John Beyer Uptight about tights

Tuning into GMTV yesterday, viewers were told to expect a display of the High Street's snazziest tights ahead of the Christmas party season.

Instead erotic dancers appeared once Lorraine Kelly announced a three-minute fashion feature on how to 'glam up' with this season's tights at 8.50am.

But when three models in corsets and short black skirts arrived on set with a portable pole, even the presenter seemed a little taken aback.

And gathering herself together at the end of the feature, she added hastily: This is not naughty pole-dancing, this is pole-dancing for exercise. We did not concentrate on the tights. We were too busy looking at your great moves, she said.

The usual nutters were not amused however. John Beyer, of the TV campaign group Mediawatch UK, said: It is absolutely inappropriate for pole dancing to be promoted in a show of that kind at that time of day when children could be watching. As it was an item about tights, it seems the pole dancing was completely unnecessary. I wish ITV would concentrate on producing more wholesome television.

A GMTV spokeswoman said: Pole-dancing is the latest keep fit craze and is great for upper body strength and toning so we thought it would be a fun way to illustrate these tights.

Comment: Manufactured Outrage

From Dan

However there are no mention of any complaints from viewers and it just seems yet another attempt by the Daily Mail to manufacture outrage about something on TV that not many people are bothered about by wheeling out Beyer for an outraged quote.

Freemuse, the World Forum on Music and Censorship, says that media organizations around the world will join in celebrating Music Freedom Day on 3 March 2008.

It is day which can serve as a focus point for the media - an occasion to take a closer look at the subject of banned music, and the lives of blacklisted musicians, said Freemuse Executive Director Marie Korpe.

So far, seven media organizations from four countries are planning programs for Music Freedom Day broadcast. They include the CBC, which will be presenting a music documentary called Censor This! on that day. Seventeen other CBC radio and television programs will feature reports on music and censorship for a week.

The BBC's Radio 3 will be airing a special report on the program Songlines.

The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo will host a concert celebrating Music Freedom Day in March 2008. The concert will feature artists who are facing music censorship and will be broadcasted by NRK – the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

March 3rd is the annual Music Freedom Day where Freemuse invites musicians and journalists to consider directing their activities or programming on this day, or the days leading up to it, on the subject of banned music.

A prosecutor is investigating whether to press charges against the Turkish publisher of a bestselling book by atheist writer Richard Dawkins for inciting religious hatred.

Publisher Erol Karaaslan said yesterday that he would be questioned by an Istanbul prosecutor as part of an official investigation into The God Delusion, written by the British expert in evolutionary biology.

Karaaslan could go on trial if the prosecutor concludes the book incites religious hatred and insults religious values, and faces up to one year in prison if found guilty, Milliyet newspaper reported.

The prosecutor started the inquiry into the book after one reader complained that passages in the book were an assault on "sacred values", Karaaslan said.

The publisher said he would be questioned today and faces prosecution both as the book's publisher and translator. The book has sold 6,000 copies in Turkey since it was published by his Kuzey publishing house in June.

The EU, which Turkey hopes to join, is pressing Ankara to change laws that curb free expression and do not fit within the bloc's standards of free speech. Turkey has said it will soften a law which makes it a crime to denigrate Turkish identity or insult the country's institutions.

Douma (puppet) was a Street Fighter style game set in Lebanese politics. The online game lasted only a day before authorities compelled its creator, known only as “Z.F.”, to take it down.

Douma’s designer ZF told the Daily Star: We tried, with a medium we know [games], to give the people their given rights as citizens, to control the attitude and decisions of the politicians they elect … We tried to find another way for the fans to relieve their anger.

Players could choose their combatants from among seven prominent political figures. An eighth announces each round by riding across the battleground on a moped. From the newspaper account:

Each zaim (”chief”) has a special move with particularly devastating effects. The Hajj Hassan character’s secret weapon, for example, is a battery of Katyusha rockets, while Geagea’s is a kneeling prayer that summons the crushing fist of “God.”

ZF is hopeful the game may return soon: We are working on it, and fast, we’re just looking for the right way to do it.

The French lobbying group, the Internet Rights Forum (Le Forum des droits sur l'internet) has issued guidelines for online game publishers and legislators.

Some of the recommendations, notably those relating to online advertising or protecting minors, could be applicable across Europe, said Forum spokesman Laurent Baup, while others specifically address French laws restricting hate speech or defining intellectual-property rights.

Among the group's wishes are the inclusion of an on-screen timer to make players more aware of how long they spend online, and changes to the content ratings publishers apply to online games.

Games that allow participants to chat using voice or instant text turns it into a public space where game publishers no longer control all that goes on, the Forum warned. Deciding whether the player or the publisher is responsible for the content of messages that turn out to be defamatory is a complex task. Publishers face another challenge: deciding whether such remarks make appropriate viewing for young players.

Game publishers already use the voluntary Pan European Game Info (PEGI) system to rate the suitability of offline game content for players of different ages. It rates games as suitable for those aged 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+ and 18+. PEGI's creator, the Interactive Software Federation of Europe, also operates a rating system for online games, PEGI Online. But confusingly, that system takes no account of content that users might introduce to a game, it merely serves as a warning to parents that a game includes online features, the Forum said.

The Internet Rights Forum wants the PEGI Online ratings system strengthened. The group proposes that no game allowing players to send text messages can be rated 3+ or 7+, and that such games can be rated 12+ only if messages are moderated by an adult before transmission.

The Forum also wants publishers to guarantee that age ratings will apply to in-game advertisements, and to put warnings on packaging if an online game contains ads.

Information about age ratings could also be made available electronically to parental control software on PCs, so that the software can restrict young players' access to inappropriate games.

The Forum wants to make older players more aware of the time they spend online, and called upon publishers to incorporate an on-screen stopwatch in their games, showing the duration of the current session.

The Internet Rights Forum plans to create a Web site for parents and teachers, explaining in simple terms for nonplayers what online games are about and what risks they pose. The site should launch early next year.

A hit television series described as Italy’s answer to The Sopranos has been ordered off the air by the country’s justice minister who claims it glamorises the Mafia.

Clemente Mastella said the final episode of Il Capo dei Capi (The Boss of All the Bosses) will not air this week. It will be suspended, he said: I do not believe that television, even a private network, should be allowed to sing the praises of the Godfather.

The series, broadcast on Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset network, has become essential viewing with an average of seven million viewers a week. It tells the life story of Salvatore “Toto” Riina, 67, who ran the Sicilian Mafia in the 1980s.

Rockstar has launched its appeal against the BBFC's decision to refuse Manhunt 2 certification, accusing the board of putting its reputation above the interests of gamers.

Geoffrey Robertson, representing Rockstar, began the proceedings at the Video Appeals Committee hearing by claiming the British Board of Film Classification was a misnomer - suggesting it should instead be referred to as the British Board of Videogame Censors.

There's no evidence that playing interactive videogames leads to a propensity to act them out in real life. We wonder why Manhunt 2 has been singled out for special treatment, he stated.

Robertson went on to accuse the BBFC of being simply ignorant of the gaming experience and throwing adjectives with hyperbolic abandon at the game. Their reputation is not at stake; if it were we could show how, over the last century, they've been derided for some of the most stupid decisions in censorship history, he continued. But we're not going to go down that road.

According to statistics presented by Robertson, there are 26.5 million gamers in the UK. Their average age is 28 and the gender split is 45 per cent female, 55 per cent male.

Addressing the panel from the Video Appeals Committee present to hear Rockstar's appeal Robertson said, There you are, seven of you - not one of you has experienced, I'm told by the chairman, computer games, or are a gamer.

At this point one member of the panel interjected, stating, That's not true. Some of us actually have played computer games. It was also confirmed that the panel did play Manhunt 2 in advance of the hearing.

Robertson described as offensive and outrageous the allegation the board makes against adults in this country that they're somehow going to go and shoot or kill as a result of playing Manhunt 2.

Millions of gamers play videogames and no crime has ever been directly attributed to them, with one exception. And in that case, the murder of British teenager Stefan Pakeerah, it was found that there was no connection.

From Escapist see full article

Tiga CEO Fred Hasson and psychologist Guy Cumberbatch have spoken out in defense of Rockstar at the company's appeal.

Hasson said he stood behind his earlier claims that the BBFC made its decision to ban the game based on articles in the Daily Mail and other publications, saying, I can only come to the conclusion that is the case. Having seen the content of the game, I can't see any other reason why they've done that.

Hasson claimed he was surprised at how tame it is compared to some very graphical scenes I've seen in other games which have received certification. I expected it to be a lot worse... I can't believe this has been singled out as something that is worth banning.

Cumberbatch, who has done extensive research into media violence, said he conducted a survey in which 86 respondents, all of whom had seen at least two 18-rated movies and played two 18-rated videogames, played Manhunt 2 for 15 minutes and also viewed a series of video clips taken from different levels of the game. They were then asked how they felt the game compared to other games and films; 68% said other games on the market were equally violent, while 80% said equally violent films were available. Further, according to Cumberbatch, several respondents indicated that gamers would be "disappointed" with the level of violence in the game.

Certainly no one's going to suggest Manhunt 2 is one of the least violent games around, Cumberbatch said: In my own limited experience of playing Manhunt 2, it's fairly sanitized as a work compared with what you might expect in a film.

The BBFC have their Say

From Euro Gamer see full article

The BBFC has accepted there is no proven link between anti-social behaviour and violent videogames - but said more research is required to conclusively rule any connection out.

Speaking at the appeal hearing yesterday Andrew Caldecott, representing the BBFC, stated: The board's position is that there is insufficient evidence to prove, as a fact, there is a causal connection between violent games and behavioural harm... It's a perfectly fair point, and one which we accept, but it's not by any means a complete answer to the question the [Video Appeals Committee] has to decide.

On the subject of research presented earlier by Rockstar in defence of its argument, Caldecott said: The research certainly achieves the objective of establishing that research does not demonstrate that there is a causal link. But what it certainly does not establish is that there isn't.

He went on to observe that neither side had suggested Manhunt 2 was suitable for people aged under 18 at any point during the hearing. For a young person, this is a disturbing game, it is a shocking game, and there are issues about innocence and matters of that sort in relation to young people. In a Utopian society, you would have effective measures where the over-18s could play what was suitable for them without being cluttered by the fact minors will see them. But you can't make classification decisions without regard to the social prevalence [of games].

Caldecott went on to present the BBFC's response to the argument that videogames should be judged by the same standards as films such as Saw and Hostel. He told the appeals panel, Film is a different medium; it is simply is a different experience. There are ways in which it is perhaps more involving, because you are dealing with absolute reality, with real people, in film. On the other hand, many people watch horror films to some extent from the point of view of the victim, or the point of view of what's going to happen - not with this very distinctive point of view of being the person who's wielding the weapon, and is rewarded for killing in the bloodiest way possible.

Caldecott later suggested that videogames with violent content are more likely to be seen by children than violent films. A videogame is inherently less likely to be strictly supervised, and that is supported by research, he said, adding that violent films are usually watched late at night.

Turning to Manhunt 2 specifically, Caldecott focused on the nature of the game's violent content. In this particular game, the victims are people. They are not aliens or griffins or Daleks... You see lots of human beings quite mercilessly kicking and punching other human beings as you move through the game.

"It's a frequent theme of level one, which is the only one I've actually played right through. Even when you're not killing someone yourself, you're passing someone who's getting a good beating or having an unpleasant time.

He also pointed to the weapons used in the game as a particular area for concern. They're not magic wands or Excalibur; many of them are everyday objects.

Concluding the hearing, the chairman of the Video Appeals Committee said: This is a very important case and there is an awful lot we must consider. We will work hard at it and get you a decision as soon as possible. A date was not set for the announcement of the decision.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission is struggling to find enough support from a majority of the agency’s commissioners to regulate cable television companies more tightly.

The five-member commission is set to vote on Tuesday on a report, proposed by Kevin J. Martin, the agency’s chairman, that would give the commission expanded powers over the cable industry after making a formal finding that it had grown too big.

After news reports this month that Martin supported the finding — along with the commission’s two Democrats — the cable industry heavily lobbied the commission and allies in Congress to kill the proposal. Those efforts may be paying off.

Replying to questions on a BBC TV programme, Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has publicly agreed with the Christian think-tank Ekklesia that it is time for Britain's archaic blasphemy law to be abolished.

Lord Carey, who is an outspoken conservative evangelical within the Church of England, was responding to comments by Ekklesia co-director Jonathan Bartley on a discussion about blasphemy on BBC1's Sunday morning current affairs and religion programme, The Big Questions.

The ex-Archbishop protested against what he said was an increase in "offensive" material about Christianity in the public domain, including Jerry Springer - The Opera. But Lord Carey said that Christ told his followers to put away their swords and did not seek to defend faith by force.

Bartley said that a blasphemy law was itself blasphemous from a theological viewpoint, because it suggested that the transcendent God somehow needed human laws for protection.

The Committee to Protect Journalists honored five journalists with its 2007 International Press Freedom Awards in a ceremony Tuesday night that highlighted the fight for justice in journalist murders, and an increase in the targeting of journalists in reprisal for their work.

2007 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardees:

• Dmitry Muratov is editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, the only truly critical newspaper with national influence in Russia today. He founded the paper in 1993 and is still its driving force. Novaya Gazeta, with a staff of 60, is known for its in-depth investigations on sensitive issues such as high-level corruption, human rights violations, and abuse of power. It has paid a heavy price for this pioneering work; three of its reporters have been killed. The most recent casualty was investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who gained international recognition for her independent coverage of Chechnya and the North Caucasus.
   
• Mazhar Abbas is a well-known champion of press freedom in Pakistan who has worked as a journalist for 27 years and has endured repeated threats as a result of his work. He is deputy director of ARY One World Television, an Urdu and Hindi-language 24-hour news channel from Pakistan, and secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists.
  
  In May, he was one of three journalists who found bullets in white envelopes attached to their cars when they came out of a late-night meeting at the Karachi Press Club. He was on the hit list of the Mohajir Rabita Council, an ethnic political group in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, which is allied with President Pervez Musharraf. Abbas was also charged by police earlier this year after protesting the closure of three independent TV channels for reporting on anti-Musharraf demonstrations.
   
• Adela Navarro Bello, 39, is the general director of the weekly magazine Zeta in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico. Created in 1980, Zeta is one of the only publications to regularly run investigations on organized crime, drug trafficking, and corruption in Mexico’s northern states, where self-censorship is rampant. The cost of Zeta’s coverage of crime along the U.S.-Mexico border has been high: Héctor Félix Miranda, co-founder of the magazine, was killed in 1988, and co-editor Francisco Ortiz Franco was murdered in 2004.
   
• Gao Qinrong, who worked as a reporter for China’s official Xinhua News Agency in the northern province of Shanxi, was released last year after spending eight years in prison. In 1998, the investigative reporter exposed a scam irrigation project in his home province; Xinhua didn’t publish the report but it was circulated in the internal edition of People’s Daily, which is distributed to Communist Party leaders. When the story went on to attract national media attention from other news outlets, local officials blamed Gao. He was charged with a laundry list of crimes, including embezzlement, fraud, and even pimping, and sentenced to a 12-year jail term. After his early release for good behavior—he ran a prison newspaper—Gao gave lengthy interviews to Chinese and international news organizations. Before it was shut down domestically, coverage of his case drew new attention to the issue of press freedom in China. Gao is struggling to get the charges against him dropped so he can return to working as a reporter.
   
• Tom Brokaw, one of the most trusted and respected figures in broadcast journalism, received the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award given for a lifetime of distinguished achievement in the cause of press freedom.

The northern community radio network will protest to the Chiang Mai governor after two of its 10 member stations broadcasting in a hilltribe dialect were forced off the air for supposed security reasons.

Sangmuang Mangkorn, coordinator of the Chiang Mai-based Migration Action Programme, said a man claiming to represent the Third Army called up the two stations, in Fang and Chom Thong districts, and ordered them to stop broadcasting, citing security reasons. The stations broadcast in Karen dialect.

He said there might be a political motive behind the closure order as the Dec 23 general election was approaching. It is widely known that the majority of hilltribe people who have Thai ID cards were key supporters of the dissolved Thai Rak Thai party, which has been resurrected as the People Power party.

Sangmuang said his radio station in Chiang Mai's Muang district, which broadcasts in the ethnic Shan dialect on FM 99 MHz, had also been warned that it might be shut down even though the station's programme content focuses on health and law issues.

Culture Minister Khaisri Sri-aroon

The Ministry of Culture warns that news coverage about adultery scandals of public figures, including politicians and celebrities, might violate Article 9 of the 2007 Act Protecting the Victims Suffered from Family’s Violence.

The Director of the Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights Foundation, Mr Shapphasit Khumpraphan says the media cannot reveal the victims' names of family violence as prohibited by Article 9 of the Act. Penalties include an imprisonment not exceeding six months and/or a fine of up to 60,000 baht.

Shapphasit also suggested the media cover news which benefit society, while ensuring that news stories concerning violence in families do not contain the names of either the offenders or the victims.

Microsoft abruptly closed down four pro-anorexia websites in Spain after a complaint that they were endangering the lives of teenage girls.

The websites, which offer tips such as take up smoking and if your stomach rumbles, hit it, were accused of teaching teenagers how to starve themselves.

Internet companies usually wait for a court order before closing any sites that they host. But Microsoft acted swiftly after complaints from a Catalan watchdog that several blogs on its Live Spaces community glorified starvation as a lifestyle choice.

Jaime Esteban, an official from Microsoft's Spanish division, agreed that the blogs infringe all the rules on content created by users and visible on our sites. He thanked the internet watchdog, IQUA, for alerting it to the sites and invited it to get in contact if it found any other objectionable content.

The Catalan authorities have heaped praise on Microsoft's swift action. Santiago Ramentol, the president of IQUA, said that he was very satisfied with the decision of the company, given the lack of worldwide laws regulating the use (of the internet).

He said that other internet hosts they had approached in similar cases, such as Google or Hispavista, had demanded court judgments before acting.

Independent journalists in Kazakhstan say authorities have signaled their desire to place domestic Internet content under stricter government regulation.

The journalists said that at recent meetings with Culture and Information Minister Yermukhamet Yertysbaev, the minister had recommended they not publish material based on audio recordings of top officials' conversations.

The meetings came after several opposition websites during the past month posted reports or audio recordings of purported phone conversations by current or former government officials that included discussions of illegal or unethical activities. The source of the recordings has not been established, although many believe they came from the Kazakh president's estranged former son-in-law and ex-national security deputy director, Rakhat Aliev.

The National Secular Society has demanded an explanation from West Midlands Police about why it conducted a witch hunt against the makers of Channel 4's Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque. But attempts by the NSS to force the W. Midlands force to explain their actions through the Police Authority and the Independent Police Complaints Authority have been dismissed.

The NSS has tried to discover what was behind the West Midlands (WM) police's pursuit of the programme-makers by initiating a formal complaint against WM Police and its Police Authority, and later appealing to the Independent Police Complaints Authority. As we suspected would happen, these have been ruled inadmissible – third party compplaints will not be entertained, even when there is a public interest at stake. We made the complaints to register our concerns and, if they were rejected, to draw attention to the inability in such circumstances to challenge the police.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the NSS, said: We welcome Ofcom's adjudication. But it raises the uncomfortable question as to why the top echelons of West Midlands Police and their Police Authority were prepared to go to such extraordinary lengths to try to punish Channel 4 executives for exposing the truth about the situation in mosques.

The supervisory bodies — The Independent Police Complaints Commission and HM Inspector of Constabularies — although acknowledging the seriousness of the complaints, were powerless to investigate. The Police Reform Act should be amended to permit consideration of third party public interest complaints in serious cases. This is even worse than shooting the messenger. If the police had managed to bring a prosecution or their Ofcom complaint had been successful, it would have sent the clear signal that they had the power to silence journalists investigating issues that were inconvenient to them. This would have resulted in a disastrous increase in self-censorship.

A major investigation should be launched into whether regional police forces can be vulnerable to undue local pressure. The Government must also take some blame for creating an environment in which religion and race are conflated in the public sector thinking, and for creating a climate where religion is given a privileged position, and it seems, excused a great deal.

From the Guardian see full article

David Henshaw, the managing director of Hardcash Productions which made the Dispatches film Undercover Mosque , said he was still "very, very angry" and considering legal action

With the backing of Channel 4 he hoped to launch a libel action against the West Midlands police and a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer who was quoted in a joint press release accusing Hardcash Productions of "completely distorting" what some of the preachers were saying. The media regulator dismissed the complaint saying it was a legitimate investigation.

Hardcash's reputation has been severely damaged and it was a good reputation, Henshaw told the Guardian. The Ofcom judgment is great. But damage was done that day in August, huge damage.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: Once they [the police] were clear that no criminal offence had been committed, it was, in my view, a serious misjudgment to continue to pursue the editorial team and risked impeding freedom of speech.

“The Dispatches programme raised matters of wide public interest, touching on security and community relations. The documentary handled inherently sensitive issues in a responsible manner. Having been advised by the Crown Prosecution Service that no criminal charges should be brought, there was no cause for a police complaint to Ofcom. That decision drew the police into scrutinising editorial decisions of a television producer, which is not an appropriate law enforcement function and risks deterring legitimate investigative journalism.

Don Foster, media spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said: This whole case raises serious questions about West Midlands Police and the CPS in what appears to be an attempt to censor television, stifle investigative journalism and inhibit open debate.

The owners of a clothes shop have been ordered by police to censor artwork depicting a naked man for fear it may cause "harassment, alarm or distress" to the public.

An officer from Gwent Police told Flick Sawkins and Angela Harker of Starling Vendetta Boutique they could be prosecuted under section 5 of the Public Order Act unless the offending body part was covered.

A strategically-placed fig leave now hides the modesty of the "window installation" by artist Kate Montgomery which takes pride of place in the shop’s window in Newport, south Wales.

Wardens working for Newport City Council were initially approached by shoppers several weeks ago concerning the naked body before the complaint was passed to police.

According to Newport West MP Paul Flynn, there is now a 140 strong petition demanding the removal of the fig leaf on the grounds of artistic freedom plus a bit of council-bashing. On his website blog, he added: It’s difficult to believe that anyone would be outraged by what seems to be a human body made out of rags – sorry an attractive vintage art object.

It seems the owners of the boutique, which only opened last month, are similarly incredulous about the cover-up. On their website they said: We don’t entirely agree with this decision and would be interested to know what you, our customers, think.

The Daily Mail reported:

Mr Green said he was 'hugely disappointed' Liberty was seeking to use his case to challenge blasphemy laws, which he described as vital for protecting God's name.

He added: "It is a great shame that Liberty have gone down this road, and strayed away from their core activities of defending civil liberties, which we as an organisation support."

Looooooooool! Christian Voice support defending civil liberties!

Yeah they do! They want civil liberties for all...

Apart from gays.

And people who say things which upset their precious religious beliefs.

Yeah civil liberties for all say Christian Voice!

Lol!

From the Times

Meanwhile the case has now completed and the High Court reserved judgment on whether Christian evangelists could bring prosecutions against Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General, and the producer of the controversial show Jerry Springer – The Opera.

A time scale for the publication of the judgement has not yet been provided

Unhappy with her daughter's private school, Sonjia McSween created a blog to warn other parents.

The unexpected result: The New School of Orlando Inc. slapped McSween with a defamation lawsuit to stop her from publishing and talking about the school and force McSween to pay damages.

Some say it's a case of censorship. Others say First Amendment rights have nothing to do with it.

Rebecca Jeschke, spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates digital free-speech rights and maintains a legal guide for bloggers said: People need to get used to this new world where everyone has a soapbox and can use it.

Also known as New School Preparatory, the kindergarten-through-eighth grade school alleges that McSween deliberately told unflattering lies, causing enrollment to drop. It alleges defamation, libel, slander and interference with business relations.

McSween contends that she was just sharing what happened to her and her daughter, Logan.

The problem started after Logan, now 7, began kindergarten at New School Preparatory in 2005. She withdrew in January and attends another private school. McSween said she spent thousands on tuition, books and registration for the school to "mistreat" her daughter.

My daughter went from being a happy child to a child who was scared to make a mistake because she was not perfect, McSween said.

The lawsuit says McSween posted false and otherwise libelous remarks alleging that students at the Marks Street school were belittled, exposed to "extreme stress" and "dictatorial conditions." She further alleged that the school told parents how to run their homes and threatened parents for speaking negatively about New School Preparatory.

Lawrence Walters, an Altamonte Springs First Amendment lawyer unfamiliar with the New School case, said lawsuits often are designed to stifle criticism by forcing defendants to back down to avoid expensive litigation.

US nutters, Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK) has launched Phase II of its anti-adult entertainment campaign with the recent erection of a billboard along Interstate 65 in Southern Indiana.

The billboard, depicting "someone's daughter," according to ROCK, shows a young woman along with a blood-spattered "XXX." According to a statement on the GROUP's website, This latest image will highlight the sexual exploitation of women.

A similar billboard, without the blood-spattered slash mark across the letters "XXX," but instead featuring a set of handcuffs, which reads "Garbage in, garbage out" was placed by the GROUP in July across from signage promoting a local adult bookstore. A third sign, phase three of the GROUP's campaign, is planned for a future erection — highlighting what the GROUP sees as the harm adult entertainment businesses inflict on children.

According to the ROCK website, the GROUP is also engaged in the areas of freedom of religious expression regarding efforts to push expressions of faith out of the public arena, attacks on marriage, [the] culture of death in our society as well as secular humanism and new atheism.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly alarmed that news channels on the Pakistani networks GEO TV and ARY Digital were ordered by authorities to halt transmission from the United Arab Emirates after refusing to sign a Pakistani government-mandated “code of conduct.”

GEO TV was ordered by the UAE Information Ministry in Dubai to cease satellite and Internet broadcasts by midnight local time on Friday, according to Sami Abraham, senior correspondent and producer of GEO TV in New York. ARY Digital received a similar order with no reason given for the shut down, according to ARY news director Mohsin Raza.

We are surprised that the authorities in Dubai, which is developing as a regional free trade and communications hub, would prevent such satellite transmissions, said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. We call on Pakistani and UAE authorities to reverse this order immediately and allow private TV networks to report on the important developments taking place in Pakistan without being subject to stifling official restrictions.

Questions must now be raised in Parliament about the behaviour of the West Midland police. By their actions, they have made the people of Britain signally less safe.

The Dispatches programme performed a public service in exposing sources of the kind of extremism that threatens the safety and security of this country. For the police to turn on this programme with patently implausible charges against it is deeply sinister and against the public interest. As Channel Four said after the ruling, the police action had given: legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate.

The West Midlands police appear to have turned themselves into a mouthpiece for Islamists trying to shut down legitimate and necessary debate. The idea that the police should believe that ‘community cohesion’ — aka the sensitivities of the Muslim community – should trump the need to identify those endangering not only the cohesion but the security of the whole country suggests that the police have totally lost the plot here.

There is also something badly wrong with a system which is unable to act against those identified on this programme inciting hatred in this way. Is this because of the pusillanimity of the CPS? Is it the inadequacy of the law? Whatever the reason, this is the way a culture offers up its own throat to the knife.

In what appears to be looming political trouble for the video game industry, four United States senators have signed a letter calling for a “thorough review” of the ESRB rating system.

Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh and Sam Brownback sent the letter to ESRB president Patricia Vance yesterday. The move was prompted by the furore surrounding the M rating assigned by the ESRB to a revised version of Manhunt 2.

All four senators have been critics of the video game industry in the past. Clinton, of course, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. From the letter:

As you know, in June 2007, the British Board of Film Classification refused to rate Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 videogame … stating that it contains ‘unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone. In October 2007, the BBFC again refused to rate a revised Manhunt 2 stating that ‘the impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone … is clearly insufficient.

[The ESRB, however,] reduced the revised version’s rating to “Mature,” effectively opening the door to its widespread distribution and its licensing approval by game system manufacturers Sony and Nintendo.

In sum, we ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of ‘ultra-violent’ videogames and advances in game controllers.

Christian evangelists have launched a High Court battle for the right to bring a private prosecution for blasphemy over Jerry Springer: The Opera.

The show was an offensive, spiteful, systematic mockery and wilful denigration of Christian belief, one that that no-one would dream of making about the prophet Mohammed and Islam, two judges were told.

Stephen Green, national director of the evangelical group Christian Voice, is challenging a refusal by District Judge Caroline Tubbs at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court in January to issue a summons for the start of a private prosecution against the Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson, who allowed the controversial show to be screened on BBC2. Green also wanted to issue a similar summons against the show’s producer, Jonathan Thoday, who staged it at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End and then in a nationwide tour.

Michael Gledhill, QC, appearing for Green, said that such prosecutions for blasphemous libel were extremely rare, occuring perhaps once a generation. He said it was not being argued that God cannot be criticised, he said. Such criticisms were commonplace in a number of plays and productions broadcast on television. Rather, he said, the complaint arose from the manner in which the criticisms were made.

Gledhill argued that the district judge had erred in law in refusing to issue the summonses as the show had clearly “crossed the blasphemy threshold”.

He argued: This is not just about protecting the rights of a section of the Christian population. It is about protecting the constitution of the nation which is built on the Christian faith.

Neither Mr Thoday nor Mr Thompson felt the least inhibition in ridiculing God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the sacrament of the eucharist and Christian belief, Gledhill told Lord Justice Hughes and Mr Justice Collins at the High Court in London.

Through Jerry Springer: The Opera they had treated the Christian faith with contempt, reviling it by parodying Christian beliefs scurrilously and in the most ludicrous manner.

The human rights group Liberty is intervening in the case to argue that the blasphemy laws are outdated and that free speech rights must protect sacred, profane and secular language alike.

Gledhill accused District Judge Tubbs of failing properly to assess whether the elements of blasphemous libel had been made out in the case of Jerry Springer: The Opera. He argued no reasonable person, applying the correct legal test, could find that the elements of blasphemy were not present.

David Pannick, QC, for Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, said that people’s religious beliefs might be integral to British society but equally so was freedom of expression, especially in matters of social and moral importance.

The Opera won a large number of awards for exceptional artistic achievement, a recognition that this was a powerful satire on a particular type of exploitative television and not, as the claimant fails to appreciate, an attack on Christianity. He added that the target of the satire was not religious belief but the confessional talk-show genre.

Thompson, in a submission, said that the judges should refuse permission for a private prosecution for several reasons: there had been “very considerable delay” by Mr Green in making his application: the programme was broadcast in January 2005; the attempt to bring criminal proceedings was “verging on the vexatious”; and the claimant had sought at a late stage to amend his application.

The hearing continues for a 2nd day.