GagWatch

A little over a week ago two Dutch companies, fearing a boycott of their products took out advertisements in Jordanian newspapers distancing themselves from the film Fitna.

Now Heineken has withdrawn (via) a television ad from the Spanish television station La Sexta after the station broadcast a satirical series which made fun of the Roman Catholic Church.

Heineken withdrew the ad after the Christian group Hazte Or called for a boycott of all companies which do business with La Sexta.

Dutch Chief Public Prosecutor Leo de Wit told the Dutch media on Monday he will not prosecute legislator Geert Wilders for remarks he made about Islam. Although Wilders’ remarks were “offensive to Muslims,” he was talking about Islam as a religion and not Muslims as individuals and, therefore, did not violate Dutch discrimination legislation nor incite to violence.

Attorney Els Lucas and the group of Muslims who filed the complaint with the police last summer said they would now request the Dutch court go through a special legal procedure, called “Article 12,” to force the justice department to prosecute Wilders after all.

Two Basque newspapers are on trial (via) for poking fun at King Juan Carlos I after an incident during an official visit to Russia in 2006. The Spanish King, an avid hunter, reportedly killed a circus bear named Mitrofan that had been plied with vodka to make it an easy target.

“He was cooked!” read the headline in the satirical supplement of a Basque newspaper,Deia. A photo-montage on the cover showed a drooling King wearing a Russian hat, brandishing a rifle over a dead bear and a barrel of booze. Deia and Gara, another Basque newspaper, are also on trial for publishing an article entitled “The Tribulations of Yogi Bear”.

A Spanish judge shelved the case back in April on the basis that the the cartoonists had the right to free speech. Last week, however, Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska was overruled by the Spanish National Court, which insisted that the cartoon and article constituted an “attack on the monarch’s self-esteem”.

“The King of Spain is perhaps the most overprotected person in Europe,” said José Antonio RodrÍguez, one of the two people who created Deia’s offending cartoon. “If his self-esteem has been damaged, well, perhaps he needs to see a psychologist.”

Insulting royalty or “damaging the prestige of the Crown” is a crime in Spain, punishable by up to two years in prison.

In a separate case, the two cartoonists who were prosecuted over a cartoon that appeared in El Jueves are appealing against a €3,000 fine.

And in a third, upcoming case, actor and comedian Pepe Rubianes is charged with “insulting Spain”. Mr Rubianes told Catalan television in 2006 that he was sick and tired of hearing about the “unity of Spain” – a concern cited by conservative Spaniards to oppose a law then under discussion to grant Catalonia greater regional autonomy.

“We have noticed a worrying trend in Spain, because these laws [against insulting the Crown] have been put into practice,” Giulia Tamayo, of Amnesty International, said. “We are concerned that it is setting a precedent.”

Nine members of a Kurdish children’s choir, aged from 12 to 17, have gone on trial in Turkey. They are facing up to five years in jail for singing a march in Kurdish at a world music festival in San Francisco.

The prosecutor’s indictment claims the song is the anthem of the PKK.

In a statement on the case, Amnesty International argues that singing a historic anthem cannot be judged a threat to public order - and is therefore a matter of free expression. It warns that the children will be considered prisoners of conscience if they are found guilty.

One of the singers told the BBC the lyrics to the march were in an old form of Kurdish, and he and his friends did not even understand them. He said the choir wanted to showcase Kurdish culture, not engage in politics - and they only sang the march in response to a request from the audience.

Three teenagers, aged 15 to 17, went on trial on Thursday in an adult, serious crimes court in Diyarbakir. Six younger choir-members, aged 12 to 15, will be tried in a children’s court on the same charge in July.

Turkish publisher, Ragip Zarakolu has been sentenced to five months in prison for publishing a book by a British author about the mass killing of Armenians in 1915.

He was found guilty of “insulting the institutions of the Turkish republic” under the notorious Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code.

This is the first high-profile verdict to be handed down since the law was reformed, under pressure from the EU to ensure freedom of speech in the country, and confirms campaigners’ fears that the changes were merely cosmetic.

In April it became a crime to insult the Turkish nation, rather than Turkishness. But insulting the Turkish nation can still be punished by up to two years in jail.

Back in March some of the more sensitive sections of the Hindu community decided - on the basis of a trailer - to take offence at Mike Myers’ latest film, The Love Guru.

Now more than 5,000 people have signed a petition protesting against the film - which, of course, they haven’t seen yet.

Some Hindu groups are considering a boycott of Paramount Pictures which produced the film and Hindu activists in the US are calling on the MPAA to change the rating of the film to NC-17, making it impossible for anyone under 17 to see it. They’ve also written protest letters to the Indian Film Censor Board.

In the UK, Paramount Pictures says it will arrange a pre-screening for Hindus before the film opens in August.

Mike Myers has pointed out that the religion lampooned in the film is a “mythical creation - it’s like the Force in Star Wars”.

Turkish singer, Bulent Ersoy is the latest person to fall foul of the oversensitivty of the country’s leaders.

Back in February, when the army was conducting a major operation against the PKK in northern Iraq, the singer suggested that it was not worth sacrificing soldiers’ lives in Turkey’s conflict with the Kurdish separatist group.

Ms Ersoy has said she will stand by her comments but, if convicted of “dissuading people from military service”, she faces up to four-and-a-half years in prison. The trial is also likely to scare many others into silence.

Questioning the military can be a risky business in Turkey where Article 318 of the penal code is frequently used by the military against its critics.

Blissfully unaware of the fallout following the City of London police’s attempt to arrest a teenager for describing Scientology as a cult, Strathclyde Police banned placards bearing the C-word from a demonstration against the cult in Glasgow city centre on Saturday.

Not wanting to be left out of any religious censorship bandwagon, the West Midlands Police have issued four members of Birmingham Anonymous Rapid Reaction Force (BARRF) with £50 fixed-penalty notices for handing out leaflets. According to Birmingham Anonymous they were also told that if they use the word cult on any of their signs they may be arrested.

Much of the information in this post came from MediaWatchWatch which carries a couple of interesting observations:

n interesting aspect of the incidents in London, Glasgow and Birmingham is that different laws have been applied in each case. In London it was the Public Order Act 1986, in Glasgow it was the Scots common-law offence of “breach of the peace” (a similar offence exists in English law too) and in Birmingham it’s the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (in relation to leafleting) and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (in relation to the threat of arrest for using the word “cult”).

It looks very much like they are trying every legal means at their disposal to silence criticism, particularly regarding the “cult” label. This raises the question of what tactics will they resort to when all the legal ones have have failed.

Hot on the heels of the Undercover Mosque fiasco, a police community support officer (PCSO) in Birmingham has ordered (via) two evangelical Christians to stop handing out leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area.

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

The preachers, both ministers in Birmingham, were handing out leaflets on Alum Rock Road in February when they started talking to four Asian youths. The PCSO interrupted the conversation and started questioning the ministers about their beliefs.

When he realised that the preachers were American, although both have lived in Britain for many years, he launched a tirade against President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Cunningham:

“He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station.

The ministers claim he also advised them not to return to the area. As he walked away, the PCSO said: “You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned”.

West Midlands Police, who refused to apologise, said the incident had been “fully investigated” and the officer would be given training in understanding hate crime and communication.

A masters student and a staff member at Nottingham University have been arrested (via) under the 2000 Terrorism Act after the student downloaded al-Qaida-related material from a US government website.

Rizwaan Sabir is researching terrorist tactics and, even though his university supervisors have insisted that the material is directly related to his work, he was held for nearly a week and accused of downloading the materials for illegal use.

The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a “prevent agenda” against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.

Sabir was arrested on May 14 after the document was found by a university staff member on an administrator’s computer. The administrator, Hisham Yezza, an acquaintance of Sabir, had been asked by the student to print the 1,500-page document because Sabir could not afford the printing fees. The pair were arrested under the Terrorism Act, Sabir’s family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized. They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation.

There has been a public outcry against the threatened deportation and university staff and students are planning a march to demonstrate against the attack on academic freedom.