Mediaboss Marketing

ANHRI denounces the censorship on publishings in Egypt, as it prevented the import of the book "History of the Modern Middle East" for the American historians, "William Cleveland" and "Martin Benton", without any reasons.

It was scheduled to teach the book to AUC's students of history of modern Arab history, in the next semester. But "Khaled Fahmy," historian and the professor of history at American University in Cairo said that the university administration had told him in a short email, that the censorship, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Information, banned the import of the book, without any reasons.

He explained in an article posted on "Facebook" that the book does not contain any misuse of the Egyptian history and one of the best books dealing with the Arab history to students. He added, he is sad because of the lack of respect for science because of concerns related to national security, which made the researchers use the west library to find references. He criticized the ignorance of those who are responsible for the censorship of publications on the priorities of scientific research, pointing out that national security can not be achieved by banning books, but are available.

The news spread that the reason of the banning is because the book because of "it does not include Haliab and Shalateen (on the borders with Sudan) in its pages)!

ANHRI said that "the ban of books and scientific research is unacceptable, whatever the reasons is totally refused, as it contradicts with the right the knowledge for all people in accordance with the international treaties and conventions."

ANHRI added that "security fist still control the censorship bodies and force them to think through security logic, which is full of false fears which is hostile against the freedom under the name of security".

ANHRI asserted that the need to believe in the freedom of information exchange, a availability of information and stop using the banning and confiscation method which is practiced by the old regime.

ANHRI views that the amendment related to the law on publications issued in 1936 and the enactment of a law to regulate and ensure the right of the information exchange must be a priority for the agenda of the legislature authority immediately after being re-election.

Copyright 2012 Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

Read more here:
Africa: ANHRI Condemns the Prevention of the Importing 'History of the Modern Middle East' Book

'A pirate-themed adult movie featuring a sword fight cannot be legally screened.'

SHOULD Fifty Shades of Grey be banned? Australians clearly don't think so. On any typical train carriage, you'll find at least one reader unabashedly engrossed in Ana Steele's romps with Mr Grey and his Red Room of Pain. Yet a film with the same content - that is, a movie combining real sex with bondage - must, by law, be refused classification. How does that make sense?

The disparity seems even more peculiar given the censors' historical obsession with banning novels. Lawrence, Nabokov, Miller, Roth, Orwell: you could run a credible literature course out of books Australians were once banned from buying. In theory, novels can still go to the Classification Board. In practice, they almost never do, probably because the famous literary anti-censorship cases made rating books seem deeply unpalatable.

It's merely one example of the prevailing weird classificatory hotchpotch. In some respects, federal censorship law reflects a New Left libertarianism: the code's proclamation that ''adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want'' comes, almost word for word, from Don Dunstan's Labor policy from 1969. But the classifiers are constrained by specific legislative prohibitions, such as the ban on bondage and other fetishes. Most significantly, films containing actual sex cannot feature violence - which seems reasonable, until you realise the stipulation forbids any violence at all, even if entirely unrelated to sexual activity. In other words, a pirate-themed adult movie featuring a sword fight cannot be legally screened.

Yet the extraordinary disparity between state and federal jurisdictions means few Australians even know the rules. The national code contains an X rating: essentially, for films showing unsimulated sex. But in the states, the sale of X films remains illegal. Insofar as they retail X (which most do), the adult shops in Melbourne and Sydney are breaking the law.

Advertisement

That's a consequence of activism by social conservatives during the 1980s when the code was being debated. But though the premiers refused to ratify the X category, they're also reluctant, most of the time, to enforce the rules. Given the extraordinary quantity of porn consumed in Australia, a crackdown on adult shops would spur a backlash that no politician wants. Perversely, the very strictness of the laws contributes to a curious laxity: most adult retailers now operate outside the official code.

Or, at least, most of the time they do. Arrests happen, but it's hard to understand their logic. Last year, I spoke to Darrell Cohen, who went to prison for selling, in a Sydney shop, DVDs that could be bought openly throughout the country. Because it's so rare to be jailed for retailing adult content, he suffered enormously in custody, since the other inmates concluded he must be a paedophile and treated him accordingly.

The only places where you can legally sell X-rated DVDs are the ACT and Northern Territory. Or, rather, the Northern Territory so long as you are not indigenous. Few people realise that the Howard government's Northern Territory intervention introduced a draconian censorship regime into indigenous communities, even though the Little Children are Sacred report recommended nothing of the sort.

The irony is glaring. In Canberra, where the politicians live, the adult industry flourishes. But in remote towns in the NT, where there's nothing comparable to Canberra's porn barns, signs warn visitors against the pornography legally available everywhere else in the territory.

Read the original here:
Fifty shades of ambiguity make porn laws a perverse joke

Let's not mince words about what the state Senate's Democratic leader did Wednesday. It was self-serving censorship, the sort of thing that one expects from tinpot dictators, not from those who fancy themselves to be progressive civil libertarians.

Someone acting for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg suddenly cut off cable television access to a legislative hearing to air facts and arguments about pending ballot measures.

The Senate Governance and Finance Committee called the hearing as required by law into three tax increases (Propositions 30, 38 and 39) and altering the state's budgetary procedures (Proposition 31).

As it opened, the committee's chairwoman, Democrat Lois Wolk, said she hoped that the testimony would help voters make reasoned decisions about the highly controversial measures.

But only the few people in the hearing room and those technologically savvy enough to tune into an Internet audio feed heard Wolk's words.

Just before the hearing was to be telecast on the California Channel, a public affairs channel carried on most cable systems, somebody from the Senate told Cal Channel to cut it off.

It's obviously bad business that Capitol politicians can control what the public sees of their activities. But this is an especially egregious example of manipulating that power for political purposes.

It wouldn't take a Mars rocket scientist to figure out why Democrats didn't want the hearing to be broadcast.

One witness was to be Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, who opposes Proposition 30, the sales and income tax measure that Steinberg is fervently supporting. And he would most likely dwell on the Senate staff raises that Steinberg had granted as an example of why taxes should not be raised.

Coupal, in fact, made exactly that point, but that's what the hearing was about airing the arguments and counterarguments along with factual information from the Legislature's budget analyst.

Read the rest here:
Dan Walters: Censorship rears its ugly head in California Senate

Chinese search giant Baidu fired four workers over taking cash to censor and delete content on Monday. Three of the workers were arrested in conjunction with the censorship.

The workers would take anywhere from $150 to $470 dollars to delete negative content about a subject from blogs to news portals, according to the Global Times. The censorship could have gone as far as companies paying more than $20,000 a year for workers to monitor and delete negative press.

I understand some of the criticism against Google, like the company has too much control over internet content, but with the company fighting against censorship across the web this story makes Google look like its fighting the correct fight.

China is known for internet censorship, and punishing people who post negative news about the government, so it seems a little harsh to arrest the employees. Hopefully its a sign that the country is moving away from the hard line policies, but its more likely the police got involved because of the large amounts of money.

The impact on Baidu should be minimal. The stock price hasnt crashed, there are no reports of an investigation, and the normal day to day use of the website has remained intact. Still, as control of content becomes more important across the web, its important we keep an eye out as consumers.

YouTube app removal should actually improve YouTube for iPhone

Speaking of search engines, Apple announced Googles YouTube app, a long time iPhone staple, would be removed from the built in app selection starting with iOS 6.

Striking news at first, but this move should actually improve Youtube on the iPhone. It takes the control of the app away from Apple and puts it into Googles (YouTubes owners) hands.

All of the preloaded apps on the iPhone are developed by Apple, and since YouTube joined the iPhone in 2007, all Google has done is code the video in an iPhone friendly format.

With the emergence of the two companies as rivals, Apple hasnt really taken care of updating or improving the application since it showed up. Now, Google will be able to offer it in the App Store, and control all updates and the interface. They have a much bigger interest in making the app better.

Continued here:
Chinese search giant Baidu fires 3 over paid censorship

By Tenzin Nyinjey

The Chinese government's censorship policy is morally wrong and the 1.3 billion people of China have a right to know the reality.

Two things are taboo in Gangchen Kyishong books and Rangzen.

This morning I came across a Facebook wall message posted by one of the Rangzen activists living in the United States, in which he quoted a line from two sympathizers with Tibetan independence, Harry Wu and V R Krishna Iyer, expressing concern at the censorship of words such as independence implemented by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in its official publications. It is surprising that this terrible truth did not produce much reaction from Tibetan readers of his page. My gut feeling is that this is due to the genius of the Middle Way propaganda that has now fully succeeded in pacifying the Tibetan peoples innate desire for independence, so much so that they dont bother even when their leaders are openly found engaging in nasty acts of Orwellian censorship.

What is shameful is that protest against the suppression of such truths in our community comes from non-Tibetans rather than from Tibetans themselves. It sort of astounds me how much our consciences have been stifled, and how much we have been alienated from our struggle, that we dont even feel the need to speak out against such immoral acts committed by our own government.

We all know that the Tibetan leadership began giving up on the struggle for independence in the early 1970s, and did so more formally with the Strasbourg proposal in 1988 in France. Not many of us, however, know that this journey down the road to oblivion was speeded up during Prof. Samdhong Rinpoches reign as Kalon Tripa, from 2002 to 2011. I experienced it personally, for during that period, around 2003, I joined the Tibetan civil service as a fresh graduate, after going through formal training at the Sarah Tibetan college. I was posted to the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR), as one of the translators and editors of the publication section. It was led by the late Tendar-la and, until then, produced publications that never compromised on the truth of Chinas occupation and colonialism in Tibet, despite the prevailing Middle-Way policy. The department brought out numerous publications condemning Chinas colonialism in Tibet and the building of railways that intensified its destruction of our homeland.

As the years progressed, however, all of a sudden the narratives started changing. Words and phrases such as colonialism and military occupation in official publications started to be replaced by mutually-beneficial solution, Tibetans being one of the minority nationalities, mainland China, Chinas rule in Tibet, within the framework of Chinese constitution and so onall by order of Samdhong Rinpoche. In fact, during one of the official meetings chaired by the Kalon Tripa, Gyari Rinpoche openly reprimanded a leading official and editor of DIIR for continuing to use words like colonialism in DIIR publications. Writers like Lukar Jam observed these ominous changes and criticized them in their essays (Lukar was later forced to resign from his work at the Department of Security), but not many of us heeded them. On the contrary, we blindly accused them of blasphemy, of going against the wishes of the Dalai Lama, of being Chinese spies, of breaking the unity of Tibetan people, and playing into the hands of the Chinese regime.

Such kneejerk reactions from our people were understandable given that we have been brought up within a system that injects in us passivity and obedience to leadership. Indeed, most of us, having been brought up with a belief in the infallibility of our leadership, faithfully followed whatever course Dharamsala charted for our future. We rarely imagined that the leaders in Dharamsala were human beings, with all the possibilities of making mistakes, and thus blindly placed our destiny in their hands. So, our leaders are not to be blamed alonewe all share a collective responsibility in this.

For instance, in my own near-blind obedience as a bureaucrat, I thought the policies for our struggle were framed independently at the Kashag. It was only later when I was told to transcribe and translate into English the taped lengthy discussions that took place between Gyari Rinpoche and Zhu Weichun in Beijing that I was made to realize that all these decrees not to use words like colonialism came explicitly from the lips of the Chinese authorities. Under the slogan creating a positive atmosphere for dialog, the Chinese negotiators told our Tibetan authorities that Tibetan exiles shouldnt protest Chinese leaders visiting foreign countries, and if all went well, then they would seriously consider the desire expressed by the Tibetan leaders for a possible visit by the Dalai Lama to the Buddhist pilgrimage site Wutaishan in China. The fox-like-cunning and trickery of the Chinese negotiators is now evident, when I look back, in the way the Chinese made it all sound sincere and serious, and thus fooled us into believing, that they would invite the Dalai Lama to China if Tibetan exiles behaved wellthat is if we stopped all protests.

Of course, we all know the results of those negotiations. The Chinese never invited the Dalai Lama to visit Wutaishan, nor did they negotiate for Tibetan autonomy; they never intended to, right from the beginning. Instead, what happened were the massive 2008 Tibetan protests, followed by a violent military crackdown. Since then the situation inside Tibet has gotten worse with the ongoing self-immolations. Tibetans inside Tibet, who have experienced firsthand Chinas occupation and colonialism for decades, know that the only language colonial masters speak with the so-called natives is that of violence and repression, not dialog, and therefore, the only way out is resistancepassive or active, non-violent or armed.

See the original post here:
Censorship and the Struggle for Tibetan freedom (Rejoinder by CTA)