down include minor local sites, such as TVSou.com, TSXZ.com and Feesee.com.

Another 17 sites were officially warned to comply with SARFT regulations, including 371dvd.com, which on Tuesday prominently displayed director Gu Changwei's banned film Spring Begins (Li Chun) as one of its offerings, VeryCD.com and JPSeek.com.

The publisher of a link to defamatory material does not have any liability for that defamation, a Canadian court has ruled. Liability could only exist if the link publisher made any statement relating to the defamatory material itself, the court said.

Mr Justice Kelleher in the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Canada ruled that a hyperlink was like a footnote in that it led to material produced by a third party which the reader did not have to follow. The publisher of the link could not be liable for someone else's content, he said.

Although a hyperlink provides immediate access to material published on another website, this does not amount to republication of the content on the originating site. This is especially so as a reader may or may not follow the hyperlinks provided, he said.

The case of Westminster council versus Banksy raises an interesting legal precedent. Normally permission to paint a wall is only required from a local authority if the building is of listed historic value or the painting is commercial in nature, but now artistic judgement appears to come into it.

Westminster council first sought to remove Banksy's painting One nation under CCTV on Newman street in central London on the grounds it was an unlicensed commercial.

The owner of the property itself is apparently happy for the painting to remain in place so Westminster council has now sought consultation with local residents in order to prove the painting is having a detrimental affect on the area.

Referring to the adjacent Post Office building who have sought the paintings removal since it first appeared Banksy said I don't know what next door is complaining about — their building is so ugly the 'No Trespassing' sign reads like an insult.

All of which leaves the possibility for what is believed to be the first recorded use of the 2003 Anti-social Behaviour act which for the first time gives councils the ability to enter private premises and force the removal of graffiti. A measure introduced by David Blunkett and which Banksy attacked at the time in a series of paintings and statements.

The introduction of an R18+ rating for computer games has been delayed indefinitely after South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson withdrew his support for a discussion paper and public consultation process.

Censorship ministers in March agreed in principle to canvas public opinion on the proposed introduction of a R18+ classification for games and release a discussion paper on the issue, but Atkinson has refused to agree to make the report public, effectively shelving it.

The draft discussion paper, simply titled R18+ for computer games was sent to ministers last month and details the pros and cons of introducing an adults-only rating for games.

The paper would have been available to the public on the internet and provided to interested parties such as games industry groups and family associations to seek their views.

Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls, who has long supported the push for an R18+ games rating and took the lead in drafting the discussion paper, appears resigned that no changes to the classification system for games will be made anytime soon.

Spokesperson for Hulls, Meaghan Shaw, said whilst the issue is still formally on the SCAG (Standing Committee of Attorneys-General) agenda, it now appears unlikely that there will be unanimity from all jurisdictions to proceed further at this stage with introducing an R18+ category for computer games.

At the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs last week, deputy chair Senator Guy Barnett said some of us are dumbfounded as to why we do not have an R rating for video games.

We have a real problem, and this is something the Senate and the parliament is going to have to address. If we have one state opposing this, South Australia, then clearly we are not going to have any R rating of video games. That simply cannot occur as a matter of course legally.

The issue is again on the agenda for discussion at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting next month.

The BBC's director general is to meet the corporation's governing body to discuss lewd phone calls made on comic Russell Brand's Radio 2 show.

Mark Thompson will brief the BBC Trust on a preliminary inquiry into how the calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs came to be broadcast.

Brand has now resigned from Radio 2 and Jonathan Ross has been suspended.

More than 27,000 people have now complained to the BBC about the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand phone prank.

MediaGuardian.co.uk understands that on the day the Brand and Ross's calls to Sachs' answerphone were recorded, a producer from the BBC rang the former Fawlty Towers actor to ask if he would mind them being used. It is claimed that Sachs said they could be, as long as they were toned down a bit.

The pre-recorded show was then run by a BBC executive, who approved its transmission on Saturday October 18.

Sachs today said he was not surprised Ross and Brand had been suspended by the BBC over their prank calls to him. He also confirmed he was not planning to take the matter up with the police: I'm not going to take it anywhere, I'm not out for revenge.

Games company Bethesda recently sent out a number of e-mails asking certain websites to remove videos containing footage of the just-released Fallout 3.

Shacknews was among the sites contacted, and according to the message they received, the takedown notices were in reaction to possible violations of the ESRB guidelines on game advertising.

In connection with ESRB's advertising guidelines, you are instructed to remove immediately any of our Fallout 3 trailers from your website, pending further notice, wrote Bethsda's vice president of marketing Pete Hines in the e-mail received by Shacknews.

It seems that Fallout 3 is a target for institutional censorship.

Indonesian bikini compromise

Hundreds of demonstrators in the Indonesian capital called on the government Wednesday to push through a controversial anti-pornography bill, saying it was the only way to reverse signs of social decay in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

The nearly 300 protesters in Jakarta pointed to everything from racy television ads and movies to touts selling Playboy magazine at stoplights as reasons the bill must pass.

I don't want my children to go to hell because we allow pornography, said Siti, a demonstrator.

More than 100 lawmakers stormed out of Parliament on Thursday to protest an anti-pornography bill.

But a vote on the legislation  was expected to go ahead later in the afternoon.

The bill, which outlaws pornographic acts and images, is opposed by members of two parties, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) and the Christian-based Prosperous Peace Party, which together have 122 seats in the 550-seat Parliament.

They showed their displeasure by walking out, but the speaker of the house said a quorum had been reached, so the vote could go ahead.

A French court has rejected a demand from Nicolas Sarkozy, the president, for a ban on a Sarkozy doll and voodoo manual that encourages readers to stick pins in it.

The doll is decorated with some of the French leader's most famous quotes, like Get lost you pathetic a***hole – to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at an agricultural show in 2007.

Update: Undignified

29th November 2008. See article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

A doll representing the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and an accompanying voodoo manual with directions for sticking pins into the figurine can remain on sale, a court has ruled – but it must carry a notice saying it harms the president's dignity.

The court ruled that the kit constituted an offence against the personal dignity of Sarkozy. But it said it would be disproportionate and harmful to liberty of expression to ban their sale outright.

It ruled the doll may be sold provided it carries a notice of the judgment attached. The manufacturers must also pay the costs of the case as well as a symbolic 1 Euro in damages.

Vision for Israel
Revelation TV, 18 April 2008, 15:00

Revelation TV is a religious channel that often features discussion and personal view programmes which from time to time engage viewers with challenging debates on topical issues.

Ofcom received one complaint from a viewer who alleged that an edition of the programme Vision for Israel presented by theologian, teacher and author Dan Juster, made abusive and inappropriate comments regarding Islam. Ofcom noted that, during this hour-long programme which compared the Christian and Muslim faiths, Dan Juster stated [it was his belief that]: Islam cannot be defined as a peaceful, loving religion…Islam enforces its own viewpoint through the power of the sword through death… and Islam believes that violence is a legitimate means to establish and extend Islam.

Ofcom considered Rule 4.1 of the Code (Broadcasters must exercise the proper degree of responsibility with respect to the content of programmes which are religious programmes).

Ofcom Decision

In forming its decision, Ofcom bore in mind the fact that broadcasters have a right to freedom of expression which includes the broadcaster’s right to transmit and the audience’s right to receive creative material, information and ideas without interference ...BUT... subject to restrictions proscribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. This right is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Broadcasters should therefore always take care to ensure that material it transmits is in accordance with both the general law and the Code.

The comments made in this programme described above were said in the context of a specialised religious programme made for a particularly niche and predominantly Christian audience. Ofcom has always considered that it is possible for the follower of one religion to reject or critique other religions in the course of sermonising or proselytising and remain within the requirements for Rule 4.1. However, this Code Rule requires broadcasters to exercise the proper degree of responsibility when, for example, using hyperbole which may include more extreme views which could be deemed offensive to people in the audience who hold different views and beliefs.

In Ofcom’s view it was a serious compliance error that Revelation TV did not review the content of this programme prior to transmission. As a consequence of this, the broadcaster was not able to put the potentially offensive comments into context. The broadcaster therefore did not exercise the proper degree of responsibility with respect to the content of this religious programme as required by Rule 4.1.

The programme was in breach of Rule 4.1 of the Code.

Breach of Rule 4.1

The Information and Communications Technology Ministry is to introduce an internet gateway system to block websites containing content Thailand doesn't like. ICT Minister Mun Patanotai will also hold a meeting with webmasters today to discuss measures to suppress lese majeste material.

The gateway system, which could cost between 100 and 500 million baht, could will be used to block websites considered inappropriate, such as those of terrorist groups or selling pornography.

However, the ministry will focus first on websites with content deemed insulting to the Thai monarchy, Mun said. Ministry officials are looking into about a thousand websites, he said. Mun said the ministry has been working with the National Intelligence Agency and the police in cracking down on anti-royal sites.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat said he has assigned relevant agencies, particularly the ICT Ministry, to take strong action against offenders.

Special Branch Police are monitoring five community radio stations that are also airing political content that could be considered lese majeste, a source said.

Ayutthaya Governor Preecha Kamolbut has ordered authorities to monitor all provincial community radio and cable TV stations around the clock.

The police ordered officers to take immediate action against offenders without waiting for complaints.

The video games trade organisation, Elspa, has proposed a solution to the ongoing games ratings controversy.

Elspa supports a 'traffic-light'-type system as part of its voluntary ratings code that it says is more effective.

The BBFC dismissed the effort, saying their own colour-coded approach is well-established.

A government consultation on the matter due to finish in November aims to agree a legally enforceable ratings scheme.

Elspa's proposal would maintain the Pegi procedure and age limits, but says it has taken a lead from the food industry by adding 'traffic light' colours. Higher age limits would be red, with more general audience titles tagged green.

We're offering this idea as a direct consequence of the Byron review; the system needs to remove the potential for confusion and this is what we're doing, Elspa deputy director general Michael Rawlinson told the BBC: The system provided by Pegi is very robust, but we want to make it clearer that something that's for adults only should have that warning colour with it.

Sue Clark, a spokeswoman for the BBFC, dismissed the effort, saying that colour was not the prevalent issue in the debate: Changing the colours of the Pegi symbols is not copying the food industry. There is a system in place already which people know and understand and which in fact uses the traffic light colours, and it's called the BBFC system.

The government consultation will finish on 20 November, with a final decision expected in the new year.

Gordon Brown and David Cameron weighed in to the row over a series of offensive telephone calls made by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to the veteran actor Andrew Sachs on their Radio 2 show as the media regulator Ofcom launched a major investigation into the incident.

As the number of complaints about the incident topped 10,000, Ofcom announced its inquiry and  Cameron andBrown joined other MPs in condemning the broadcaster's actions.

Brown described the prank calls as inappropriate and unacceptable, while Cameron called on the BBC to be transparent about how the programme came to be broadcast, given that it was pre-recorded.

After receiving a rash of complaints about their comments, Ofcom took the decision to launch an inquiry. In a statement, it said: All UK broadcasters must adhere to Ofcom's Broadcasting Code which sets standards for the content of television and radio broadcasting. It also deals with issues such as fairness and privacy.

Ross and Brand have since issued personal apologies to Sachs, with Ross delivering flowers and a letter to the actor's door. The BBC has also apologised over the matter, and is launching an internal inquiry. Tim Davie, director of audio and music at the BBC, said: We're going to have a full investigation, look at the facts and take the appropriate action. In an interview with the BBC, he admitted the programme was unacceptable and said clear editorial guidelines needed to be followed, but added that apportioning blame prematurely would be the wrong thing to do. Asked if anyone would take the rap, Davie said the most important thing was to conduct a fair, balanced report and then take action.

Cameron said the BBC had some very straightforward questions to answer. The main question is why did they allow this programme to be broadcast, given that it was pre-recorded? he said.

The subject of the prank calls had arisen earlier yesterday during a debate in the House of Commons, in which the Justice minister David Hanson told MPs that the broadcast was not appropriate. Later, the Tory MP Nadine Dorries called on the BBC to sack both broadcasters.

It was also claimed that should Sachs wish to take the matter further, Brand and Ross could possibly be prosecuted on the grounds of harassment.

The Metropolitan Police said it had received complaints about the comments, but would not confirm how many had been made. This will be looked at and a decision taken, but there is no police investigation at this time, a police spokesman said.

Sachs last night appeared to play down the saga. Jonathan Ross has personally delivered a letter of apology and some flowers. He made no excuses and was very frank and open. He's in a lot of trouble and I don't want to pile any more on him. My granddaughter hasn't heard from either Ross or Brand and I do think they owe her an apology.

Popular soaps such as Hollyoaks and Home and Away are failing in their duty to tackle some of the major social problems in society, according to the Conservatives.

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, will say that soap operas such as Hollyoaks should not endorse negative social behaviour such as binge drinking

In a speech on public service broadcasting, Hunt will criticise shows popular among young viewers, saying they are riddled with references to alcohol.

It's not good enough for Channel 4 to say they are doing their bit with a Dispatches programme on alcohol abuse like Drinking Yourself to Death when 18% of the screen time in Hollyoaks was accounted for by alcohol references, he will tell an audience at the London School of Economics. Nor can Five claim to be doing their bit with Diet Doctors Inside Out when the gym instructor in Home and Away is seen with alcohol in 50% of his scenes

He will add: I'm not saying there should be no alcohol references in any soaps. To deliver large audiences, programmes need to reflect the world in which we actually live and not some Truman Show fantasy of what we would like it to be. Nor do we want to fall into the trap of co-opting broadcasters into social engineering.

...BUT...just as it would be wrong in a plural and democratic society to require broadcasters to produce programmes that meet government objectives and promote social behaviour, so it is also wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour.

The French minister of health supports changing the Evin Law to allow wine advertising on the internet.

Despite continued fierce opposition from anti-alcohol groups, Roselyne Bachelot told Le Figaro: When we initially drew up the Evin Law we did not take into account the internet, because at the time it was not as developed as it is today.

Despite this, national demonstrations against the law will still go ahead on Thursday.

A CIVB spokesperson told decanter.com: While we welcome the news that the internet may now be a legal method of promotion for winemakers, this has not yet been made official – and is not the only threat to French wine.

Demonstrators will cover up any signs for villages that also carry the name of an appellation - such as Saint Emilion, Pauillac or Margaux - to highlight the absurdity of the censorship.

Congressman Howard L. Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, welcomed the unveiling of the Global Network Initiative by a diverse group of information and communication companies and human rights organizations.

The initiative recognizes that all companies have a responsibility to protect against human rights violations, especially by authoritarian governments like China, Iran and the UK.

It's about time, Berman said: This initiative is an important, yet only a first step in better protecting freedoms of expression and privacy.

Technology companies and human rights groups that join the initiative agree to abide by a set of operating principles that are based upon internationally recognized human rights standards.

Under the agreement, participating companies would face yearly reviews to ensure that they are advancing rights of expression and privacy in their business operations. Members of the initiative intend to make the program a standard for companies around the world.

Indonesian bikini compromise

Most factions in the House of Representatives are pushing for the controversial pornography bill to be passed Thursday, despite a threat by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to boycott the move and rejection from several provinces.

The passage of the bill was made possible after eight of the 10 factions at the House accepted the draft Tuesday. The PDI-P walked out of the deliberation process and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) rejected it.

Yes, we will pass the bill on Oct. 30, chairman of the special committee deliberating the bill Balkan Kaplale said.

The PDI-P walked out of deliberations for the second time after it was unsuccessful in its last-ditch attempt to change the definition of pornography and to remove an article that allows public participation in preventing pornography.

The current draft defines pornography as man-made sexual materials either in the forms of drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, texts, voices, sound, moving pictures, animations, cartoons, poetry, conversations, gestures, or other forms of communicative messages through various kinds of media; and or performances in front of the public, which may incite sexual desire and or violate moral ethics in the community.

Articles 21 to 23 allow for the public to play a role in preventing pornography. It will justify people taking the law into their own hands, PDI-P lawmaker Eva K. Sundari said. Eva said she had already received text messages from several groups saying they would ensure the law was enforced.

It confirms our suspicion that it can spark conflict given that even though there is no law now, some groups have dared to attack others right under the nose of police. What will happen if they take the law into their own hands, given our weak law enforcement?.

Bang Babes
Tease Me 2, 17 March 2008; 21:00–22:00

Bang Babes is free-to-air unencrypted programming available on the channels Tease Me and Tease Me 2. The channel broadcasts programmes based on interactive ‘adult’ chat services: viewers are invited to contact on-screen presenters 'babes' via premium rate telephony services. The female presenters dress and behave provocatively.

Ofcom received a complaint about the broadcast on Tease Me 2 on 17 March 2008. It alleged that the broadcast showed simulated masturbation and full screen images of bare breasts and nipple stimulation before 22:00.

Ofcom viewed the material. It noted that the broadcast on Tease Me 2 on 17 March from 21:43 showed prolonged close-ups and full screen images of the presenter’s breasts and nipples, which were continuously massaged and stimulated and thrust into the camera. In addition, the presenter was shown lying on her back with her legs apart rubbing and touching her genital area outside of her underwear in a sexual manner before 22:00. There was also a brief sequence where the presenter placed her hands inside her underwear. These sequences were all of a highly sexualised nature.

Ofcom considered:

• Rules 2.1 (generally accepted standards)
• 2.3 (material which may cause offence must be justified by context) of the Code.

Ofcom Decision

It is a requirement of the Code that content which is considered to be ‘adult-sex’ material must be PIN protected and encrypted (Rule 1.24). In this case, Ofcom carefully considered whether the content complained of was ‘adult-sex’ material. It concluded that in this case it clearly was not.

In terms of the complaint about simulated masturbation, Ofcom noted that the broadcaster had stressed that a presenter acted briefly outside its own internal procedures on 17 March 2008 and that, since then, staff had received further compliance training. Broadcasters must note, as Ofcom has made clear on a number of occasions, that it is unacceptable to show simulated or real masturbation in the context of free-to-air ‘adult’ chat television services.

As regards Rules 2.1 and 2.3 and the 17 March broadcast, Ofcom acknowledges that the images and language on Tease Me 2 were materially less explicit than in a number of examples of free-to-air ‘adult’ chat service content that it has previously investigated. Ofcom concern on this occasion focussed on the content and the time of broadcast.

The prolonged and close-up full-screen shots of the presenter stimulating and massaging her bare breasts, pinching her nipples and shaking them to camera, were in Ofcom’s opinion highly sexualised and not suitable for broadcast before 22:00. The images of the presenter lying on her back with her legs open, briefly simulating masturbation, and stroking her semi-naked body were also not acceptable before 22:00. All these images in Ofcom’s view were sexually provocative and of a physically intrusive nature so as to be offensive, and in breach of generally accepted standards on a free-to-air channel in the adult section of the EPG shown before 22:00.

Breach of Rules 2.1 and 2.3

Two Britons who fornicated on a Dubai beach could face longer jail terms after prosecutors appealed the sentence.

Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors were convicted at Dubai's Court of First Instance earlier this month. They were sentenced to three months behind bars, fined 1,000 dirhams – £155 – and issued with deportation orders.

Hassan Matter, who represents Palmer and Acors, said prosecutors have now lodged an appeal against the sentence, saying it was not enough.

Mr Matter said the prosecution appeal would be heard on November 18 – at the same time as the defence argument. Last week, Mr Matter lodged an appeal against the convictions.

Following the convictions of Palmer and Acors, on October 16, senior persecutor Faisal Abdelmalek Ahli said he was disappointed at the length of the sentence: It's very light. It's normal for a sentence to be six months to a year for an offence such as this.

The Philippines independent movie, Imburnal, was set to premiere only for it to be banned that day by the film censor.

The premiere at the 10th Cinemanila International Film Festival at the Gateway mall was scrapped had to be scrapped. The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board reviewed their decision a couple of days later and passed the film R-13

Rebecca Zlotowski, a member of the Selection Committee of the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, expressed concern over the state of Philippine cinema: I can now understand how difficult it is for Filipino independent filmmakers to make movies.

She noted that she finds it shocking that these wonderful movies are not released commercially. It’s appalling, she asserted, that these films are received well in Cannes and other international festivals, but they can’t seem to find an audience in their own country.

Making matters worse is censorship, she said. The ‘X’ rating seems too harsh. It’s nuts that these films can’t be shown in commercial theaters.

Update: Uncut

23rd November 2008. See article from abs-cbnnews.com

Imburnal, the controversial Cinema One Originals winning entry by Sherad Anthony Sanchez, is set to finally be shown at the UP Film Institute Cine Adarna uncensored.

Just going to see Mr Brand dear... He's been picking on Manuel

The BBC said today it had received 1,587 complaints by 5.30pm about the crude messages left on actor Andrew Sachs' answer phone These were recorded by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on Brand's Radio 2 programme.

The messages included Ross saying that Brand had "fucked" Sachs' granddaughter and the pair joking that that the former Fawlty Towers actor might kill himself as a result.

Today the BBC apologised to Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, describing the broadcast as unacceptable and offensive.

The BBC also said it would review how this came about, after the pre-recorded segment of Brand's show was cleared for broadcast by a senior editorial figure from within the corporation.

From Monkey's Column in the guardian.co.uk

Voluptua

Fury after obscene call to TV Manuel, the Sun spluttered today as it reported Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's calls to Andrew Sachs, in which the pair joked about Brand sleeping with the Fawlty Towers star's granddaughter Georgina Baillie.

So enraged, in fact, that it dug out a topless picture from 2005 of Georgina auditioning for Page 3.

Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

The 23-year-old granddaughter of Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs has been revealed as a member of a raunchy burlesque dance group.

Aspiring actress Georgina Baillie, who goes by the stage-name Voluptua was on a European tour with the burlesque dance group - the Satanic Sluts - but cut short the trip following the fracas.

Satanic Sluts is made up of four female goths. They have performed at Glastonbury in the past with routines that boast a theatrical cheerleader massacre, voodoo sacrifice, vampire brutality and much much more.

The USK are Germany's game classification board. And as you may already be aware, they're a conservative bunch, banning games that even Australia let slide. But this is new. Witness Germany's box art for Valve's upcoming zombie co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead

While every other region's box art shows a left hand with the thumb bitten off - zombies feast on the flesh of the living. On the German version, the thumb's simply tucked in behind the hand there. No gore.

Revenant
Zone Horror, 2 August 2008, 16:00

Zone Horror is a channel which broadcasts free-to-air and specialises in horror films and supernatural series. Revenant is an adult vampire comedy set in modern day Los Angeles. It is rated as “18” by the BBFC.

Ofcom received five complaints about the adult nature of this film which was broadcast on a Saturday and Sunday lunchtime. In particular, viewers expressed concerns about graphic vampire imagery, sexual scenes, drug use, and the use of the most offensive language (“fuck” and its derivatives).

Ofcom considered Rule 1.21 (BBFC 18-rated films must not be broadcast before 21:00 on any service except pay per view) of the Code.

Zone Horror said it was extremely embarrassed the film was broadcast and apologised to viewers. It acknowledged the film was not compliant with the Code. The broadcaster said Revenant had been restricted to a post-watershed timeslot but Zone Horror also wanted an edited version which could be shown at any time and asked its editing team for this to be created. In anticipation of this being feasible, the film was scheduled for an afternoon transmission. However, after it became clear to the channel that the film could not be edited to make the content suitable for a daytime slot, Revenant was not removed from the schedule and was broadcast uncut. Since this incident occurred, Zone Horror said it has introduced more robust compliance procedures.

Ofcom Decision Breach of Rule 1.21

As an unedited 18-rated film, the content of Revenant was wholly unsuitable for broadcast in the afternoon.

We acknowledge and welcome the steps introduced by Zone Horror to improve compliance. However, Ofcom was particularly concerned that after the original broadcast, the film was repeated on the next day. This was a serious breach of the Code, all the more unacceptable because the broadcaster was informed before broadcast that the programme could not be edited to make it comply with the Code.

Always Crashing in the Same Car

Turner Classic Movies is a niche film channel that shows classic films and dramas aimed at an older adult audience. Always Crashing in the Same Car is a 10 minute film that received second prize in TCM ’s 2007 Classic Shorts film competition.

One viewer was concerned that the film contained the following strong language: “fuck”, “fucked” and “shit”. The viewer was concerned that such language should appear before the watershed, when young and pre-school children might have been in the audience. On reviewing a recording of the material provided by TCM, Ofcom noted that the film contained over 20 separate examples of strong language, and that as well as the above, there were several uses of “cunt” and ”cunting”.

TCM said that the scheduling of the film before the watershed was a human error by a freelance scheduler. TCM added that, since this error had occurred, the channel had changed its internal scheduling procedures to make sure all schedules, completed by a person covering for a permanent scheduler, are checked and approved prior to transmission.

Ofcom recorded this as a Breach of Rules 1.14 and 2.3

Seth Rogen's  new comedy Zack And Miri Make a Porno has been banned from several U.S. cinemas - as they claim it may be too crude for viewers.

The Megaplex Theatres in Utah towns Salt Lake City, Ogden, Lehi, and Sandy have decided not to show Rogen's new movie because of its sex and nudity scenes.

A spokesperson for the chain tells New York gossip column PageSix, We feel it's very close to an NC-17 with its graphic nudity and graphic sex.

Asked why Megaplex has no problem showing the R-rated, ultra-violent Saw V. the chain's Cal Gunderson said: No comment.

Weinstein distribution chief Steve Bunnell, said he was shocked by the shutout, especially since Megaplex screened other adult comedies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up:  I hate to use the word 'censorship,' but . . .

A Moroccan youngster, aged 18, has been jailed for insulting the king, after replacing the monarch's name with that of his favourite football club.

He altered the phrase God, The Nation, The King on the school blackboard to read God, The Nation, Barcelona.

FC Barcelona says it has appointed a lawyer to look into whether they can help the boy, within the framework of Moroccan law.

The family of the boy, Yassine Belassal, is appealing against the ruling, and his father told the BBC he was preparing to write a letter to King Mohamed VI asking for a royal pardon.

An internet campaign is also under way to have Belassel freed.

Update: Unappealing Result

13th November 2008. Based on article from amnesty.org

The Marrakesh Court of Appeals in Morocco has upheld a lower court's guilty verdict against an 18-year-old student for insulting the King. Yassin Bellasal was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term and a fine of 1,000 dirhams (approximately US$115).

Amnesty International said that the verdict serves to confirm that the monarchy remains a taboo topic in Morocco and shed a different light on the image projected by the Moroccan authorities of a state, where respect for human rights has greatly improved.

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar has dropped a gay kissing scene between actors Samir Soni and Anil Kumar from his forthcoming film Fashion before it went to the censor board. He, however, plans to restore it on DVD.What a beautifully-shot scene of intimacy it is between Samir and Anil. You forget their gender. They’re just two people in love expressing their feelings, Bhandarkar told IANS.

I took it out before taking it to the censor board. I thought portraying a homosexual couple was bold enough. The kiss would have been too much. But now I’m planning to restore it on the DVD,  the director said.

I think we need to get over our prudery about these things. And archaic laws are only making things worse for gay people. They’re either hiding or defiantly flaunting their homosexuality in their clothes and body language, Samir said.

It's not yet Halloween and the Guardian has been scaring people. There were more than 30 complaints last week about the Guide's front page, which showed Big Brother presenter Davina McCall made up as a zombie for her part in Charlie Brooker's TV series Dead Set. Blood covered her mouth, dripped down her neck and moistened her fingers, in which she held the bloody, wet and stringy human body part she was gnawing.

Dead Set will be broadcast at 10pm, after the television watershed. By contrast the Guide is available from early on Saturday mornings and, since it has the TV listings for the next seven days, it hangs around the living room all week.

A father of two children under 10 called the zombie front page a misjudgment. I'm all for journalism that challenges us and pushes us out of our comfort zones...BUT...I have to question the merits of [the] cover image. Another dad, who described himself as a great fan of all things zombie, enjoyed Brooker's piece inside the Guide, but didn't think the cover was suitable for his eight-year-old: Are you mad? A photo of a woman 'done up' as a zombie eating guts? I tore it off and put it in the bin. I have a very high tolerance level but you crossed the line on this one I think. Four children complained in person.

The Guide's editor told me the image was thought to be cartoonish enough not to be frightening, but he said that children didn't feature in the discussions about it before publication.

It's perhaps not surprising that some journalists regard images made for adult eyes as appropriate for publication without regard to their suitability for younger children. The Press Complaints Commission code of practice doesn't contain any guidance on the subject and neither does the Guardian's own editorial code. The dominant view seems to be that newspapers are written by adults for adults and that parents must act as gatekeepers.

While it's reasonable to expect parents to be on the look-out for disturbing pictures in the main news pages, they can't really be expected to intercept everything the Guardian publishes. The Guide is about entertainment, not news, and it's probable that young children will see its front page around the house all week. It's not good enough to say that a newspaper is not obliged to consider children when it puts an image on a cover they are highly likely to see. Wouldn't it be better, as one journalist suggested, to think of front pages as before-the-watershed slots?

Censor and oppressor Stephen Conroy

The System Administrators Guild of Australia has called on the federal government to embrace open discussion of its proposed Internet filtering regime, after allegations of attempted censorship of critics surfaced last week.

The call was made after a SAGE-AU member and Internode engineer, Mark Newton, criticised the government and its Internet filtering policy on the Whirlpool broadband forum.

Subsequently, a policy advisor for Senator Conroy is reported to have expressed serious concern about Newton’s comments to a board member of the Internet Industry Association (IIA) and requested that this concern be passed to his employer, an IIA member.

SAGE-AU president Donna Ashelford defended Newton’s right to criticise the government’s plans, saying that SAGE-AU’s code of ethics required its members to communicate with users about computing matters that may affect them:

It’s reasonable to state that the issue of Internet filtering is one of substantial impact on all Internet users

The Government's own figures indicate that all of the filtering systems trialled would impact Internet performance, as well as availability of legitimate services to varying degrees. To this end, Newton has undertaken his duties under the code to the fullest, and receives the full support for his position from the organisation.

We remain concerned that the filters tested are unable to provide an effective, reliable filtering solution with the performance required for modern broadband connections.

The filters tested have demonstrated an excessively high exclusion rate of legitimate Internet content. To this end, we remain opposed to the implementation of Internet filtering in its current form and concerned about any attempts to silence legitimate discussion of Internet filtering plans.

Based on article from theage.com.au

Family First Nutter Senator Steve Fielding wants X18+ hardcore pornography and fetish material blocked under the Government's plans to filter the internet, sparking renewed fears the censorship could be expanded well beyond illegal material.

The Opposition said it would take a lot of convincing for it to support the controversial mandatory ISP filtering policy, so the Government would need the support of Senator Fielding as well as the Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon to pass the legislation.

Industry sources said Senator Fielding's sentiments validated ISPs' concerns that the categories of blocked content could be broadened significantly at the whim of the Government, which is under pressure to appease vocal minorities.

A spokesman for Senator Xenophon said, should the filtering plan go ahead, he would look to use it to block Australians from accessing overseas online casino sites, which are illegal to run in Australia.

The online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia expressed fears that the internet filters could be used as a bargaining chip every time the Government needed to pass a piece of important legislation. Any group with an axe to grind and political clout will be lobbying the Government to blacklist websites which they object to, EFA spokesman Dale Clapperton said: Having all Australians' internet access subject to a secret and unaccountable government blacklist is completely unacceptable in a liberal democracy such as Australia.

Clapperton said most adult pornography on the internet was already prohibited content under the Act, and pro-euthanasia, pro-anorexia and pro-piracy websites could easily be caught by the system.

John Lindsay, carrier relations manager at Internode, said: I don't see that what Fielding has just described to you is necessarily any different to what the public should expect from the Government's as yet unstated filtering regime, because we haven't got a clear explanation as to what the Government's actual mandatory blacklist looks like.

During the 20th annual White Ribbon Against Pornography Week(WRAP), which runs Oct. 26 to Nov. 2, Americans are being called to speak out on the detrimental effects of pornography and inform others about ways to remove the "garbage" from the lives of families and local communities.

For one week, people are also asked to wear or display a white ribbon in solidarity against pornography.

WRAP Week is being promoted by the nutters of Morality in Media (MIM), Concerned Women for American (CWA) and American Mothers.

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, says the pornography industry has exploded in recent years. Internet pornography has grown around 19-fold. In 1998, there were less than 80,000 internet porn sites, notes Crouse. That figure grew to 1.5 million in 2003.

Today, over 15,000 new adult movie titles are released every year, Crouse reports. Furthermore, recent figures reveal 35 million visits to porn sites from American computers every month.

Since pornography is a $5 billion industry annually, it affects us all. It harms women and children, it destroys families, and it weakens communities, says Crouse.

Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, says the United States has failed miserably at protecting juveniles from pornography.

The backers of WRAP Week are asking people to complain to businesses that distribute pornography, write letters to the editor, distribute information to the community, educate community leaders about the negative effects of pornography, contact their State Prosecutor and U.S. Attorney to complain about violations of state obscenity laws, and ask state and local legislators to curtail sexually oriented businesses.

WRAP supporters are also encouraging pastors to preach about pornography as sin in their sermons this week.

Religious institutions should also be at the forefront of efforts to make persons of all ages understand that from a 'faith perspective,' viewing pornography is morally wrong (sinful, if you will) and that use of pornography is destroying countless marriages and contributing to other harmful sexual behavior, says Peters.

The New South Wales Government says it will introduce tough new sex-crime laws, and may strip artists of a defence against child-porn allegations, in line with recommendations of a NSW Sentencing Council report.

NSW Attorney General John Hatzistergos today said the Government would introduce a raft of changes recommended by the council.

Commissioned in September last year and chaired by retired Supreme Court judge James Wood, the council's report into the state's sex crime laws will now be used as a gold standard for new legislation to be introduced this year, Hatzistergos said.

In the wake of the Bill Henson scandal, an artistic purpose defence to charges of child pornography should be removed, the Sentencing Council said.

Stressing the reform had nothing to do with the Henson case, Hatzistergos said removing the defence would only apply to work that depicts children as the victim of torture, or physical and sexual abuse.

The child nudity so controversial in Henson's work would not be affected by such a reform, he said.

The council has recommended the introduction of a number of new offences, including voyeurism and inciting a person to commit a sexual offence.

NSW opposition leader Barry O'Farrell supported abolishing the artistic purpose defence.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has extended its remit and now urges web users to snitch on illegal and obscene adult content online. Previously the organisation had laudably concentrated on child abuse images

The awareness campaign comes in response to IWF research which suggests 77% of people who find illegal content do not know how to report what they have seen.

Sarah Robertson, a spokeswoman for the IWF, said that in 2007 the organisation handled 34,781 reports from members of the public who stumbled across illegal content.

It was the IWF that reported the sex fantasy text story that is currently being prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act.

Westminster city council in London decided to paint over guerilla-artist Banksy's largest work in the city.

The council ordered the removal to send a message to graffiti artists.

Robert Davis, deputy leader of the council and chair, told BBC News, If you condone this then you condone graffiti all over London.

Banksy, who conceals his identity, is famous for his political and satirical street art. His works have been found everywhere from the Gaza Strip to New Orleans.

The seven-metre-tall mural being removed depicts a child painting the words One Nation Under CCTV on the wall. A dog and police officer holding a camera are painted next to the graffiti artist.

The mural is painted on the wall of a building shared by Royal Mail and another business.

An increase in the number of Kannada language Indian films glorifying violence is causing concern among censor board officials here who feel the continuing trend could lead to the downfall of the industry.

Unless the rot is stopped, the Kannada film industry may well lose its prominence and will be looked down by its own audiences who are right now coming to see good movies, said Chandrashekhar, chief of the regional wing of the Central Board of Film Certification: Every one in four films censored was given A certificates for being extremely violent.

Some of the violence-packed films that released this year include‘Maadesha, Nanda Loves Nandita, Gaja, and Gooli.

A study report based on 2007’s Kannada films was released recently and it highlighted a trend of increased violence in movies. Of the 127 films released in 2007, 24% were violent compared to 4% in Tamil and 3.5% of Telugu films.

Chandrashekhar says filmmakers should try to make quality cinema. Some producers argue that violence in movies guaranteed good business at the ticket window. But Chandrashekhar disagrees.

It is a wrong notion to believe that violent films and gangster films ensure good returns to the producer, the censor board official said quoting media reports that suggest the Kannada film industry has lost over Rs.100 million in the first nine months of this year. He maintained that increased violence kept audiences away from theatres.

A Sunday Telegraph investigation found widespread strong language in programmes broadcast just after the watershed.

In the investigation, 25 programmes shown on the five terrestrial television channels between October 17 and October 23 were monitored for their use of swear words. All started between 9pm, the official watershed, and 10.35pm.

In some cases, strong language began shortly after the watershed. In all, 'fuck' and its derivatives was used 88 times, 'shit' 26 times and 'piss' 13 times.

Particularly notable was last week's episode of Jamie's Ministry of Food, the Channel 4 series following attempts by the chef Jamie Oliver to encourage the people of Rotherham to cook healthy food. The programme, which aired at 9pm on Tuesday, featured the 'fuck' 23 times.

Another programme with a high count was BBC 1's Traffic Cops, broadcast on Monday at 9pm, where 'fuck' and its derivatives were used 20 times. On Natural Born Sellers, ITV's answer to The Apprentice, broadcast on Thursday at 9pm, the 'fuck' was used 19 times.

John Beyer [erroneously misprinted as John Meyer], the nutter director of Mediawatch-UK, predictably described the findings as appalling. The use of bad language on television is now completely out of control. The fact is the public is offended by bad language but broadcasters are doing nothing to respond to that concern – instead they are burying their heads in the sand and stretching the regulations to the very limit.

Obviously there are still plenty of young viewers tuning in after 9pm, so why do broadcasters think that so many obscenities after the watershed is OK? What is the point of the Government spending millions trying to improve our children's language and literacy when broadcasters are seeking to undermine it?

Beyer called for the media regulator, Ofcom, to be given greater powers in overseeing the way online programmes are aired. It is very worrying that children are increasingly gaining easy access to adult programmes online. The solution is for Ofcom to have regulatory oversight over internet downloads, as well as on air programmes.

BBC iPlayer and other on-demand services are currently regulated by the BBC Trust and the independent regulator, The Association for Television in Demand (ATVOD). The Government is carrying out a consultation process on proposals to make Ofcom the complete regulator for all on-demand and online broadcasting.

Ed Vaizey, the shadow culture minister, said: There is too much swearing on television, particularly in certain programmes which people construe as family viewing. Broadcasters should take the view that there are still young viewers after 9pm, and that 9.01pm does not mean an automatic license for bad language.

A BBC spokesman, said: The BBC has robust guidelines in place making clear the most offensive language should not be broadcast before the watershed and needs to be justified by the context.

Whilst we have a duty to reflect real lives and people, we are very sensitive about what we broadcast when children are most likely to be listening, and receive very few complaints about offensive language.

"arents have a responsibility to monitor what children watch both on TV and online, but we have introduced an iPlayer lock to help parents prevent younger viewers from accessing guidance-rated programming.

A spokesman for Ofcom, said: Swearing is not banned after the 9pm watershed. However, when investigating complaints received about programmes broadcast after the watershed, we do take into consideration audience expectations of a programme, the size and composition of the audience, and whether children are likely to be watching.

Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have rattled a few cages over a bawdy phone stunt involving Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs and his family.

The presenters left a series of messages on Sachs’s answer phone claiming that Brand had had sex with his granddaughter, Georgina.

Sachs was left upset by the crude calls – which were also broadcast to about two million listeners to Brand’s Radio 2 show.

Russell Brand said he slept with the granddaughter of Andrew Sachs during his Radio 2 show. Jonathan Ross, who was co hosting the show joined in the ribald comments.

Sachs’s agent said his client had been terribly hurt by the comments and had made a formal complaint to the BBC.

The calls about his granddaughter were made during an episode of Brand’s Saturday night Radio 2 programme, co-hosted by Ross to help publicise his new book. Shortly before they contacted Sachs for a pre-arranged telephone interview, Brand said: In a minute we’re going to be talking to Andrew Sachs, Manuel actor. The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn’t know is, I’ve slept with his granddaughter.

The comedian then rang Sachs. When the veteran actor didn’t answer his telephone, Brand left a message during which Ross shouted He fucked your granddaughter!, generating raucous laughter from the studio.

Ross subsequently speculated that Brand had enjoyed Georgina on a swing. The pair then decided to ring Mr Sachs again to apologise. When he repeatedly failed to answer, Ross and Brand left three further messages, making the situation worse.

During one message, Brand said: I wore a condom. In another, which took the form of an impromptu song, Brand sang: I’d like to apologise for the terrible attacks, Andrew Sachs . . . I said some things I didn’t of oughta, like I had sex with your granddaughter, though it was consensual . . . it was consensual lovely sex. It was full of respect, I sent her a text, I’ve asked her to marry me, Andrew Sachs.

Ross could be heard singing quietly to himself: Your granddaughter ...she was bent over the couch...

Brand’s show sometimes goes out live, but the offending episode was pre-recorded to fit around Brand and Ross’s other commitments. According to the BBC, a senior editorial figure signed off the programme, including its strong language, before it was broadcast.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: I know Jonathan Ross has been handsomely rewarded by the BBC for being rude, inappropriate and as vile as possible, but I would hope that even the BBC would accept he’s overstepped the mark this time. In any other walk of life, anyone who did this type of thing would face serious disciplinary proceedings. I hope the BBC will consider what consequences there may be if they don’t take him to task for this.

David Cooke is the Director of the BBFC. He told the Guardian:

There are about 40 people who are examiners at the BBFC. They watch the films, play the games and watch the DVDs. All certification goes out with my name on it. That's about 17,000 titles a year, which is a little nerve-wracking. I see between one and three films a week.

We try and keep in line with public opinion and I think we're an accurate reflection. We're not trying to lead the public but sometimes we have to make a decision. They aren't Chris Tarrant issues; we can't phone a friend.

We get twitchy when sex and violence come together. It's a hugely contested area but we tend to err on the side of caution. It's an issue the public is also worried about.

We look at sexual violence in terms of how likely it is that the scene will encourage someone else to do it. Is the rape scene aversive? Is it off-putting? If it is saying that rape is OK, that's when it gets worrying and we will act.

Broadly speaking, at an adult level, people should be free to choose what they want to watch

Some sexual acts blur the lines. Urolagnia is a sexual fetish with a focus on urine and urination. Whether this is legal to show in a film is a case for the courts.

The Ketchup Effect is a Swedish film about a 13-year-old girl and her first sexual experiences. In it was a shot of an erect penis. Now we knew the penis wasn't real and that the subject was being treated sensitively but we had to give the film an 18 certificate. Was it the right decision? Was it educational?

I think there are regional differences in terms of what is and what isn't acceptable, but mainly in terms of bad language. The public don't like bad language.

We are still one of the more conservative film regulators in the world. French regulators come out with completely different conclusions to us. Whereas we will put an 18 certificate on a Tarantino film, they give his films a 12 certificate and call it art.

It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders compiles every year and from the 2008 edition, released today. Another conclusion from the index - in which the bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) - is that the international community’s conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries.

Bringing up the rear are the dictatorships - some disguised, some not - where dissidents and pro-reform journalists manage to open cracks in the walls that enclose them. The year of the Olympics in the new Asian power, China (167th), was the year that Hu Jia and many other dissidents and journalists were jailed. But it also provided opportunities to those liberal media that are trying gradually to free themselves of the country’s still pervasive police control. Being a journalist in Beijing or Shanghai - or in Iran (166th), Uzbekistan (162nd) and Zimbabwe (151st) - is a high risk exercise involving endless frustration and constant police and judicial harassment. In Burma (170th), run by a xenophobic and inflexible junta, journalists and intellectuals, even foreign ones, have for years been viewed as enemies by the regime, and they pay the price.

Finally, North Korea and Turkmenistan are unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age. And in Eritrea (173rd), which has come last for the second year running, President Issaias Afeworki and his small clan of paranoid nationalists continue to run Africa’s youngest country like a vast open prison.

Countries in bold are those mentioned on Melon Farmers most often

In an unprecedented move, a group of military law officers filed a petition with the South Korean Constitutional Court, demanding the Ministry of National Defense's ban on dozens of bad influence books be lifted.

Seven officers submitted the petition, arguing the censorship infringes on soldiers' basic rights.

It is a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution to read books for gaining knowledge and pursuing happiness,' said Choi Kang-wook, a lawyer representing the petitioners: There is no argument for limiting their rights just because they are in the military, or that they must accept unfairness because they are soldiers.'

Their action angered the ministry. It's not appropriate as the officers are tasked with enforcing law within the military, Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said during a parliamentary audit of his ministry. I will order the Army Chief of Staff to take steps after reviewing whether their act violates work-related discipline.

In July, the ministry announced 23 books that soldiers should not read.

The seditious books include Bad Samaritans, by Chang Ha-joon, a professor at Cambridge University, Year 501: The Conquest Continues by Noam Chomsky, a U.S. author and linguist and Hyeon Gi-yeong's novel, A Spoon on Earth.

Those books were categorized by the ministry into three categories and claimed the books could have a bad influence on soldiers.

• pro-North Korea
• anti-government
• anti-U.S. or anti-capitalism

Ironically, many of the books banned by the ministry have drawn public interest and made the best sellers list at large bookstores in recent months.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Tunisian government’s decision to seize the latest issue of an opposition newspaper and to summon an independent editor to appear before a public prosecutor.

The Interior Ministry seized the October 22 issue of Mouatinoun, the weekly newspaper of the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties party, for publishing unlawful allegations, said Tunisian state-controlled papers. The case has been handed to the public prosecutor, state media reported.

Mustapha Ben Jaafar, editor of Mouatinoun, said the seizure was tied to an opinion piece by Neziha Rejiba, editor of the news Web site Kalima. In her piece, Rejiba accused the Tunisian government of being behind the recent destruction of Kalima’sWeb site. She wrote that the government gave instructions to hit our Web site because it is a regime of corsairs and highway men.

Rejiba, one of the country’s most critical journalists, has been summoned to appear before the Tunis public prosecutor on Monday. The appearance could be a precursor to criminal charges. Under Article 49 of the press law, Rejiba could face up to three years in prison and a fine for publishing false news.

For most people sex and the internet are as natural a pairing as apple pie and motherhood.

But increasingly the easy access to pornography that so many have enjoyed for so long is being regulated, filtered and censored by a combination of government, law enforcement, internet service providers (ISPs) and moral busybodies.

Free speech activists say what we're seeing now is the beginning of internet censorship, with the regulation and removal of child porn as the initial motivation.

There are efforts to combat images of the sexual abuse of prepubescent children and the major ISPs are involved, says Nart Villeneuve, a research fellow at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab — which has done work with Chinese bloggers and dissidents on how to avoid internet censorship — in an email. "They filter access to a small amount of sites that host this stuff and have review/complaint procedures and do not appear to be overblocking.

But once the infrastructure for filtering is in place — for any reason, though porn is usually the first excuse — there is an incentive to increase its use. I see 'mission creep' all the time where once in place, filtering is extended to cover content areas that were not in the original mandate.

...Read full article

The BBC has apologized to the Philippines for the skit in the comedy show Harry and Paul that was said to have portrayed Filipino women as sex objects.

BBC director general Mark Thompson apologized, in a letter dated Oct. 10, 2008, to Philippine Ambassador to the Court of St. James Edgardo Espiritu, for the offense caused by the episode of Harry and Paul.

The apology came following a letter sent last Oct. 3 by Espiritu to BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons expressing the ambassador’s dismay.

The episode angered some of the 200,000-strong Filipino community in the United Kingdom and prompted some leaders of the community to put up an online petition where Filipinos could lodge their protest against BBC and the show’s producer, Tiger Aspect Productions. The online petition gathered more than 2,000 supporters within three days.

Simultaneous silent vigils were also held on Oct. 17 in front of the BBC office in White City, just outside central London, and Tiger Aspect Productions in Soho in central London.

Tiger Aspect Productions Chief Executive Andrew Zane issued an apology before the members of the Filipino community who joined the Soho vigil: We’re sorry to anyone who was in any way offended by the programme. This certainly was not our intention.

Advertising across a large area of Bahrain could soon be torn down for being too sexy.

The Central Municipal Council is drafting a law that would allow them to ban advertising that is too provocative, claiming it was equivalent to pornography.

It is also seeking a clampdown on lingerie shops that display immoral skimpy underwear in their windows, which councillors have claimed flouts religious values.

Street advertisements are getting outrageous, said councillor Sadiq Rabea'a, who co-sponsored the proposal: Some are crossing the line with women wearing tight-fitting dresses, dancing around and legalising sexual scenes for our children to witness.

Councillor Abdulrazzaq Al Hattab also sponsored the initiative, saying his constituency in Riffa was a hotbed of illicit imagery: Showcasing lingerie for everyone to see is against our Islamic culture and is considered immoral.

The issue has now been referred to the council's technical and financial committee, which will study the proposal and present a report at the council's next meeting.

As of today access to the popular blogging website Blogger.com has been blocked in Turkey.

A blocking order was issued by  Diyarbakir First Criminal Court of Peace.

The reason for issuing the order ban is unknown but a considerable number of Turkish users are affected.

Update: Football Rights Freakery

27th October 2008

It is now being reported by Turk.internet.com that the blocking order is related to an intellectual property infringement. Digitürk is a subscription based digital TV platform in Turkey which owns the right to transmit the live coverage of the Turkish football league games. Digitürk obtained the blocking order through the Diyarbakir court according to the Turk.internet.com news as there were blog entries providing information and links to known websites which transmit pirated transmission of the live football league games.

Indonesian Inul Daratista is only one example in an extensive list of popular foreign artists who have had their Malaysian performances frustrated or banned altogether on apparently moral grounds.

In 2003, American rap-rock band Linkin Park was allowed to play in Bukit Kiara, on the condition that they did not go bare-chested, wear shorts or jump.

Iin early 2004, then-PAS Youth wing leader Ahmad Sabki Yusof criticised a concert by Mariah Carey as condoning values that are totally contrary to our way of life and our culture.

The Malaysian leg of pop burlesque group the Pussycat Dolls' 2006 World Tour saw their promoters, Absolute Entertainment, slapped with an RM10,000 fine. Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim was quoted as saying: I believe the way the Pussycat Dolls behaved onstage amounted to gross indecency.

Such reactions, and well as attendant official actions, have intensified in recent years. So much so that Malaysia has set up censors specifically to deal with foreign performers.

The main agency concerned with processing approvals for foreign performers is the Central Agency of Application for Filming and Performance by Foreign Artists (Puspal).

It was set up by the Malaysian cabinet in 2001, under what is now the Ministry of Culture, Arts, Heritage and National Unity. Its function is to receive and process approvals for foreign artistes to participate in film shoots and performances.

In Puspal's criteria for approving applications is a six-point code of ethics for performers. These guidelines range from "behaving improperly" (jumping about, shouting) to "sexual innuendoes".

Clearing the Puspal hurdle is merely the first step. Immigration matters aside, what follows is delicate negotiation between the production company and a byzantine web of local authorities — such as the local police and municipal authorities — from whom it must obtain entertainment permits.

This is often the most difficult step, as documents of consent arrive at the eleventh hour — if they do at all.

The repercussions over an unpredictable process for approving foreign artists reach beyond performance organisers. Two high-profile artistes have already given Malaysia a miss. They have opted for more hospitable venues in the region, where the enforcement of entertainment licenses are relatively clearer and less easily manipulated by moral outcry.

Christina Aguilera's 2007 Back To Basics tour included stops in neighbour Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, but she refused to perform here; Beyonce Knowles, also in 2007, swapped her Kuala Lumpur concert for one in Jakarta.

Whither then Malaysia, with its aspirations towards an international performing arts platform? Abdul Nasir put it tersely: We are really the backwaters.

Head of the National Organisation for Women called for a ban on violent games and toy weapons.

In lobbying for a ban, Yvonnes Walkes said that the National Organisation for Women were using a multi-dimensional approach to combat what Deputy Commissioner of Police Bertie Hinds called a culture of violence in Barbados.

We have to start with the children, the schools and the parents...We have to be aware and be vigilant to get measures in place. This will also be one of our main focuses during our 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women...

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has condemned a recent Algerian police order which prevents the publication of respected Algerian journalist Mohamed Benchicou's book, The Free Man's Journal (Journal d'un homme libre). The injunction has prevented the journalist from presenting his book at the 13th International Book Fair in Algiers.

This is the second time that Algerian police have used such brutal censorship against the author. At the same time last year, police issued an order to stop the production of Benchicou's book, The Jails of Algiers. This is a blatant intervention in publishing affairs, which are legally protected by the Algerian constitution, which outlaws censorship unless it happens as a result of a judicial order.

The refusal to print Benchicou's new book is part of a systematic campaign of harassment against him by the Algerian government. He was held in prison from 2004 to 2006 and his newspaper Le Matin was closed down two years ago in retaliation for releasing a book called Bouteflika: The Algerian Trick in 2004. In this book, Benchicou courageously criticised the prevailing corruption in Algeria under current president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

A US-based Nigerian news blogger is being held without charge by Nigeria's secret service.

Jonathan Elendu was taken into custody on Saturday when he arrived in the capital, Abuja, on a family visit.

Elendureports.com is one of a number of diaspora-run citizen reporting websites about Nigeria and is known for publishing controversial stories.

The State Security Service (SSS) said he was being investigated for "acts of sedition", but refused to give details.

Elendureports.com operates from Lansing in Michigan and publishes often controversial stories about Nigerian politicians, accusing some of them of corruption and other crimes. Their stories are often based on anonymous sources.

Another US-based Nigerian news website, Saharareporters.com, quotes anonymous sources as saying Mr Elendu may have been arrested because of photographs it published a few months ago showing President Umaru Yar'Adua's son.

The Saharareporters.com pictures, which caused a stir in the local media at the time, showed 13-year-old Musa Yar'Adua waving wads of money around and holding a policeman's gun.

Update: Released

13th November 2008. Based on article from pbs.org

Late on Thursday, October 29, reports began to appear that Elendu had been released and was receiving medical treatment. While this is excellent news for him and his family, the actions of the SSS and the Nigerian government are not what one would expect from a so-called democracy.

Censor and oppressor Stephen Conroy

Australia's Government is attempting to silence critics of its plan to censor the internet, which experts say will break the internet while doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child pornography.

Internet providers and the government's own tests have found that presently available filters are not capable of adequately distinguishing between legal and illegal content and can degrade internet speeds by up to 86%.

Documents obtained by Fairfax Media show the office of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, tried to bully ISP staff into suppressing their criticisms of the plan.

Conroy said that the Government was looking at forcing ISPs to implement a two-tiered filtering system. The first tier, which internet users would not be able to opt out of, would block all illegal material [which includes adult hardcore porn]. The second tier, which is optional, would filter out content deemed inappropriate for children.

But neither filter tier will be capable of censoring content obtained over peer-to-peer file sharing networks, which account for an estimated 60% of internet traffic.

Colin Jacobs, chair of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said: I'm not exaggerating when I say that this model involves more technical interference in the internet infrastructure than what is attempted in Iran, one of the most repressive and regressive censorship regimes in the world.

Mark Newton, an engineer at Australia ISP Internode, has heavily criticized the Government and its filtering policy on popular Australian broadband forum Whirlpool.

The Ministers office wrote to the Internet Industry Association (IIA) board member Carolyn Dalton based on Newton working for Internode, despite his criticism being offered in a personal capacity.

“In your capacity as a board member of the IIA I would like to express my serious concern that a IIA member would be sending out this sort of message. I have also advised [IIA chief executive] Peter Coroneos of my disappointment in this sort of irresponsible behaviour”

The email was accompanied by a phone call demanding that the message be passed on to senior Internode management.

Although this shouldn’t come as a great surprise, it is none the less unacceptable in a democratic country that a Minister would seek to censor critics who are doing nothing more than exercising their rights to publicly disagree.

Enough is enough. I call on the Minister to resign, or should he not do so, I call on the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to sack the Minister at the first available opportunity. This abuse of power has no place in a modern, free and democratic society in the 21st century.

A book by euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke, Killing me softly, could be banned in Australia after a Classification Board hearing expected to take place next week.

Dr Nitschke said Attorney-General Robert McClelland had referred the book to the board. The board's decision to hold a classification hearing is unusual, given Penguin Australia published the book more than three years ago.

It is understood the Attorney-General was reacting to newspaper reports that a Perth mother, Erin Berg, who committed suicide in May after travelling to Mexico, had read the book, which describes euthanasia drugs sold overseas. Mrs Berg was suffering from serious post-natal depression but was not inflicted with a terminal illness.

The Classification Board has the power to ban the book altogether, restrict its sale and distribution, or make it a crime to sell or display it.

The chief censor, Donald McDonald, contacted Penguin Australia earlier this month and asked the publisher to submit a copy of the book that was written by Dr Nitschke and his partner Fiona Stuart.

Dr Nitschke, who was on his way back to Australia from Britain after establishing an on-line site for his controversial The Peaceful Pill Handbook, said Mr McClelland was reacting to pressure from what he claimed was a campaign being organised by the family of Mrs Berg.

The book Killing me Softly has about one sentence referring to the fact that people go overseas to obtain euthanasia drugs, Dr Nitschke said, the book was largely a discussion of the issue and had been used in school curriculum.

Penguin Australia publishing director Robert Sessions said any ban on the book could cause significant disruption. There were few copies of the book in bookstores and the ban would mostly inconvenience libraries.

Spell checker & censor Air Vice-Marshal Vallance

There is a long tradition of the military suppressing news that it considers detrimental to national security by slapping a D-notice on it.

But when the D-notice committee decided that the time was ripe to publish its own official history, nobody imagined that it would fall victim to its own system. The history of the D-notice committee has, in effect, had a D-notice slapped on it by the D-notice committee.

Secrecy and the Media, written by Rear-Admiral Nick Wilkinson, who was secretary of the committee from 1999 to 2004, should have been hitting all good bookshops this month, according to the academic publisher Routledge’s website.

The book will now be published in May, but without its final five chapters. These cover the Blair years, charting the winding-down of the Irish terrorist campaigns and the War on Terror.

The censored chapters will eventually be published in a later edition of the book after a change of administration.

The Times has learnt that the manuscript was cleared for publication by all the relevant government departments – MI5, SIS, GCHQ and the Foreign, Home and Cabinet offices, as well as the Treasury Solicitor and the Attorney-General. However, when it arrived at the Ministry of Defence it was passed not to the department’s security and legal experts but to the current D-notice secretary, Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance.

He advised that the book be withdrawn altogether for reasons of style and structure, and that a new official history should be commissioned, to be written instead by a trained historian, a source has told The Times. He said: It’s poorly presented history. It’s very thorough, but it’s just difficult to read.

The air vice-marshal’s view was endorsed by the MoD

Beijing has furiously denounced the award of a major European Union human rights prize to a "criminal" Chinese dissident as a major Europe-Asia summit on the financial crisis begins in China.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denounced the European Parliament for giving the prestigious Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia, an imprisoned human rights activist.

We express strong dissatisfaction at the decision to issue such an award to a jailed criminal in China, in disregard of our repeated representations, said a foreign ministry spokesman: This is gross interference in China's domestic affairs.

Hu received a three and half year jail sentence last April for subversion, becoming China's best-known human rights campaigner for his work highlighting government abuses, environmental degradation and the plight of China's HIV-Aids sufferers.

Hans-Gert Poettering, the president of the European Parliament, made it clear on Thursday that the prize sent out a signal of clear support to all those who defend human rights in China. Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights, he said.

The Playboy Foundation named a high-school student, a retired technician and an attorney as the winners of the 2008 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards.

These winners have shown extraordinary commitment to preserving the First Amendment rights of all Americans, said Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises Inc, Their example is an inspiration to everyone who cares about the fundamental civil rights on which our democracy is based.

• Heather Gillman, 17 received a $10,000 award for speaking out on behalf of the rights of gay students. Gillman successfully sued the local school board after her high school principal banned students from wearing T-shirts, stickers, buttons or symbols showing support of equal rights for gay students.
• Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, received a $10,000 award for speaking out against the National Security Agency's covert, illegal computer spying operation, which used AT&T to secretly intercept billions of private Internet communications sent and received by Americans.
• Greg Lukianoff, New York-based attorney and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, received the new $25,000 Freedom of Expression Award in recognition of his efforts to defend First Amendment rights of students and faculty on college campuses across the U.S.

This year, the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards were selected from 60 nominees representing traditional and digital means of expression, including law professors, website creators and student journalists.

The Playboy Foundation supports local and national nonprofit organizations that protect the rights of the individual in a free society. Since its inception in 1965, the foundation has awarded nearly $20 million in grants and in-kind contributions to organizations concerned with First Amendment freedoms, civil liberties and social justice.

Dirty Weekend is a 1993 UK drama by Michael Winner (Polygram)

The 1995 video release was cut (same print re-released for the 2006 DVD)

Cuts were made in four scenes as follows:

1. number of blows to head reduced to two only in scene during which Bella kills sleeping man with hammer
2. asphyxiation of fat man reduced by minimising close sight of him struggling for breath
3. forcible oral rape in car park reduced to a minimum by removing shots showing man's pleasure, Bella's head bobbing and sight of Bella spewing up
4. final sexual assault on pier reduced to establishment only.

We were asked to consider the film for video release shortly after some amendments had been made to the Video Recordings Act to tighten up what was permitted in videos. Therefore the Board made some cautious cuts to reduce the impact and offensiveness of the film. It is perhaps less likely that they would be required today.

Previously, the 1993 cinema release was passed uncut

The Director of Public Prosecutions has given a warning of the dangers of plans for a massive expansion of Big Brother state surveillance and of the growth of a security state.

Sir Ken Macdonald, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, said that the enormous powers of access to information that technology had given the state should be used with great care: We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom’s back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security state.

Technology gave the state enormous powers to access to knowledge and information about each one of us. And the ability to collect and store it at will; every second of every day, in everything we do.

But Sir Ken, giving the inaugural Crown Prosecution Service lecture in London, called for level-headedness and legislative restraint.

We need to understand that it is in the nature of state power that decisions taken in the next few months and years about how the state may use these powers, and to what extent are likely to be irreversible They will be with us forever. And they in turn will be built upon on. So we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can’t bear.

The Rangoon-based humour magazine, Pyaw Pyaw Shwin Shwin had to postpone publication of its October issue as the censor board rejected one-fourth of its contents.

They cannot publish in time as the censorship on this month's issue is too heavy. Most of the censored sections are from poems and stories. They are likely to suspend publishing for about two months, a person close to the magazine said. But the magazine refused to release any news regarding the censorship for fear of retaliation.

The censor board, popularly known as Literary Kempetai named after the Japanese military intelligence during World War 2 in Burma, did not give any reason for the censorship. But media sources speculated that the authorities censored the contents because they did not understand what the poems meant. To justify their decision, the censor board said the poems were not in accordance with the government's guidelines.

Similarly, many poems from this month's issue of Kalyar, Cherry, Myanmar Thit, Mahaythi and other magazines were also rejected.

Many poems were censored this month. Only four poems appeared in this month's issue of Kalyar. Only five poems were passed by the censor board out of a total of 11 submitted by Mahaythi, while only two poems appeared in Myanmarthit. Earlier, at least seven poems used to appear in these monthly magazines, a writer from one of the magazines said.

A man from South Tyneside has appeared in court over a text story which detailed the kidnap, torture and murder of the pop group Girls Aloud.

Darryn Walker is accused of writing and posting the Girls (Scream) Aloud story on a sex stories site.

He is charged under the Obscene Publications Act.

No pleas were entered at the hearing at Newcastle Crown Court. A trial was set for 16 March.

Walker was granted unconditional bail until the trial.

A Microsoft spokesperson has told Edge that Epic’s long-awaited Gears of War 2 game will not be released in Japan.

We can confirm that Gears of War 2 will not be available in Germany or Japan indefinitely said the spokesperson.

The reasons why the game will not be released remain unclear. In May this year Germany’s ratings organization declined to issue the game an age certificate.

The BBFC passed Gears of War 2, 18 uncut.

Update: Evidently this story is causing waves within Microsoft. A spokesperson has contacted us to clarify that no announcement has been made about plans for Gears of War 2 in Japan.

Microsoft India has announced that it has cancelled its plans to release Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360 in India. A press statement issued by Microsoft states that the game included certain content that could potentially hurt Indian sensibilities.

Here’s the statement from Microsoft India:

Microsoft constantly endeavors to bring the best games to Indian consumers in sync with their international release. However, in light of cultural sensitivities in India, we have made the business decision to not bring Fallout 3 into the country.

Games fail to release in India for various reasons - high prices, lack of distribution - but cultural sensitivities is a first.

Perhaps something to do with the ever more unstable country next door with nuclear weapons.

The European Parliament on Wednesday agreed on a $71 million, five-year plan to protect children from illegal content on the Internet and online bullying.

The Safer Internet program, which runs between 2009 and 2013, will cover Web 2.0 services such as social networking sites Facebook and MySpace as well online multiplayer gaming. It also will fight harmful behavior such as bullying.

The proposed new programme will:

• Reduce illegal content and tackle harmful conduct online: actions to provide the public with national contact points for reporting illegal content online and harmful conduct, focusing in particular on child sexual abuse material and grooming.
   
• Promote a safer online environment: fostering self-regulatory initiatives in this field. To stimulate the involvement of children and young people in creating a safer online environment, in particular through youth panels.
   
• Ensure public awareness: actions targeting children, their parents and teachers. Encourage a multiplier effect through exchange of best practices within the network of national awareness centres. Support contact points where parents and children can receive advice on how to stay safe online.
   
• Establish a knowledge base by bringing together researchers engaged in child safety online at European level. Establish a knowledge base on the use of new technologies by children, the effects these have on them, and related risks. Use this to improve the effectiveness of ongoing actions within the Safer Internet Programme.

Artists are walking out en masse from Harrow Arts Centre in a storm over the censorship of five paintings.

Melvyn Leach, censor and business manager at the arts centre, had the paintings depicting nude figures removed from an exhibition the night before it was due to open.

Artists from across the borough have reacted in horror at the decision and some have threatened to walk away from the arts venue because of the censorship.

Shanti Panchal, a distinguished artist said: I think it is terrible, it sounds like something from the middle ages. I was so shocked when I heard and think all artists should stand up and speak out about what’s happening.

The rebellion is being led by Cheryl Gould, an artist with long-standing ties to the centre. She was furious after Leach told her and fellow artist Jonathan Hutchins to remove their artwork, which they had offered to be in the exhibition. She is now calling for a boycott of the arts centre until the council rethinks its position.

She said: The paintings and drawings were not rude, crude or remotely suggestive. They were just what you would expect to see from any normal life class anywhere.

Her calls for a boycott have been backed by a host of artists from across Harrow and beyond, including members of the Harrow Visual Arts Forum and the Wembley Arts Society.

Norma Stephenson, chairman of the Harrow Arts Society, which is putting on the exhibition at the arts centre until October 26, has called on the council to clarify its position, which at the moment is undefined. She said: Is it really that bad for children to walk past pictures of people with no clothes on?

Councillor Chris Mote has continued to defend the decision taken by Leach and has said nude works could be displayed in a private room in the arts centre with a health warning on the door.

No Comment

Websites being used to disseminate propaganda by al-Qaida appear to have come under systematic cyber-attack, forcing the closure of three for well over a month and fuelling speculation that governments are targeting them in a shadowy new front in the war on terror.

Al-Ekhlas, al-Buraq and al-Firdaws, all linked to al-Fajr - the media distribution arm of al-Qaida - have been down since just before September 11, when the broadcast of a video commemorating the 2001 attacks was inexplicably delayed.

All have suffered occasional disruption but this is the longest period they have been out of action. Al-Fajr blamed technical problems and denied that the sites had fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Yet suspicions of a deliberate disruption campaign have been fuelled by the fact that a fourth website, al-Hesbah, continues to operate unimpeded, with several experts suggesting it may be being used by Saudi intelligence to monitor and entrap jihadi militants.

But the episode remains shrouded in mystery. All four sites posted material produced by as-Sahhab, al-Qaida's slick media production arm - mostly video clips of martyrdom operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere - as well as statements by Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Two of the sites suffered problems in June but then resumed normal service. I think what happened in June was a trial run for what took place in September, said William McCants, a consultant at West Point military academy who runs the Jihadica.com website.

Rumours of joint Anglo-US operations have surfaced but neither government will confirm involvement. Such sabotage would be illegal. UK security officials have spoken of an aggressive new effort to counter al-Qaida internet propaganda.

I think it's probably being orchestrated by several governments and it would have to be on the black operations [illegal but deniable] side, McCants said. Whoever is doing this knows what they are doing. They are being surgically precise.

Anne Hennesen, of Norway's Defence Research Establishment, said: There must be a big organisation behind this. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that this is the work of an intelligence agency.

Another theory is that al-Qaida sympathisers closed the forums themselves because they were too good a source of intelligence for their enemies.

News Corporation boss Peter Chernin is unleashing a broad defense of broadcasters against FCC indecency enforcement and warning starkly about the danger that a Supreme Court case could pose to First Amendment freedoms.

Chernin said there could be devastating repercussions to the wrong ruling in a case in which the FCC found Fox stations' airing of Nicole Richie’s and Cher’s live 'profane' comments in two Billboard Music Awards in 2002 and 2003 amounted to indecency violations.

In prepared remarks, he called the case, to be heard by the high court November 4th, an absolute threat to the First Amendment. The case hinges on utterances that were unscripted on live television. If we are found in violation, just think about the radical ramifications for live programming—from news, to politics, to sports … in fact, to every live broadcast television event. The effect would be appalling.

The court case stems from the FCC’s attempt to ramp up indecency enforcement by starting to regard fleeting expletives as indecent. The FCC generally had overlooked expletives uttered in live unscripted shows in the past.

In the high court case, the FCC is appealing an appellate court ruling that overturned the FCC’s policy change.

Chernin conceded that he is defending some less than ideal material in the high court case and others, including one over episodes of Married by America that showed strippers. Still, he said, his company has no choice because the government is trying to act as censor: I vow to fight to the end our ability to put occasionally controversial, offensive and even tasteless content on the air.

Chernin also accused groups claiming to be interested in protecting children of helping the government in its attempts to censor television. The job of protecting children is far too important to leave to government bureaucrats or so-called public interest groups. The job of protecting children lies with parents.

Update: Oral Arguments

1st November 2008. See Supreme Court to hear case about indecent speech on TV from edition.cnn.com

The court case will commence on 4th November 2008

Lawyers from both sides expect Tuesday's oral arguments to be filled with the "indecent" language at issue, so expect to see a lot of f-bombs being tossed around by the justices, all in the name of legal clarity, of course.

The case is FCC v. Fox Television Stations (07-582)

Over 4,500 readers of Radio Times responded to a Taste and Decency survey.

1. Do you think there's too much swearing on TV?
Yes 69%
No 31%

2. Do you think there's too much sex on TV?
Yes 52%
No 48%

3. Do you think there's too much nudity on TV?
Yes 40%
No 60%

4. Do you think there's too much violence on TV?
Yes 74%
No 26%

...Read full article

Models wearing chains, stockings and gags have been led around Westminster in protest at laws to make owning extreme pornography illegal.

From next year, possession of images such as those depicting a threat to life or serious injury to a person's genitals will be banned even if staged by actors or special effects.

Demonstrators opposite Parliament described this as the government interfering with people's sex lives.

The demonstration, organised by the Consenting Adult Action Network, was led by photographer Ben Westwood, son of fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood.

He paraded two "slaves" - models called Jade and Dolly Blowup - across the road from Westminster underground station and around Parliament Square, with police having to hold up the traffic.

A group of about 20 marchers carried placards with messages including No to thought crime, Penalise crime, not sex and Depiction harms no-one.

Westwood said to the BBC: Why are the government doing this? I think they are just mucking about. They want to seem as though they are doing something to help society, that they must seem strong on law and order.

Coming from a government that lied about going into war in Iraq, that seems strange. There are more important issues to be debated than this.

I think that people might be worrying that what they have got in their video collection might be breaking the law. People are going to get a bit nervous.

I hope our demonstration does change some minds.

Campaigners say the new law risks criminalising thousands of people who use violent pornographic images as part of consensual sexual relationships.

Bruce Argue, of the group Esinem, said: We want to draw attention to what is an unfair and ill-thought-out law.

The act comes into force on 1 January.

An Afghan appeal court yesterday overturned a death sentence for a journalism student accused of blasphemy and instead sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

A three-judge panel jailed 24-year-old Parwez Kambakhsh after a day of arguments between the student's defence lawyer and state witnesses.

Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for a local newspaper when he was arrested in October 2007.

Prosecutors alleged that Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. They also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the internet that asks why Islam does not modernise to give women equal rights. He also allegedly scribbled his own comments on the paper.

A lower court sentenced him to death in a trial critics have called flawed in part because Kambakhsh had no lawyer representing him.

The head of Tuesday's panel, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, struck down the lower court's death penalty but said the decision can be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Anti-porn campaigner Margaret Forbes is urging fellow nutters to boycott supermarkets displaying  lads’ mags.

The one-woman crusader has already persuaded supermarket giants Morrisons to put men’s magazines on the top shelves out of sight of children.

She is now calling on Tesco and Somerfield to follow and place men’s mags like Nuts, Zoo, FHM and Loaded on shelves which are out of reach and sight of children.

She claimed: Magazines like these are just pornography and extremely degrading to women. I tried on a number of occasions to have them put on the top shelf where they belong but they didn’t do it. But when I last spoke to the Express and said I hoped fellow Buddies would join me in boycotting this supermarket they listened. I would encourage people to do the same at other supermarkets such as Tesco and Somerfield who have failed to listen.”

Forbes – who is a member of the Scottish Women Against Pornography group – said: The woman who pose in these magazines have a responsibility for their own actions. But I am not saying they shouldn’t do what they do. Nor am I saying these shops should not be selling them or people should not be allowed to buy them. But these magazines should not be on sale on the lower shelves where children can see them. Children should be protected from sexually explicit material.

These magazines send out a bad message to young boys. There is a definite link between soft porn and attacks on women.

A spokeswoman for Somerfield said: It is important to stress these are titles that have high readership levels of both men and women, are not classed as pornographic and are not subject to legal age restrictions. We are sensitive to the feelings of many who are not comfortable with the depiction of women.”

A spokesman for Tesco’s said: These Lads’ mags are positioned towards the top tier of our magazine racks. We keep a close eye on our customers’ views. But we are not receiving many complaints over this.

A policy expert warns that Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear may soon apply the same tactic to online adult websites that he has applied to Internet gambling — having them forfeit the domains to the state by taking owners to court.

In a post discussing Beshear’s lawsuit against 141 gambling websites on Reason Magazine’s website, senior editor Radley Balko predicts the next move with just one ominous sentence.

Seems like the Internet porn industry would be the next logical target, Balko writes.

According to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate on Oct. 16 denied a motion to dismiss Beshear’s lawsuit against the gambling sites. Wingate ruled Beshear has the right to decide whether control of the sites must be forfeited to the state, according to the newspaper.

Wingate set the next hearing date for Nov. 17.

Beshear filed suit last month to force the sites to block access by Kentucky users and pay damages, or forfeit the site’s domain name.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company unless it withdraws a Sarkozy doll that comes with a voodoo manual telling readers to plant pins in it.

The doll is emblazoned with some of Sarkozy's most famous quotes such as Get lost you pathetic arsehole -- his words to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at a farm show last year.

Readers are encouraged to plant pins in the quotes.
Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy has instructed me to remind you that, whatever his status and fame, he has exclusive and absolute rights over his own image, his lawyer Thierry Herzog wrote to publishers K&B in a letter published by newspaper Le Monde.

Herzog said Sarkozy would sue the publishing firm if it didn't respond and pull the product. K&B has issued 20,000 copies of the manual and doll.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to withdraw the Government's support for the Communications Data Bill

The Communications Data Bill would give the Government the legal authority to collect a database of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public. Even though the Government insists that this bill would reduce terrorism (which it probably will not), this is an intolerable intrusion into the privacy of free citizens and a step towards a dystopian "Big Brother" state. The Bill must be quashed to protect civil liberties and halt the slippery slope towards an Orwellian 1984-type nightmare.

Closes 30th May 2009

Shonali Bose's first feature film, Amu. Starring Konkona Sen Sharma, tells a daring tale of a forgotten part of Indian history--the riots of 1984 that left several Sikhs massacred.

The film gained great exposure after being invited to countless film festivals including the Toronto International Film festival and the Berlin International Film Festival.

For Shonali, it was a huge struggle to get the film released and even when she managed to get the finances, Amu faced several hurdles at the Indian Censor Board. Recently, Aamir Khan launched the DVD of the film after the Censor Board deemed the film unfit for Indian TV broadcast.

In an exclusive to BollySpice.com, we speak to this promising director about the difficult yet rewarding journey behind the making of a powerful film like Amu.

You have had to deal excessively with the Indian Censor Board for the film. When they proposed cutting out parts of Amu, how did this make you feel after having worked so hard to make the film in the first place?

Absolutely ENRAGED. I wanted to explode and I had to just politely argue with them. It is preposterous that our films should be censored. The government has no right to do this. Audiences are mature enough. All that they can advise really is what rating a film should get.

It was said that Anupam Kher was one person who supported your film at the Censor Board and lost his job for it. Is this what happened?

Definitely the film was cleared because he was the head of the censor board and liked and supported the film. However, he could have taken one step further and got the film cleared with a "U" certificate. This is what insiders have told me about the power of the censor board chief. I was grateful though that at least it got cleared and that was definitely thanks to him.

With regard to losing his job, I was watching NDTV and Rajdeep Sardesai was interviewing Anupam. He said on air that he had been fired for clearing a film on the '84 riots. Actually, I think the changeover would have taken place anyway as government had changed from BJP to congress, and the censor board is always changed at this time (which is ridiculous)!

What do you have to say about the fact that the censor board also won't allow the film to be shown on television unless you cut several vital scenes?

Beyond outrageous! There was a rule passed that "A" films cannot be shown on TV, and Anupam's board had given Amu an "A". In fact, him not giving us a "U" at the time really came back to bite us. By the way, the "A" was given because the board said "Young people should not watch a film on an issue that was better buried and forgotten" and not because there were sex scenes or nudity or bad language! Ironically, the film won the Teenage Choice Award in Italy, was selected by the AFI Film Festival as specially appropriate for high schoolers and was hailed by students and teachers alike - class 8 upwards in many schools in Delhi where we did private screenings. In fact, this is a film for young people which made the "A" cert and its subsequent ban from TV particularly pernicious.

So we resubmitted the film to the new censor board to get a "U", and this was when they wanted 10 minutes of vital scenes, all to do with '84, to be removed which we refuse to do.

The Council of Europe today launched, in close cooperation with European online game designers and publishers and with Internet service providers, two sets of guidelines which aim to encourage respect and promote privacy, security and freedom of expression when, for example, accessing the Internet, using e-mail, participating in chats or blogs, or playing Internet games.

Jack & Jacqui Jack: Nice one Jacqui, but weren't you a bit secretive? Jacqui: No, I had the proposals on my hard drive for all the world to see

Is the UK Government about to turn world class hacker? It's going to have to if the Germans succeed in getting their domestic programme of planting Trojans onto suspects computers adopted by the EU.

A written statement before parliament last week revealed that our Jacqui Smith had recently attended the latest meeting of the G6 and United States Counter-Terrorism Symposium in Bonn.

This latest get-together discussed general aspects of counter-terrorism, diplomatic assurances, the right to self-defence, and remote searches of computer hard drives.

A much less cuddly, more matter-of-fact version of what was discussed was provided by the German Interior Ministry.

The interior ministers note that almost all partner countries have or intend to have in the near future national laws allowing access to computer hard drives and other data storage devices located on their territory. However, the legal framework with respect to transnational searches of such devices is not well-developed. The interior ministers will therefore continue to seek ways to reduce difficulties and speed up the process in future.

...Read full article

Nutter senator Barnaby Joyce has tabled a collection of hardcore pornography to illustrate how easy it is to pick it up from petrol stations and corner shops.

Senator Joyce ludicrously said the pornography was encouraging pedophilia.

These have received classification, it pertains to an insinuation that these girls are actually underage, he said.

NotSoLiberal Senator Julian McGauran said corner stores and service stations were abusing the classification system controlled by the federal government.

McGauran said as he questioned bureaucrats from the Classification Review Board during senate estimates hearings today: Category one classification is being abused.

Category one allows a softcore publication to be sold over the counter, sealed in an opaque wrapper. Category two allows hardcore publications to be sold in shops with adult only restrictions.

The classification board's acting director Olya Booyar was grilled for about an hour on what was being done to counteract the publications: The board doesn't go looking for publications which should be submitted (for classification).

Enforcement of classifications was a state and territory government responsibility, the hearing was told.

Meanwhile adult trade lobbyist, the Eros Association, has backed coalition senators in urging an overhaul of the national classification regime for pornographic magazines and movies.

Eros chief executive Fiona Patten said the system as it now stood wasn't working, with inappropriate material sold through convenience stores and service stations.

Ms Patten said Eros supported Nationals senate leader Barnaby Joyce's action in raising the issue of magazine classifications during the Senate estimates hearing yesterday.

It's time for the federal government to overhaul the national classification scheme for publications, she said in a statement.

Ms Patten said all adult magazines and books were supposed to be submitted to the federal government for classification, but less than 5% of such publications sold in Australia had actually undergone classification. She said classification cost some $500-$700 per publication and for an importer bringing in just 10 copies of a specialist magazine, that would require a cover price of $70 to cover costs: So, clearly, they cannot comply with the law or they will go broke.

Frequently the same publication was imported by two or three businesses. But because a publication needed to be classified only once, the first to do so was actually covering the costs of competitors, Ms Patten said.

It's time the government reformed the classification scheme to create a more uniform adult category called non-violent erotica that spans films, publications and computer games that all fall under the same set of guidelines, she said.

Update: 3 Week Shutdown

22nd October 2008

A three-week shutdown should be forced on businesses that sell wrongly classified hardcore porn, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says.

The nutters of Morality in Media have sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican vice president candidates seeking their stance on the enforcement of federal obscenity laws.

In his letter to Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Robert Peters, president of MIM, pointed out that although many pressing issues face the nation, pornography negatively affects women and children and should be prosecuted.

Peters is asking the vice presidential contenders to weigh in on the issue because Barack Obama and John McCain have been closed-mouth about obscenity law enforcement.

The American people deserve to know where the presidential candidates stand on this vital issue, Peters wrote in his letter.

Microsoft has been granted a patent to filter and censor undesired words in real-time. The automatic system would process everything being said during online games chat and alter the unwanted words so that they are, according to the patent, either unintelligible or inaudible.

The company, then, is opting to either lower the volume below audibility, replacing the word with an acceptable word or phrase, or taking out the word completely.

While TV networks usually delay feeds by a few seconds so that someone can stand by and bleep out anything they deem offensive, Microsoft’s proposed technology would make everything work in real-time – a practical solution when it comes to the many simultaneous conversations that take place in online multiplayer games.

A few weeks ago, Western intelligence officials discovered that the Palestinian jihadist group Hamas had set up a video-sharing site. Now, that radical Islamic answer to YouTube is offline. And jihadists are blaming the FBI for the takedown.

AqsaTube mimicked the mainstream video site. Users could watch clips, and upload their own. The Hamas site, however, is devoted entirely to propaganda and incitement, explained Israel's Intelligence & Terrorism Information Center, or ITIC.

This is the second time in a little more than a month that an extremist video distribution network has been taken offline. The al-Ekhlaas network of sites had long been a primary distributor of videos from al-Sahab, al-Qaida's propaganda arm. Then, on Sept. 11, al-Ekhlaas.net was suddenly re-registered. All of its content vanished.

As in the case of the al-Ekhlaas takedown, militant forums blamed Western intelligence agencies for the unplugging of AqsaTube. But it appears a little sunlight may have done the trick, instead.

AqsaTube's internet service provider was the French firm OVH. The company initially denied hosting AqsaTube, according to the BBC, but later confirmed that the website had been hosted by them and had now been taken offline

Jack & Jacqui Jack: Good one Jacqui, but isn't it a little expensive. Jacqui: Wait until you see my proposals for Citizen Data Non Disclosure Charges

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, faces a revolt from her senior officials over plans to build a database monstrosity holding information on every telephone call, e-mail and internet visit made in the UK.

A significant body of Home Office officials dealing with serious and organised crime are privately lobbying against the plans, a leaked memo has revealed.

They believe the proposals are impractical, disproportionate, politically unattractive and possibly unlawful from a human rights perspective, the memo says.

Their stance puts them at loggerheads with the spy-masters at GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, who have been driving through the plans.

The Home Office rebels appear to have forced Smith to stall plans to announce a bill in the Queen’s speech authorising the database. She has instead ordered her officials to review the proposals.

This weekend a top law enforcement body further dented the government’s case for the database. Jack Wraith, of the data communications group of the Association of Chief Police Officers, described the plans as mission creep. He said there was an inherent fear of the data falling into the wrong hands: If someone’s got enough personal data on you and they don’t afford it the right protection and that data falls into the wrong hands, then it becomes a threat to you.

Smith is already studying less explosive but equally effective alternatives. One option involves a system based on sending automated requests to databases already held by telephone and internet firms.

Update: DPP Unimpressed

22nd October 2008. See article from independent.co.uk

Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), told ministers not to "break the back of freedom" by creating irreversible powers that could be misused to spy on individual citizens and so threaten Britain's hard-won democracy.

Answering questions from the floor at the Royal Television Society conference in London last month, Minister for Truth Andy Burnham said: The time has come for perhaps a different approach to the internet. I want to even up that see-saw, even up the regulation [imbalance] between the old and the new."

The idea that the internet was beyond legal reach and a space where governments can't go was no longer the case.

In his final annual lecture for Ofcom last week Lord Currie expressed a belief that tighter regulation was coming. He said: Ask most legislators today and, where they think about it, they will say that period [of forbearance] is coming to an end.

...Read full article

Three out of four children have seen images on the internet that disturbed them, an NSPCC poll suggests.

The charity is renewing its call for computer manufacturers and retailers to install security to stop children finding violent or sexual content.

The NSPCC, which polled visitors to its children's website There4me.com, said it was alarmed by the accessibility of potentially disturbing material.

The NSPCC wants social networking and video hosting sites to remove offensive material within hours of finding it.

Policy adviser Zoe Hilton said the NSPCC was alarmed by how easy it was for children to access disturbing internet material. Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films such as adult sex scenes, violent dog fights, people self-harming and children being assaulted.

Ms Hilton said that every child should be using a computer with child protection software. High-security parental controls installed in their computers would help shield them. Currently computer manufacturers and retailers leave it to parents to find and install software that filters out material unsuitable for children. This can be a complicated process for customers.

The charity wants retailers to ensure the software is installed before selling computers, and also manufacturers to start building such controls into their products.

She added: Social networking sites must also put more effort and resources into patrolling their sites for harmful and offensive material and ensure their public complaints systems are clearly marked, easy-to-use and child-friendly. We would also recommend they give information on their sites about sources of help and advice, such as Childline, for children who have been affected by what they have seen.

So I was reading about the security services' concern over internet anonymity, and something was bothering me. There was a line in The Guardian. 'People have many accounts and sign up as Mickey Mouse and no one knows who they are', a Whitehall source had said. 'We have to do something.' And I was perturbed.

Reading it again, though, it hit me. A Whitehall source? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I had a sudden hunch. Maybe, I found myself thinking, a Whitehall source was not this person's real name.

Anonymity is the great democratic boon of the internet age. And yes, some people will exploit it in order to join social networking groups called People Who Want To Bathe In the Blood Of The Slaughtered Infidel, or whatever. Most, though, do not. They just use it in order to express views that they hold dearly, and perhaps passionately, without having to fear that those who oppose these views will come and lurk with a chainsaw in the shrubbery of their front gardens. Or arrest them. Or associate them forever with some comment which, on reflection, makes them look like a bit of a berk. You'd think Mr Whitehall Source would understand that. Even better than most.

A proposal by the head of the television and radio watchdog to enlist the military to 'teach' reporters about writing articles on terrorism has raised fear among journalists who believe this may lead to censorship or self-censorship

The first striking thing about the proposal is that it covers only terrorism news, said Ercan Ipekçi, the chairman of the Turkish Journalists' Union: and secondly, it is run by an institution that has authority over the public. It is not a vocational training. It will tell journalists how to censor news on terrorism rather than how to write it objectively.

Zahid Akman, president of the Supreme Board of Radio and Television, or RTÜK, proposed several days ago that reporters be given 'education' seminars on terrorism at the National Security Academy: We are doing this to prevent coverage that does not help combat terrorism.

Indonesian bikini compromise

The Indonesian House of Representatives' special committee debating the controversial 'pornography' bill will allow tourists to wear bikinis at tourist resorts in a bid to ensure tourism is not negatively affected by the controversial legislation.

Tourists are allowed to wear bikinis in tourism resorts like Bali and Parang Tritis beach (in Yogyakarta). The porn bill will treat recreational and leisure areas differently, lawmaker Husein Abdul Azis of the Democratic Party said.

There have been fears among domestic tourism operators that the bill would deter tourists from visiting because it would recquire them to wear appropriate covering.

Head of the House's special committee deliberating the morality bill, Balkan Kaplale, said his team had made some changes to contentious articles in the bill, finalizing the terms before lawmakers begin their recess period starting on Oct. 30.

I can say there have been drastic changes in the bill, said Balkan of the Golkar Party. The changes act as a compromise to the growing opposition movements to the bill.

Lawmakers are still discussing the much criticized definition of pornography which includes anything in life even remotely sexy. Article 1 of the bill defines pornography as any man-made work that includes sexual material in the form of drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, text, sound, moving pictures, animation, cartoons, poetry, conversations or any other form of communicative message.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention in western China of a filmmaker and his assistant, who have been held for nearly seven months after taping interviews with Tibetan residents about their lives under Chinese government rule. Police in the western province of Qinghai arrested filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen and assistant Jigme Gyatso, a Buddhist monk, in March, their production company, Filming for Tibet, recently disclosed.

The arrests came shortly after they sent footage filmed in Tibet to the production company, which is headed by a relative of Wangchen in Switzerland. A 25-minute film titled Jigdrel, or Leaving Fear Behind, was produced from the footage and is available online. The film was intended to shed light on the lives of Tibetans in China in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Supreme Court of India is displeased with the quality of television programmes shown these days, and after hearing a Public Interest Litigation by an NGO, is considering regulating TV programmes to curb obscenity.

The NGO raised the question, Can there be a day in 365 days a family can sit together and watch TV without an assault on basic values?.

On receiving the petition, the court immediately issued a notice, in response to which TV channels have formed a separate body, headed by former Chief Justice of India JS Varma, for self regulation. State government is now being consulted on the proposed bill to regulate TV channels.

The petition so far has received mixed reactions from Judges on the bench. Justice Aftab Alam said, It is a delicate issue. I cannot be deciding what people want to see and appoint myself a guardian.

Justice GS Singhvi’s reaction seemed to be in favour of regulation. He referred to two unforgettable incidents shown on TV: a person in Patiala immolating himself , and a man in Hyderabad who threw himself from the fifth floor of a building.

The judges have three weeks to consider the case, but it is hard to see how strict rules can be applied. Indian epics such as the Mahabharata contain a considerable amount of bloodshed and violence. Will such shows disappear from television?

The A US bill should put a stop to 'libel tourists' - the rich and famous from abroad who use UK defamation laws to their advantage. Only a handful oppose it

In a spare half-hour while discussing bailing out American capitalism, the US House of Representatives recently voted through an extraordinary bill with far-reaching implications for Britain's courts. Yet it has received no publicity here and few of Britain's lawyers even know of its existence.

By amending the legal code three weeks ago in order to prohibit the recognition and enforcement of foreign defamation judgments in the US, politicians sealed off America's newspaper and book publishers from libel tourism - the use of British libel laws by non-nationals to sue foreign-owned publications such as books, newspapers and magazines that are distributed in Britain, even if only a few copies are involved.

Britain's libel laws are widely considered to be among the most severe on publishers - and have been used by people from around the world, and increasingly by Hollywood celebrities, because American defamation laws give publications much greater licence.

Steve Cohen, the congressman who drew up the new US legislation, believes it will prevent the exploitation of defamation laws in Britain and other countries that lack the broad protections guaranteed by the US first amendment.

...Read full article

Jamie Oliver has received complaints from television viewers 'offended' by his repeated use of strong language in his latest programme.

The chef’s website has received messages accusing him of using gratuitous obscenities throughout Jamie’s Ministry Of Food.

Some suggest he is trying to usurp Gordon Ramsay as TV’s most colourful chef.

Last week’s episode of Oliver’s Channel 4 programme, which follows his attempts to encourage the people of Rotherham in South Yorkshire to cook healthy food, was peppered with swearing. In one five-minute segment he used the word ‘fucking’ six times.

Last night, the usual nutters questioned why Channel 4 did not cut some of the obscenities out of the final edit of the show, which is broadcast at 9pm.

John Beyer of Mediawatch UK said: The issue of bad language is something people are very sensitive to. Research suggests that the majority of people find the repeated use of obscenities extremely offensive.

For Channel 4 - a public broadcaster - to continue to broadcast a programme in which Oliver continually uses obscene language in the face of so much offence being caused to the public is extraordinary.

Dominique Walker, Channel 4 commissioning editor, said: The language does need to be seen in the context that the series is a post-watershed observational documentary and features Jamie at his most passionate.

A spokesman for Ofcom said: Our guidelines state that the most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed when children are likely to be watching. This programme is after the watershed.’

The Censor Board of Film Certification of India has written to the information and broadcasting ministry, asking it to introduce a greater number of categories for film certification.

Films in India are now certified:

• A (can be viewed by adults above 18)
• U (can be viewed by everyone)
• U/A (children can watch these films if they are accompanied by adults).

The CBFC wants two more categories introduced for films that can be watched by those between 13 and 15 years of age and those between 15 and 18 years. CBFC regional officer Vinayak Azad said: We have written to the ministry to create more categories like in the West.'

The CBFC decision follows film director Madhur Bhandarkar's outburst after his film, Fashion, got an A certificate. I will lose at least 25% of my audience because of the A certificate,' he says.

Jack & Jacqui Jack: We'll need an army to sift through this überdatabase Jacqui: Funny you should say that, take a look outside!

Anyone buying a new mobile phone will have to show a passport as proof of identity and be registered on a national database, it was claimed last night.

But civil rights organisations warned the move represented another serious step on the way to creating a surveillance society in the UK.

It is understood any such move would apply to Scotland because it would come under the terms of the Data Protection Act, which is reserved by Westminster. It would also have to apply to the whole of the UK if it was to be effective in tackling terrorism.

According to a newspaper report last night, the office of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said it anticipated that a compulsory mobile phone register would be unveiled as part of a law which ministers would announce next year.

A spokeswoman was quoted as saying: With regards to the database, that would contain details of all mobile users, including pay-as-you-go. We would expect that this information would be included in the database proposed in the draft Communications Data Bill.

The creation of the register would affect the owners of all 72 million mobile phones in the UK. But it is the owners of the country's 40 million prepaid mobiles who are the real target.

The move aims to close a 'loophole' in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

The 'Big Brother' database would have limited value to police and MI5 if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile phones in the country.

Simon Davies, of Privacy International, was quoted as saying he understood that several mobile phone firms had discussed the proposed database in talks with government officials.

The article claimed that contingency planning for such a move is already thought to be under way at Vodafone, where 72% of its 18.5 million UK customers use pay-as-you-go.

Yes Gordon, of course people will believe this is all about terrorism. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it

This supposedly "informal" G6 group usually seem to manage to "policy launder" their decisions via the wider, full membership of the European Union, and then they can pretend that their latest Orwellian control fantasy which they are inflicting on our freedoms and liberties, has somehow been imposed on them by the EU, and is necessary to meet "international commitments", even though they themselves instigated the original policy.

From Hansard:

Written Ministerial Statements Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Home Department G6 and United States Counter-Terrorism Symposium

Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary; Redditch, Labour)

The informal G6 group of Interior Ministers from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom met in Bonn, Germany on 26 and 27 September 2008, along with the United States State Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. This was the third G6 plus US counter-terrorism symposium meeting. I attended on behalf of the United Kingdom.

The symposium was divided into four substantive discussion sessions:

[...]

remote searches of computer hard drives;

[...]

Is this a further development of what the German government has been attempting recently ?

Presumably this involves intrusive access to remote computers, by means of some sort of spyware, computer virus, trojan horse backdoor etc., or by on the fly deep packet inspection and sniffing of passwords or other security credentials,

All visitors to internet cafés in Beijing are to be required to have their photographs taken in a stringent new control on the public use of cyberspace.

According to the latest rules, by mid-December all internet cafés in the main 14 city districts must install cameras to record the identities of their web surfers, who must by law be 18 or over.

It has been several years since internet cafés were required to register users to ensure that customers were not under-age. All photographs and scanned identity cards will be entered into a city-wide database run by the Cultural Law Enforcement Taskforce. The details will be available in any internet café.

The Times searched for online comments on the rules but was unable to find any — often a sign that most commentary has been critical and has therefore been erased. However, a survey by the internet version of the People's Daily showed that 72% of respondents were opposed to the measure, calling it an infringement of their rights. Just over 26% supported the photographing because it would benefit children.

Good morning Mr Smith, citizen 14Z3J373/d. Your children were monitored visiting musicSharing.com. Please surrender your children to the NewLabour Re-allocation & Re-education Facility. Rejoice that your family is protected from terrorist threat!

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith isn't known for the clarity of her pronouncements on technology. And as she confirmed the government's plan to proceed with the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), she limited herself to the spin of building a universal communications surveillance apparatus.

The details of the accompanying Communications Data Bill will be opened to consultation in the new year, she said, with the aim of achieving consensus with "interested parties". Smith was keen to emphasise the content of every phone, internet and mobile communication will not be harvested, but the details of who contacts whom, when and where. That distinction is likely be the cornerstone of attempts to sell IMP to MPs and a public wearied by the erosion of civil liberties and major government data losses.

The follow-up propaganda push has already begun. In The Times an unnamed source, clearly with a strong desire to see IMP built, spoonfed a dubious and old story about the threat posed by Skype and other VoIP applications to counter-terror operations. The hungry Thunderer hacks swallowed the security services' line that internet phone calls are crippling fight against terrorism. No quotation marks in that headline, no opposing view in the story: it's being crippled people - fact.

...Read full article

Last year, the Kano State Censorship Board, under the leadership of its new director general, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, had issued new, strict guidelines to both filmmakers and writers in the state.

Article 97 of the censorship regulations states that Any person who ... publicly exhibits any indecent stage show or performance, play or any show or performance tending to corrupt public morals, is guilty of an offense and is liable to imprisonment for three months or to a fine or to both.

The imprisonment clause has been put into effect many times since.

A standoff between writers and the censorship board is escalating. A letter directed to the five writers' organizations in Kano dated August 12 confirmed a request first made on June 5 for each writer in the state to register individually with the board before they can publish or distribute writing. The requirements included submission of a comprehensive list of association memberships, biographical data and past publications of every member, and individual subject files to be created for each author.

In response, the writers' associations, under the leadership of Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, chairman of the Kano Association of Nigerian Authors, went "on strike" for three weeks. The strike ended on August 16, with the writer's associations promising, in a general communique, that by next week new titles would flood the market.

In an email update to the Association of Nigerian Authors, Yusuf Adamu called on members to demand Rabo's sacking. Write in the papers please, people write.

After an August 25 meeting with both state and national leaders of the ANA, the censorship board agreed to require registration of writers' associations rather than individuals.

...Read full article

Sony has confirmed a worldwide delay to their new children's game LiitleBIGPlanet.

The game has been delayed one week in the US. It will now released during the week of October 27.

Sony said: During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur'an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.

We will confirm the new launch date shortly.

Update: UK Release

21st October

The release date of LittleBigPlanet has now been rescheduled for 5th November 2008

China has extended some of the rules that gave foreign reporters greater freedom during the Beijing Olympics.

State news agency Xinhua said the temporary arrangement for the games, due to expire on Friday, would become standard practice.

It means journalists can continue to conduct interviews without applying to the authorities for permission.

Correspondents say the move to extend the rules has been eagerly awaited and is a sign of China's commitment to allow foreign journalists more freedom to report on a permanent basis.

But it is not clear whether other measures will remain in place, such as those which allowed journalists to travel freely around the country without the supervision of a foreign ministry official.

They were introduced in January last year and covered foreign journalists who wanted to report on Olympic-related issues.

Mass surveillance is threatening the fabric of a democratic and open society and a healthy Internet. Mass surveillance is also endangering the work and commitment of civil society organizations - on and offline. That is why many conscious people got together on the 11th October to commemorate Freedom not Fear Day, with a variety of peaceful protests:

In Berlin the greatest protest march against surveillance in Germany’s history took place: Participants in the 2 km long, peaceful protest march carried signs reading

• You are Germany, you are a suspect
• No Stasi 2.0 - Constitution applicable here
• Fear of Freedom?
• Glass citizens, brittle democracy.

Apart from related music tracks, loud chants of Belittle it today, be under surveillance tomorrow or We are here and we are loud because they are stealing our data could be heard. During the protests, which were supported by more than 100 civil liberties groups, professional associations, unions, political parties and other organisations, artists played parodies on surveillance society.

It all started with the opposition to a Data Retention directive in EU. Now it has evolved and become global, as expressed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):

Freedom Not Fear has evolved into a more general warning: showing how fundamental freedoms like privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic participation lose when reactionary surveillance systems penetrate our open networks, justified by a hyperbolic rhetoric of fear.

Events took place in more than a dozen countries around the World, and hopefully in the years to come more voices will join to act against such abuses from Governments and companies.

From a big picture unveiled by Open Rights Group in London, to a meeting of up to 100,000 people in Berlin, activities in Argentina, articles in Chile, an informative talk in Guatemala, and a rally followed by a Statement for October 11, 2008 in U.S., many people joined efforts to express their opposition to the increasing surveillance and controls by governments and also against data retention.

The most important messages were to affirm international human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy protection, repeal legal authorities that permit warrantless surveillance, unconstitutional monitoring and tracking of individuals, and a call to end the culture of secrecy that allows government officials to hide mismanagement, fraud, and incompetence behind the veil of homeland security, i.e. a call to transparency.

An offensive photograph of Madonna in a window of a Norwich gallery has prompted a formal request for its removal following further complaints to the police.

The image of the singer posing on a crucifix and wearing a crown of thorns has adorned the St Giles Street Gallery for more than a week as part of a retrospective of celebrity photography.

The gallery owner David Koppel moved the picture into the window on Saturday and less than 24 hours later had received a telephone call from an officer following up a single complaint that it had caused offence.

He refused a request to remove it from public view and was then visited by two officers. I'm obviously such a threat to society that they thought it necessary to send two police officers, said Mr Koppel: They formally asked me to take the picture down or turn it round, which is rather pointless, and I have refused. I've no doubt they will be back. They said they had had complaints, plural, but I find that absolutely unbelievable.

Three nude paintings have been moved out of general public view at Harrow Arts Centre to avoid offending nutters.

The trio of pictures by Jonathan Hutchings was due to go up alongside less controversial works in the corridors of Elliot Hall as part of Harrow Arts Society's annual exhibition that began on Monday.

But Harrow Council stepped in on the day the artists hung their pieces to demand the three are shown separately in a side room, the board room, which is still accessible on request.

Harrow College employee Hutchings' paintings each measure 30in by 24in and are figurative illustrations made during a weekly life drawing class he has attended at the arts centre in Uxbridge Road, Harrow Weald, for the past eight years.

Margaret Mountstephens, exhibition co-ordinator for Harrow Arts Society, said: I'm disappointed and I wanted to have a nice exhibition. The council are being stricter than they have been. Two or three years ago the life class paintings went on show and they OK'd it. I think the paintings may be 'questionable' but it depends on who's calling it offensive.

The Observer understands the council was concerned about the sensitivity of displaying the pictures in a corridor that was generally accessible to the public.

Harrow Arts Centre is not a dedicated gallery space and is run as much more of a community centre nowadays with multicultural family activities taking place together with one-off events like weddings.

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Egyptian court’s decision to levy steep fines against an editor and reporter for an independent weekly that published a satirical piece about a prominent cleric.

A criminal court ordered El-Fegr editor Adel Hammouda and writer Mohamed al-Baz to pay fines of 80,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,341) apiece on charges that they had defamed Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed al-Tantawi.

The court also ordered al-Baz to pay 5,000 Egyptian pounds ($897) directly to al-Tantawi. Al-Tantawi is the sheikh of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, one of the most prominent educational institutions in the Arab world.

Defense lawyer Nashaat Agha described the size of the fine as unprecedented in press cases. This is a negative message to newspapers, Agha said, noting that he would appeal.

This verdict sends a chilling message to Egyptian journalists that criticism of religious institutions is off-limits, said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. Satirical journalism is a vital component of a healthy democracy. We urge the courts to overturn this conviction on appeal.

The case dates to March 2007 when the newspaper published a satirical piece claiming the sheikh was planning to visit the Vatican. The piece was accompanied by a picture depicting al-Tantawi in papal garb, according to news reports.

You are invited to join the demonstration:
Chain Gang
Tuesday 21st October 12:40pm
Westminster Tube Station, London

Campaigners fed up with the Government’s increasingly puritanical attitudes toward sex, will be out in force next week, as fashion photographer, Ben Westwood, takes a chain of slaves for a walk in central London.

The “chain gang” will include models and activists from the Consenting Adult Action Network (CAAN) and all, apart from Ben, will be bound and gagged in a visual protest against recent government legislation restricting adults’ sexual choices.

Ben Westwood believes the time for action is long overdue. He said: Government gets away with murder when it comes to “legislating about our sexual behaviour, because we are a strait-laced nation and far too many of us are embarrassed talking about sex.

A spokesperson for CAAN added: Our campaign is not just about individual sexuality: it is also about people’s livelihoods. Over the last ten years, government has been intruding ever more actively into what adults may or may not do with other consenting adults in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

Recent legislation on extreme porn is just one instance of that. Far more serious are new laws that mean half the workforce could be fired simply for having sexual tastes that are unacceptable to the prudes in power.

We say: enough is enough. The fact that Harriet Harman finds something uncomfortable or “icky” is no reason for clamping down on personal freedom.

Who we are - Why we're fighting

Consenting Adult Action Network (CAAN) is a loose-knit network of groups and individuals who believe in the right of adults to express themselves sexually with other adults, without interference from government.

We run campaigns on issues as they arise. Not every supporter of CAAN agrees with every campaign we run. We ask only that supporters sign up to a simple statement of principle:

We believe in the right of consenting adults to make their own sexual choices, in respect of what they do, see and enjoy alone or with other consenting adults, unhindered and unfettered by government.

We believe that it is not the business of government to intrude into the sex lives of consenting adults.

We are aware that no matter how we draft such a statement, there will be dissent: for example, we believe there is debate to be had on the issue of "harm"; but equally, a society that tolerates two grown men beating each other up in the confines of a boxing ring is not well placed to lecture adults on a shared interest in sado-masochistic sex.

Outwardly, the UK is more open, more sexually liberated than ever before. Behind the headlines lies another story: ten years of government progressively clamping down and criminalising behaviour that harms no-one, but offends the sensibilities of Ministers who are still uncomfortable talking about real sexual activity.

Our aim is to create a counterbalance to the current moral majority in government.

The Issues

Over the past ten years, Government has been passing more and more laws. One consistent theme to this non-stop stream of law-making has been an obsession with tightening up rules that are intended to micro-manage our sexual activity.

These include:

• criminalising the possession of images depicting perfectly legal sexual activity
• putting in place a Committee of Public Safety whose job it will be to vet nearly half the workforce - and remove them from their jobs if they possess any porn that is sexual and violent in nature
• proposing to make it a criminal offence for an adult
  to pay for sex
• clamping down on lap-dancing and other erotic displays

Each of these proposals, in isolation, represents a serious erosion of personal liberty for no better reason than the government are uncomfortable with the activity involved. Taken together, and in combination with a great deal more government tinkering in this area, they begin to look like a serious attempt to return the UK to a Golden Era of sex-free purity.

Key Campaigns

CAAN is currently most active on two of these issues - although in fact they are closely related.

• we are asking the government not to commence the extreme porn law, passed in the Criminal Justice Act 2008.
• we are asking the government to think again about its witch-hunt that began with provisions in the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 allowing it to sack approximately half the workforce for possessing sado-masochistic material of any kind.

The first of these pieces of legislation criminalises individuals for possessing material that is produced for the purposes of sexual arousal, depicts realistic violence, and is grossly offensive. The legislation itself has already been exposed by many commentators as ludicrous:

• it is believed to breach the Government's own Human Rights' Laws
• it will criminalise individuals for owning pictures depicting wholly legal and consensual activity
• it is inconsistent, with some of the most (theoretically) harmful material allowed - and up to three years in jail for less harmful material
• it actually encourages behaviour that is far more dangerous and, if the government's own publicity is to be believed, more likely to lead to sexual violence.
• In terms of its effects on the growing BDSM (Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sadism and Masochism) communities in the UK it is likely to be equally disastrous
• it is already souring relationships with the police, and therefore is likely to make future policing of the scene far more difficult
• it is having a chilling effect on individuals prepared to write about safe practices, thereby increasing future risk
• it is law that will encourage blackmail
• it is replacing material produced by individuals with experience and a genuine dedication toward their activity with commercial material produced by companies that have provided significant financial supporters to New Labour in the past
• worst of all, there is evidence already that the Government attack on this lifestyle is impacting upon safety and leading to greater risk for vulnerable people involved (case studies available on request).

The second piece of legislation is having an even more disastrous effect on individuals whose sexuality does not fall within the norms prescribed by government. At the very last minute, in 2006, government amended the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act to give it the power to exclude from a wide range of jobs anyone with a serious interest in sado-masochistic material.

The effects of this legislation are already being felt, as individuals wishing to pursue a career in areas as diverse as plumbing, teaching and admin find themselves quizzed at interview about their sexual interests. The clear implication is that anyone with bdsm interests is no longer welcome as part of the workforce or as a volunteer.

If you would like further details about CAAN, our statement of principles or our campaigns, please go to: www.caan.org.uk, you can also email us at info@caan.org.uk

Good morning Mr Chips, citizen 14Z3J373/d. You were monitored visiting spanking.com. This is deemed 'inappropriate' for the teaching profession. Your teaching licence is permanently revoked forthwith. Rejoice that your economic prosperity is safe from terrorist attack.

Plans to create a database monstrosity of mobile phone and internet records were defended last night by the Transport Secretary, Geoff Hoon, who said critics of the scheme were giving a licence to terrorists to kill.

Speaking on the BBC's Question Time programme, Hoon admitted he was prepared to go quite a long way in undermining civil liberties to stop people being killed, and added the biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist.

Hoon insisted the Government aimed to extend powers that already exist for ordinary telephone calls to cover data and information relayed over the internet: If [terrorists] are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that, then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people.

Kevin Smith's comedy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, may have been granted an R-rating by the MPAA, but the marketing department of the Weinstein Co., which is distributing the film, says that 15 newspapers and several TV and cable outlets are refused to carry commercials for the film.

Josh Rawitch, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Dodgers, told the Associated Press that commercials for the film were removed from Fox Sports channel during Dodgers games after viewers complained.

The city of Philadelphia refused to permit posters for the movie on its bus stops, despite the fact that they now use stick figures to represent the actors. (The city's deputy mayor told AP that the ads were unacceptable because of the word "porno.")

The studio has now developed a poster that reads, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks made a movie so outrageous that we can't even tell you the title.

The website of Turkey's third largest-selling newspaper has been blocked after a complaint by an Islamic creationist.

Turkish internet users are now denied access to the Vatan newspaper's website, gazetevatan.com, after a court decided it had insulted Adnan Oktar, a prolific nutter writer who disputes the theory of evolution. It is believed to be the first major newspaper site to be blocked. About 850 sites are already blocked.

Oktar, who last month successfully had the website of the British evolutionist Richard Dawkins blocked in Turkey, complained that he had been defamed in readers' comments to stories on the online edition of Vatan, a liberal publication.

His spokeswoman, Seda Aral, claimed the comments included obscenities and said the newspaper had ignored requests to remove them. We are trying to protect ourselves, she said: Vatan is always propagating against Mr Oktar and constantly publishes allegations about him. When people read these they are provoked into using these insults against him.

Critics say Turkey's penal code makes it too easy to obtain blocking orders, although in practice prohibitions are often easily overcome through proxy servers.

BBC boss Mark Thompson nonsensically claimed that because Muslims are a religious minority in Britain and also often from ethnic minorities, their faith should be given different coverage to that of more established groups.

His comments come after the comedian Ben Elton accused the BBC of being scared of making jokes about Islam, while Hindus have claimed it favours Muslims over other religions.

But Thompson, speaking at the annual public theology lecture of the religion think-tank Theos, insisted the state broadcaster would show programmes that criticised Islam if they were of sufficient quality.

The director general, whose corporation faced accusations of blasphemy from Christians after it allowed the transmission of the musical Jerry Springer -The Opera, also said his Christian beliefs guided his judgments and disclosed that he had never watched the Monty Python film Life of Brian which satirises the story of Jesus.

In his speech last night, Thompson claimed there are now more programmes about religion on BBC television and radio than there have been in recent decades, whereas coverage has declined on ITV.

But asked whether it was correct that the BBC let vicar gags pass but not imam gags, as Elton claimed, he admitted it did take a different approach to Islam, which has 1.6million followers in Britain, compared to its approach to the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church.

Thompson said: My view is that there is a difference between the position of Christianity, which I believe should be central to the BBC's religion coverage and widely respected and followed. What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated. There's no reason why any religion should be immune from discussion, but I don't want to say that all religions are the same. To be a minority I think puts a slightly different outlook on it.

Earlier this year Thompson had warned of a growing nervousness about discussion about Islam and said no debate about religion should be censored.

Thompson said the broadcast of Jerry Springer - The Opera, which features Jesus as a talk show guest who admits to being a bit gay, had been the most controversial programme he had dealt with during his time at the corporation.

No political issue has so far come near Jerry Springer in terms of anger and emotion. It wasn't politics that put a security guard outside my house, it was a debate about how the BBC handles religion.

However despite the storm over the programme, Thompson, a practising Catholic, said his beliefs do play a part in the editorial judgments he makes and disclosed that he dislikes watching shows about the Bible.

He also dismissed the idea that television is a wellspring or accelerant of immorality in society, and also that the BBC gives too much weight to the secular ideals of science or employs moral relativism when covering contentious issues such as medical ethics.

Thompson defended programmes that have been accused of promoting selfishness or nastiness, such as The Apprentice and The Weakest Link, claiming that viewers know they are only entertainment and do not ape the behaviour shown on them.

Comment: Not a Fully Integrated Theory

17th October 2008. Thanks to Alan

Mark Thompson justifies greater sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities on the ground that:
What Christian identity feels like it is about to the broad population is a little bit different to people for whom their religion is also associated with an ethnic identity which has not been fully integrated.

There's an element of truth in this, but the same has historically been true of Polish and Irish Roman Catholics in the UK. I suspect that the decline in Mass attendance can in part be ascribed to sociological/demographic change as people are now less likely to see being a practising Roman Catholic as part of their identity as a Pole or Irishman/woman.

Nguyen Viet Chien, a reporter for the Vietnamese daily newspaper Thanh Nien who broke major stories on high-level government corruption in 2006, was sentenced today to two years in prison after being found guilty of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, according to news reports.

Nguyen Van Hai, a reporter with the daily Tuoi Tre, pleaded guilty to the same charge and received a non-custodial, two-year re-education sentence. The Hanoi People’s Court also convicted two police officers who had provided information to the press related to the graft scandal. Lt. Col. Dinh Van Huynh was given a one-year sentence for deliberately revealing state secrets. Pham Xuan Quac, a now retired general who headed the government’s corruption inquiry, was given an official reprimand.

The sentences handed down today to journalists Nguyen Viet Chien and Nguyen Van Hai are shameful, said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator: By uncovering a major government corruption scandal, these journalists have performed a public service. The court’s decision is unfair and vindictive.

Among the ways in which freedom is being chipped away in Europe, one of the less obvious is the legislation of memory. More and more countries have laws saying you must remember and describe this or that historical event in a certain way, sometimes on pain of criminal prosecution if you give the wrong answer.

What the wrong answer is depends on where you are. In Switzerland, you get prosecuted for saying that the terrible thing that happened to the Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire was not a genocide. In Turkey, you get prosecuted for saying it was.

 What is state-ordained truth in the Alps is state-ordained falsehood in Anatolia.

...Read full article

Jacqui Smith plans broad new Big Brother surveillance powers. Telephone calls, internet use and email will be monitored by the police as part of a broad extension of the ability of the state to snoop on citizens.

Ministers were already planning a massive Big Brother database to log data contained in emails and phone calls but have decided to go even further in view of the current threat level.

The original proposal, which was this week criticised by Lord Carlisle, the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws, had been due to be put before MPs in the Communications Data Bill next month.

However, in a speech, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced that she was delaying the Bill in order to expand the extent of surveillance powers open to the security services, while consulting further on the best way to win public support for the plan.

In the speech to the IPPR think tank, Smith said communications data was not at present being routinely stored, and needed to be if terrorists and serious criminals were to be prevented from striking. The plan would not include recording the contents of people's messages and appropriate safeguards would be put in place, but Smith said it was "vital" to maintain Britain's capacity to combat terrorism.

She added: There are no plans for an enormous database which will contain the content of your emails, the texts that you send or the chats you have on the phone or online. Nor are we going to give local authorities the power to trawl through the database in the interests of investigating lower level criminality under the spurious cover of counter-terrorist legislation.

Snooping extension to gaming and social networking sites

Based on article from guardian.co.uk

The government is drawing up plans to give the police and security and intelligence agencies new powers to access personal data held by internet services, including social network sites such as Facebook and Bebo and gaming networks.

At present, security and intelligence agencies can demand to see telephone and email traffic from traditional communications services providers (CSPs), which store the personal data for business purposes such as billing.

The rapid expansion of new CSPs - such as gaming, social networking, auction and video sites - and technologies such as wireless internet and broadband present a serious problem for the police, MI5, customs and other government agencies, the security sources say.

Sites such as Bebo and Facebook provide their services free, relying mainly on advertising for income. They do not hold records of their customers, many of whom in any case use pseudonyms.

Criminals could use a chat facility - they are not actually playing the game but we can't actually get hold of the data, said one official.

Criminal terrorists are exploiting free social networking sites, said another Whitehall security official, who added that the problem was compounded by the increasing use of data rather than voice in communications: People have many accounts and sign up as Mickey Mouse and no one knows who they are. We have to do something. We need to collect data CSPs do not hold.

Whitehall officials say that with the help of GCHQ - the electronic eavesdropping centre with a huge information storage capacity - the government is looking at different options that will be put out for consultation. They declined today to spell out the options but said that whatever is decided will need new legislation.

Despite this reticence, it is clear that the government wants to be able to demand that the new generation of CSPs collect data from their customers so the security services can access them The response from the networks is likely to be hostile, not least because of the potential costs involved.

If the government, as expected, offers to pay for any new data access scheme, it is likely to cost taxpayers billions of pounds.

The plan will need international cooperation since many of the new CSPs are based abroad, notably in the US.

Opposition: Winston Smith vs Jacqui Smith

Based on article from independent.co.uk

Jacqui Smith faces a parliamentary backlash over Orwellian plans to intercept details of email, internet, telephone and other data records of every person in Britain. Labour MPs joined opposition parties in expressing doubts about plans announced by the Home Secretary which could lead to a vast database of information about Britons' calls and internet habits.

They warned that MPs, emboldened by the Government's decision to ditch plans to hold terrorist suspects for up to 42 days without charge, would not accept this extension of state power.

The scale of the Government's ambitions to hold data on email, internet and phone use emerged as government sources made it clear they needed new powers to obtain details of social networking sites on the internet, video sites, web-based telephone calls and even online computer games.

Civil liberties campaigners have expressed horror at the plans. Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, warned: Extreme caution needs to be taken. The Government needs to ensure that information-gathering is targeted and wiped and not collected just because it's possible."

Labour left-winger John McDonnell called the proposals Big Brother gone mad, while Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North, added: There is not a lot of confidence that we can hold on to data we collect already.

The plans were condemned by the Government's own terrorism watchdog. Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws, said the raw idea of the database was awful and called for controls to stop government agencies using it to conduct fishing expeditions into the private lives of the public.

Quantum of Solace was originally seen by the BBFC in an unfinished version, for advice as to the film's suitability at '12A'. The BBFC advised the company that the film would most likely receive a '12A' as it was, but that care should be taken when finishing the film not to increase the intensity of certain scenes.

When the completed version of the film was submitted for classification, reductions to one of those scenes had been made and the film was passed '12A' without cuts.

Outgoing Ofcom chairman David Currie has said that his successor should expect the communications censor to have an expanded remit with responsibility for stricter control over internet content.

Currie, making what will be his final annual lecture for Ofcom before leaving at Easter next year, said there was an appetite among legislators for putting a tighter rein on the net now the medium had moved beyond its formative stages.

Echoing comments last month by culture secretary Andy Burnham, who argued that it was time for a different approach to tightening up taste and decency online, Currie said Ofcom was likely to find its remit expanded, following his departure, to encompass digital media.

Ask most legislators today, and, where they think about it, they will say that period [of forbearance] is coming to an end. To say this is not Ofcom going looking for trouble ... but a marker for my successor that Ofcom is likely to find its remit being stretched, he added.

Currie made it clear that any scenario that saw an expanded Ofcom remit would not simply import old broadcasting-style regulation to the internet.

Budget airline Ryanair went on the attack, mocking Swedish feminist politician Birgitta Ohlsson’s call for a boycott of the airline because of its allegedly sexist advertising practices.

This really is a storm in a D cup! said Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara in a statement: We’re sure that Boring Birgitta will be overrun by the flood of right minded, liberal, people who support Ryanair’s determination to defend the rights of girls and boys to get their kit off – if they want to.

The airline’s rebuttal comes hot on the heels of a call by Ohlsson for consumers to boycott the airline for refusing to apologize for an advertisement deemed sexist by Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK).

It’s my duty as a feminist politician to name and shame companies like this, the NotSoLiberal Party politician told The Local.

The airline said it would celebrate Ryanair’s sexy Swedish ad by launching one million €10 mid week seats. We will also be sending free tickets to Boring Birgitta so that she can take a nice relaxing break, loosen up a little and stop calling for silly boycotts, said McNamara.

The TV censor, Ofcom has re-published its Broadcasting Code to include amendments and changes that have been made since its original publication.

 

Ireland's Department of Justice has introduced a series of cutbacks to save €11m across 20 bodies.

One of many measures is that the Film Censor's Office and Censorship of Publications Office are to be amalgamated.

The Censorship of Publications Board

Based on article from citizensinformation.ie

The Censorship of Publications Board is an independent board in Ireland established by law to examine books and periodicals for sale. The Board may prohibit the sale and distribution of books and periodicals if they are found to be obscene. A prohibition on the sale and distribution of a particular publication means that it is illegal for this book to be bought, sold or distributed around the country. Books that are prohibited may be appealed to the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board. Both the Censorship of Publications Board and the Appeals Board consist of five members each. Members of both boards are appointed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Posts on these boards are without remuneration (i.e., they are unpaid).
Rules

The Censorship of Publications Board will examine any book or periodical referred to it by a Customs and Excise officer and any book referred to it by a member of the public. It may also examine any book or periodical on its own initiative. In Ireland, there is no category of restricted access - a publication is either prohibited or it is not prohibited. The Board does not prohibit publications very often, and in some years, nothing is prohibited.

The Board has regular meetings to discuss publications referred to it. Every member of the Board will have read the publication before the meeting. For a book to be prohibited, at least three members must agree with the decision and only one can dissent (i.e., disagree). If the prohibition is passed, it comes into effect as soon as it is announced in Iris Oifigúil (Ireland's official State gazette). A prohibition order on a book ceases on the 31 December following a period of 12 years beginning on the date of the order coming into effect.

Books are prohibited if the Censorship of Publications Board considers them to be indecent or obscene. Periodicals are prohibited if the Censorship of Publications Board considers them to be frequently or usually indecent or obscene. Both books and periodicals may be prohibited if the Board considers that they advocate abortion or ways of carrying out abortions. Periodicals may also be prohibited if the Board is of the opinion that they have given an unduly large proportion of space to matters relating to crime. In practice, however, publications are usually only reported to the Board for obscenity. The Board will measure the literary, scientific or historical merit of the publication. It will take note of its general tenor, the language in which it is written, its likely circulation and readers and anything else it feels is relevant. It may take into account any communication with the author, editor or publisher.

The Gardai may be issued with a search warrant if they suspect that prohibited books or periodicals are being kept anywhere for sale or distribution. If they find prohibited publications, they may remove them. If you are convicted of possessing prohibited publications, you may be liable for a fine of 63.49 euro or six months imprisonment.

NUTS to Zone Horror for their much self-hyped showing of TV series Millennium has only resulted in them showing very heavily censored versions of every episode so far.

A mass of the more grisly footage has been shorn away, resulting often in scene confusion, shortened dialogue exchanges, sloppy jump cuts and even phrases like Son of a bitch have bitch muted.

AVOID!

For all the positive aspects of the channel, like uncut previously cut by the BBFC showings of certain films and even non-BBFC approved films...their insistence on showing edited for daytime versions of other films in the afternoon and the cutting of other TV series like Tales form the Crypt is annoying and bewildering.

The jailing of Raja Petra Kamarudin, a self-described risk-taker who has led Malaysia’s lively blogging culture, has come to symbolize the government’s new assault on Internet expression. On September 12, police raided Raja Petra’s residence, seized documents, and arrested the popular blogger under the draconian Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial.

Two weeks later, Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar ordered the detention extended for two years on charges that Raja Petra published seditious and anti-Islamic articles on his blog, Malaysia Today. The government, signaling a wider crackdown on dissent, detained a newspaper journalist and an opposition politician the same day.

...Read full article

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has given preliminary approval to the proposal for a free, nation-wide broadband service.

Providers interested in making use of the available band will be required to ensure it remains pornographic and obscenity free.

An auctioning off of the spectrum is expected to begin in 2009. Any company winning the bid for the AWS-3 network must stick to a graduated plan of execution and filter out obscene or pornographic material dictated by contemporary community standards.

The broadband network is expected to be available to 50% of the USA within four years and 95% within 10 years.

A blood-soaked new video game boasts enough violence, guns and gratuitous sex to make send cops hopping mad.

The over-the-top Saints Row 2 encourages players to butcher cops with chain saws, smoke drugs, annihilate rival gangsters and run prostitution rings.

Many in law enforcement and politics don't find any of it remotely entertaining.

These horrible and violent video games desensitize young people to violence while encouraging depravity, immorality while glorifying criminal behavior, said New York Police Department union boss Patrick Lynch.

The game, which is rated "mature," hits stores Tuesday for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 consoles.

Despite the outrage, some of the scenarios depicted in the game seem hilariously over the top. Players can commit insurance fraud by faking injuries, spraying the contents of a septic tank to bring down property values or appearing on a "Cops"-like reality TV show. If things get boring, competitors can just strip and run around naked.

Gamemaker THQ insisted the new video is not intended to be taken seriously: Saints Row 2 is not a gang simulation game. It's a tongue-in-cheek game.

Australia's Nine Network has been called to account by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) after chef Gordon Ramsay's language was deemed too strong for its time slot.

The main problem is that Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares goes out with an "M" (Mature) rating when the TV censor says it should have been in the stronger "MA" bracket, which means it screens later at night.

Web also got into trouble for the sexual content in crime show Underbelly.

ACMA has ordered Nine's classification officer Richard Lyle to attend a meeting on Friday to ensure the network complies with censorship rules after receiving complaints about both shows, many from nutters.

Nutters are being encouraged to participate in a media violence fast this week in conjunction with the YWCA’s Week without Violence.

Sponsored by the media justice arm of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Oct. 12-18 fast was designed to provide a time for families with children and their supporters to take a stand against violent media by making a conscious decision not to watch it and seeking other methods of entertainment and intellectual stimulation for themselves and most importantly for their children.

For this one week, starting Sunday, we are asking people to seek other forms of programming and intellectual stimulation, and to reflect on what it means to purposefully distance oneself from violence as entertainment, stated the Rev. J. Bennett Guess of UCC.

This (the fast) is not about censorship, Guess said in a released statement: Instead, we want people to pause and consider how the saturation of violence on our TV screens also affects our spiritual lives, our relationships with others, how we see the world and how we promote peace as a religious value, starting with our remote controls.

This year marks the fast’s second year and is being promoted in partnership with the nation’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the YWCA’s “Week without Violence.”

The Council of Europe (CoE) is a larger body than the EU with 47 rather than 27 member states.

It intends to  extend the scope of a convention that affects the regulation of TV broadcasting to include video on-demand services and some online video. The changes will match those already made by the European Union.

The most important change to the rules will relate to their coverage. The regulations will no longer apply simply to television content, but to video on demand services.

The Convention does not include home-made audio visual material, such as that which someone would post to a sharing site such as YouTube. It only includes commercial material.

The Convention also governs the retransmission of services and orders states to allow material which complies with the rules in the Convention to be re-transmitted into their country, with exceptions for material which breaks the rules of the Convention or broadcasting rules in the country of first broadcast.

On the subject of content restriction it proposes:

• television broadcasts do not, include programmes which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular those that involve pornography or gratuitous violence7. This provision shall be extended to other television programmes which are likely to impair the physical mental or moral development of minors, except where it is ensured, by selecting the time of the broadcast or by any technical means, that minors in the area of transmission will not normally hear or see such broadcasts.
   
• on-demand services which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors are only made available in such a way that ensures that minors will not normally hear or see such on-demand services.

The Government has asked for responses to the initial consultation by 31st October, and the CoE has said that a more formal consultation will take place at the end of the year.

Guns N’ Roses
Biography Channel, 11 August 2008, 12:20

A viewer complained about bad language during an interview with Guns N’ Roses where the singer, Axl Rose, said I guess being a fucking psycho bastard nut case helps my career. The viewer believed it was not appropriate to broadcast this language at this time.

Ofcom considered Rule 1.14 of the Code (the most offensive language must not be broadcast before the watershed).

Ofcom Decision: Breach of Rule 1.14

The Code requires that broadcasters avoid broadcasting the most offensive language before the watershed. The word “fuck” and its derivatives are clear examples of such language.

While noting the broadcaster’s admission of human error, Ofcom judged that the language was clear in this programme and that the broadcaster should have been more alert to the possibility of bad language when interviewing a member of a rock group.

This is the second occasion where material has been inappropriately scheduled (see Bulletin issue number 80). Ofcom has therefore recorded a breach of Rule 1.14 for transmitting the most offensive language before the 21:00 watershed.

Australians will be unable to opt-out of the government's pending Internet content filtering scheme, and will instead be placed on a watered-down blacklist, experts say.

Under the government's $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety, users can switch between two blacklists which block content inappropriate for children, and a separate list which blocks illegal material.

Pundits say consumers have been lulled into believing the opt-out proviso would remove content filtering altogether.

A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the filters will be mandatory for all Australians.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contacted by Computerworld say blanket content filtering will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch.

Online libertarians claim the blacklists could be expanded to censor material such as euthanasia, drugs and protest.

Internode network engineer Mark Newton said many users falsely believe the opt-out proviso will remove content filtering: Users can opt-out of the 'additional material' blacklist (referred to in a department press release, which is a list of things unsuitable for children, but there is no opt-out for 'illegal content'. Newton said advisers to Minister Conroy have told ISPs that Internet content filtering will be mandatory for all users.

The government reported it does not expected to prescribe which filtering technologies ISPs can use, and will only set blacklists of filtered content, supplied by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

According to preliminary trials, the best Internet content filters would incorrectly block about 10,000 Web pages from one million.

Bloomberg reports that Google lost two court cases in Germany over the display of thumbnails in their image search results.

Google’s preview of a picture by German photographer Michael Bernhard violates his copyrights, the Regional Court of Hamburg ruled, his lawyer Matthies van Eendenburg said in an interview today. Thomas Horn, who holds the copyrights on some comics that were displayed in Google search result.

“It doesn’t matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution,” the court said in its ruling for Bernhard. By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created, that may have justified displaying them without permission.

In the US, fair use laws make it possible to offer such third-party services without specifically asking for permission. Adult magazine Perfect 10 once lost a case against Google in these regards, after an original decision was reversed. (In any case, Google’s bots respect the “robots.txt” protocol, where webmaster can disallow the spidering of images.)

A Google rep said: The ruling of the Regional Court of Hamburg is bad for internet users and users of image search engines in Germany in general – just as it’s bad for thousands of site owners who based their business on image searches.

Charges were also brought against other provides of image searches, such as AOL, T-Online, Yahoo. With this ruling, the court of Hamburg throws German internet users back into the digital stone age. And this is not just in regards to Google image search, but all of them. We are confident that the Regional Court will correct the ruling in the appeals procedure.

Catholoc nutters are stepping up the fight to ban "sexualised" advertisements from billboards.

Matthew Restall and Bridget Spinks have 4000 signatures, including that of Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, and are hoping to collect as many as 100,000 by January, when they will be submitted to the NSW and Victorian parliaments to be tabled.

Restall said he took the action after seeing an advertisement on the side of a vehicle advertising a car wash, showing a scantily clad woman lying in a suggestive position. It was offensive. The aim of the campaign is to remove all forms of sexualised advertisements from billboards and sides of vehicles.

The campaign has been backed by The Catholic Weekly.

Spinks said: Who knows what our children are having to deal with. By 2040, if no one does something now, the level of our community standards is going to drop.

Thousands of protesters rallied on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali on Saturday to demonstrate against an anti-pornography bill denounced by critics as a threat to national unity.

More than 5,000 protesters surged through the streets of the mostly Hindu island's capital in opposition to the bill under deliberation in Jakarta.

The bill, which looked set to be passed several weeks ago but has been pushed back amid a public outcry, criminalises all public acts and material capable of raising sexual desires or violating community morality.

Protesters denounced the proposed law as too broad and a threat to local customs on the island, where naked temple statues proliferate and skimpily dressed foreign tourists relax on beaches.

Demonstrators turned up to the rally in traditional Balinese clothes including semi-see-through temple blouses, saying such clothes could be deemed too suggestive if the law was passed.

A local newspaper editor said he was being held by southern Sudanese authorities for publishing an article critical of corruption in the semi-autonomous, post-conflict region.

Nhial Bol, editor of The Citizen, said police arrested him on Friday for a story printed October 7, which lay corruption accusations against the ministry of legal affairs and constitutional development in southern Sudan.

This should be a civil case, but I have been told I will be held for three days without bail, Bol told AFP.

Sudan has tightened restrictions on local media in recent months, demanding that newspapers based in the south move their head offices to Khartoum.

Newspaper censorship is practiced daily. In Khartoum, the powerful security apparatus inspects newspaper editions nightly, while editors who refuse to remove articles deemed offensive risk a ban on their publications.

Update: Ajras Al Hurriya Newspaper Censored

31st October 2008. Based on article from allafrica.com

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) condemns outright the removal of seven proofs from Ajras Al Hurriya" newspaper by an intelligence officer responsible for proof censorship. The incident took place on 23 October 2008. This action so outraged the newspaper that it suspended its circulation for the day as a protest against the blatant censorship.

The proofs addressed the issues of abducted Chinese citizens and the crisis in Darfur, and criticized the Sudanese president's statement excluding some Sudanese tribes from holding citizenship, amongst other controversial views.

Beyer Recommends Apparitions

A new BBC series depicts a man possessed by the devil and being skinned alive in a gay sauna. Another episode shows a father threatening to sexually assault his daughter while in another, Mother Teresa is seen on her death bed.

The series, called Apparitions, was the idea of the actor Martin Shaw, who also stars in it as a Roman Catholic priest.

He said he realised the programme would be controversial but added: I'm not going to pretend this is the most positive show on Earth. We're talking about the end of all things but the message is that love conquers all. It doesn't show a wholly positive message, otherwise it would be Songs Of Praise and people would switch off. It is going out at nine, an acknowledged watershed.

Catholic bishops advised the scriptwriters and production company to help them portray the exorcism accurately, but a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference said: I will not watch the drama myself, it is not tasteful I haven't seen it but people might well be shocked. I have to stress, it is a work of fiction. The Catholic Church would not have chosen the drama form to explain the issue of exorcism.

John Beyer, the director of the nutter group Mediawatch-UK, said the programme was bound to cause controversy: This series is likely to be a clear breach of the Broadcasting Code. I'm surprised the BBC consented to a show like this as a way of depicting the battle between good and evil. There must be better ways of doing that. They've got people sitting on crucifixes. It will cause very serious offence. This will create the same type of furore the BBC caused when it screened Jerry Springer The Opera.

A BBC spokeswoman said: Apparitions is a post-watershed drama and the scenes are a vital part. Representatives of the Catholic Church were invited to ensure accurate depiction of all religious rituals. They read all the scripts.

Pre-school programming has undergone a boom in recent years thanks to series such as Teletubbies and In The Night Garden and dedicated channels such as the BBC's CBeebies.

However, amid rising concern that television is being used by some parents as a form of babysitter, the TV censor is carrying out a review into the potential for harm. A spokesman for Ofcom said it had been made aware of concerns regarding TV programming aimed at very young children. There are elements we are considering now.

In a report published in July, French researchers found that watching television undermined the development of children under three, encouraged passivity, delayed language acquisition, increased agitation, reduced concentration and increased the incidence of sleep disorders. The same month, the French broadcasting authority Conseil Superior Audiovisuel (CSA) banned TV channels from marketing shows aimed at toddlers and ruled cable programmes for the very young must now come with the stark warning: Watching television can slow the development of children under three, even when it is aimed specifically at them.

The CSA passed on the concerns to Ofcom, resulting in the current investigation.

But Claude Knights, director of the children's charity Kidscape, called for Ofcom to make parents aware of the dangers. He said: It is really sad when the TV is used as a babysitter or a means of controlling very young children. There may well be parents that don't realise the cumulative effects of exposure to TV. Ofcom should state the case and give the concerns about possible harm revealed in this research.

The controller of CBeebies, Michael Carrington, defended toddler TV. No-one can argue when they see a child's face light up watching In The Night Garden that such carefully-made programmes have done any harm. Our programmes are produced by experienced pre-school programme makers and we call on developmental and educational experts developing ideas. Guidance is also sought from the Early Learning Goals and School Curricula.

Britain is outraged at dastardly foreign attempts to banish busty beauties from the nation’s billboards. The root of their anger was Swedish politicians who, having failed to get sexist ads banned on the home front, scored a win in Brussels.

The Daily Mail, an organ never to miss an opportunity for a bit of Euro-bashing, was justifiably breathless with indignation after a committee of Euro-MPs demanded that EU countries put a stop to any ads that reinforce gender stereotypes.

The person behind this nutter plan is none other than Eva-Britt Svensson, a Swedish Left Party MEP and vice chairperson of the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee.

The author of the report seems to have swallowed an undergraduate gender studies textbook: Gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting individuals to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes.

So it’s ‘Goobye Boys’ from Wonderbra, but also from yummy Diet Coke builders, Calvin Klein-clad footballers and the rest.

Actually, the chances of any country being forced to ban anything is close to nil (no law has been passed – the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee has just recommended a course of action that governments are free to ignore, as they no doubt will.

If you’ve been in Sweden for the past few years, the proposal had a familiar ring. The Swedish Council against Sexual Discrimination in Advertising (ERK) has long waged a battle against ads depicting scantily-clad models.

ERK’s rulings have led to accusations that it was trying to act as the thought police. They have also raised a number of questions: is sexy advertising always sexist? Why should advertisers be expected to be more politically correct than the consumers they target? Whatever happened to free speech? And besides, surely the whole business should be self-regulating: consumers won’t buy products if the ads are offensive?

The controversial nature of ERK’s work also has the self-defeating side-effect that the ads it censures are guaranteed lots of free publicity in the tabloids.

ERK’s rulings don’t have the force of law, but earlier this year an official committee proposed going one step further and banning all material with a commercial aim that could be construed as offensive to women or men.

Equality minister Nyamko Sabuni refused to adopt the report’s findings, saying: I don’t want to infringe on fundamental human freedoms and rights for a law the efficacy of which I question. This is not the way to win the fight for gender equity. Defeated on home soil, it looks like Svensson is seeing whether the battle can be won elsewhere. She probably shouldn’t hold her breath – in the UK, at least, even the left-wing papers are subjecting the idea to ridicule.

Svensson’s poorly-presented arguments might leave an open goal for her opponents, but the failure to pass a similar law in Stockholm must beg the question: if rules like this haven’t worked in politically correct Sweden, how on earth could they be made to work elsewhere?

Tunisian bloggers are rallying for a National Day for Freedom of Blogging on November 4. The day will coincide with a court hearing for a lawsuit filed by the journalist and blogger Zied El Heni against the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI).

It all started when Tunisian internet surfers welcomed with happiness the repeal of a ban placed on video sharing sites YouTube and Dailymotion. Many Tunisian bloggers celebrated this repeal of the ban by posting videos of songs downloaded from those two video websites on their blogs. But their happiness was cut short as the repeal did not last more than 24 hours. The repeal of the ban, which had been welcomed with such enthusiasm, was actually just an accident and a mistake.

Meanwhile, journalist and blogger El Heni is suing the ATI for the censorship of Facebook, which had lasted for 16 days. The trial will take place on November 4 and as a sign of solidarity with his action, a group of bloggers decided that this date will henceforth be baptized as a national day for blogging freedom.

To support the initiative, Facebook user Bassem Bouguerra created a Facebook group entitled: November 4th: A National Day for Blogging Freedom.  Members on the Facebook group are exchanging ideas about the best methods to overcome censorship and limits on freedom of expression.

Update: Robbed

15th April 2009. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

The house of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied el-Heni has been raided last night (April 10, 2009). In a blog post published today, Zied wrote that his laptop and CDs which contain all his work have been robbed.

The social and literary circles welcomed Barrister Malik Shahnawaz Noon for assuming charge as Chairman of the Pakistan Central Film Censor Board.

Spokesmen said, Shahnawaz Noon is an educated youth having positive thinking and expressed the confidence that he would be able to project true picture of our culture and take effective steps to help film industry stand on its feet.