Gagged Week
This is a bit of an experiment, but I keep seeing stories that are worth highlighting but which I don’t have a great deal - if anything - to add. So rather than continue with a bunch of posts that are little more than quotes from other sources, here is a list of links from this week’s press.
Film censorship dramatically increased
In one year, the censor board of Bangladesh has banned 59 films and shut down 39 cinemas for alleged obscenity - a record figure to mark the government’s latest crackdown on movies.
Greek Television stations censor documentary
Greek Helsinki Monitor has condemned Greek television stations for censoring parts of a documentary on the massacre at Srebrenica as broadcast on 2 and 3 June.
This is no sort of way to make a law – and no sort of law to make - Matthew Parris on the UK Government’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
The whole point of the rule of law is the certainty it gives the citizen. There is no greater injustice than for a citizen to be unable to determine what legal consequences would flow from an action contemplated. The bill, which passed its Second Reading last week, could be used to criminalise great swaths of speech and literature, ancient and modern.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales put tighter regulations on the porn industry into effect on 23 June.
Japanese schoolbooks seized by Chinese customs
Books on their way by mail to a Japanese school in the north-eastern Chinese city of Dalian were seized by authorities and the school itself fined because the school books have maps that use different colours to mark the island of Taiwan and mainland China.
Indymedia computer seized in pre-G8 police raid
A web server run by the Indymedia alternative news organisation has been seized by police in Bristol. An Indymedia volunter was also arrested during the raid.
Friday 01 Jul 2005 | Paul | Bangladesh, China, Greece, UK, USA
