Published by Meenu May 9th, 2008
in Religion, Sex, censorship and moral police.
Image Courtesy Extramirchi.com
Mallika Sherawat’s black backless dress has caused “mental agony to the Tamil people†according to the President of the Hindu Makkal Katchi. He says that the dress has “hurt†the feelings and pride of the Tamil people. This is not the first time though, this organization has filed a case, there was one against Khusboo for her views on pre-marital sex, against Shriya for her attire and apparently against all three of them of them for sitting cross legged! Imagine the president sitting infront of the TV - watching and taking copius notes- who sat cross legged, who used the word “sex†and how many times, what they wore to functions, and to what effect. Ah before we get all snobbish lets confess that this too sounds a bit like content analysis! 
Shriya later apologized to the ‘Hindu community’ saying,
Accepting her ‘mistake’, she said she never intended to hurt the feelings of Hindus or Tamilians. She had deep respect for the long standing tradition and culture of Tamil Nadu.
”I was unaware of the repercussions that would arise because of the attire I wore during the function,” she added.
“She would be sending a letter of apology to Mr Karunanidhi and members of the Hindu community who were offended by her attire.â€
Freedom or stability? Thats what 11, 344 people across 14 countries were asked- Did they desire a free Press or was it ok to curb freedom of the press for stability and social harmony? And the response of the shining Indians was? While most countries supported a free press, most Indians in contrast desired stability. Also 72% Indians believed their press was free. So in a way the question of freedom of the press doesn’t really arise. You don’t desire what you already have and if you believe you have what you don’t have then you don’t desire it because… you already have what you don’t have? Sab maya hai…
World opinion is divided on the importance of having a free press, according to a poll conducted for the BBC World Service.
Of those interviewed, 56% thought that freedom of the press was very important to ensure a free society.
But 40% said it was more important to maintain social harmony and peace, even if it meant curbing the press’s freedom to report news truthfully.
Pollsters interviewed 11,344 people in 14 countries for the survey.
The recent ban on news and current affairs related talk shows in Pakistan has generated creative responses. The latest being that the hosts of these various talk shows have now in the face of the ban simply taken the show out of the studios on to the road. Talat Hussain from AAJ TV and Hamid Mir from Geo amongst others are running their shows from street corners and pavements. An excerpt from a news story:
One of Pakistan’s most popular political TV chat shows, Capital Talk, had an impressive collection of panelists for yesterday’s show, including a retired general and a senator.
Hamid Mir, a leading Pakistani journalist and the program’s host, orchestrated a lively debate, engaging the audience with his usual skill. The familiar theme music introduced and ended the program, which focused on the most popular topic in the country: the emergency measures and the January election.
But the program was not filmed yesterday as usual in the studios of the popular Geo television channel. There was no point. Geo has been pulled off the air. Instead, the show was set up on the pavement outside the studio building. Instead of playing to millions of viewers, Capital Talk was seen by only the few dozen who gathered on the street to watch and a small number tuning in via the Internet.
Here is an excerpt from the new code of conduct for the Media in Pakistan:
(k)Â Â Â ensure that no anchor person, moderator or host propagates any opinion or acts in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan or sovereignty, integrity or security of Pakistan.
…
(m) not broadcast anything which defames or brings into ridicule the Head of State, or members of the armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organs of the state;
The entire text can be found here.
Published by Angad Chowdhry October 23rd, 2007
in Burma, Internet and censorship.
This reminds me of the time when Colin Powell made the speech at the UN concerning the war in Iraq. Picasso’s Guernica, which was displayed behind the podium, was covered. The official stand was that it distracted from the frame; however, as many commentators said, this was done to remove the possible interpretation of how the US bombing of Iraq was similar to the Nazi bombing of Spanish Villages from viewers (and history’s) minds. In covering it, the US made this reading - which would have probably been ignored if it had been uncovered - possible.
Do we not see something similar in the Burmese Junta’s shutting down of Internet communications? The little fragments of information that did manage to get through got elevated to a level of ennunciative power that would not have existed had the internet not been shut down. The poor Japanese journalist with his clicks clicking away as the soldier shoots him in the head, the floating monk through the water, Ko Hitkes smuggled statements, the very drought of images and statements elevated the existing ones to global, metaphysical, political, poetic proportions.
Published by Meenu October 1st, 2007
in Latest news, Pakistan, censorship and police.
Just had news that Adnan Sattar whom all of us have been reading regularly on our site was injured in the protest demonstration outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad. Friends tell me that he has two fractures on his wrist and ankle. However things slightly better now and he is now out of hospital. From one of his posts in a celebratory mood (the Supreme Court had reinstated the Chief Justice)-
“Even as we sang, swirled in joy, clapped and danced late into night while it poured heavily in Islamabad, we knew it was just the beginning of a long way to real political change in the country.” The movement for democracy and the protests continue in Pakistan.
The protests on the 29th of Sept. were against the approval by the Election Commission of General Musharraf’s candidacy for Presidential elections. Read the news here.
Note: While this video says Karachi, these are images from Islamabad
From another report today:
Two top police officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and another city official have been suspended, the interior minister says.
Earlier the Supreme Court demanded their suspension following anti-government clashes on Saturday in which many people were injured.
Published by Angad Chowdhry September 27th, 2007
in Burma, Internet and censorship.
Friends, BBC has an article on how Burmese bloggers are working around censorship.
Also, please head over to Ko Htike’s blog.
To all folk, it is really bad in YGN, pLs can someone do something for our country, now inside YGN it has been look like War Zone, i even heard stooting over the phone. it is over 50 shots, right now. but people are not giving up to protest and more and more people coming out to street.
they even used tear gas into primary school.
FYI, from Mid-Day. I wonder how many times the police computers will now log Pamela Anderson. Or, as we have seen here at SMC, our favorite Google Search word: Pamela Andrson (oops, just got 200 more hits here)…
Mumbai police will have access to new software connected to 500 cyber cafes in the city that will send them logs
The Mumbai police will soon have khabris deployed (not physically) at over 500 cyber cafes in the city. A new software will allows cops to swoop down on terrorists the moment a keystroke is pressed at any cyber café across the city.
Investigations into the recent Hyderabad and Mumbai blasts have revealed that the planning was done using the Internet especially, chat rooms.
In fact, it is a well-known fact that terrorists all over the world do not use paper and pen or the phone to communicate. Everywhere, all over the world, it’s the net.
Read more HERE. Image remixed from HERE
Published by Meenu July 29th, 2007
in censorship.
The police disrupted the screening of a film on Kashmir Jashn-e-Azadi directed by Sanjay Kak in Mumbai. Here is the news.
The 2-hour, 18-minute long documentary, directed bySanjay Kak, was just about to begin when cops barged into the Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan at Prabhadevi and seized all the dvds.
“We were told that the documentary is provocative and inflammatory. Therefore we requested the organisers to let us watch the movie before it was screened”, Deputy Commissioner of Police, D N Phadtare, told Mumbai Mirror. But getting the cops to play censor was not acceptable to the show’s organisers, Vikalp. “We told them in that case it would not be possible to allow them to screen the film and confiscated the DVDs,” said Phadtare.
Published by Angad Chowdhry July 26th, 2007
in Announcements, Hacks for Academics, History, India diary, Internet, Latest news, News, Panic time, Religion, Theory, art, censorship, design, mobiles, remix, technology, video and viral.
The Cellphabet 1.0 happens tomorrow.
What DJ Fadereu has accomplished is so ground breaking that I’m not sure how to talk about it. Check here for the event background and here for the wizardry that made it possible. Check here for a behind the scenes look.
Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy cause Kansas is goin’ bye bye.
Do you know that ’someone’ always knows where you are? Do you know that the mobile phone in your hand is always being watched by invisible eyes?
कà¥à¤¯à¤¾ आपॠजानते हैं कि हर वकà¥à¤¤ कà¥à¤› अदà¥à¤°à¤¶à¥à¤¯ नज़रें आपको देखती रहती हैं? आपके मोबाईल फ़ोन के ज़रिये..
Okay, so I was smacked upside the head by a not very impressed DJ Fadereu for my last post on google. Alas. You cant please a pro. Anyway … I’m now going to teach y’all something even more basic cause I dunno how many of you know this, but it is very very important trick to know. I’m not going to tell you guys when you should use it cause, well, it’s obvious.
firstly, if you haven’t already, get Firefox. It’s free, fast, fun, opensource and generally cool.
Step one - find out your own ip. Click on what is my ip and figure it out. Note that down somewhere.
Now go to anyone of the free anonymous proxy sites - make sure they are FRESH
You will see a lot of numbers and locations like so:
211.154.104.85 80 high-anonymous proxy server China
The first bit ( 211.154.104.85) is the http proxy and the second bit (80) is the port. Don’t use this one above, make sure you get a FRESH one
Then go to (in firefox) - Alt T, O (Tools - Options … academics who know keyboard shortcuts are hot shit)
Published by matti.pohjonen June 6th, 2007
in Internet and censorship.
There was this interesting editorial in the Guardian today by Cory Doctorow, the editor of Boing-Boing, about Internet filtering and censorship. Did you know that our SACREDMEDIACOW is also censored by Internet filters (tried a computer that had one in Germany) cos it includes badbad words such as “teenage virgins” in random contexts. So we are now classified pornography and children need to be protected from us. Cory writes:
People say bad things online. They write vile lies about blameless worthies. They pen disgusting racist jeremiads, post gut-churning photos of sex acts committed against children, and more sexist and homophobic tripe than you could read - or stomach - in a lifetime. They post fraudulent offers, alarmist conspiracy theories, and dangerous web pages containing malicious, computer-hijacking code.
It’s not hard to understand why companies, government, schools and parents would want to filter this kind of thing. Most of us don’t want to see this stuff. Most of us don’t want our kids to see this stuff - indeed, most of us don’t want anyone to see this stuff.
Everybody here is quite familiar with the recent happenings in Pakistan and the ways in which Aaj TV has been at the centre of a huge censorship drama. In the recent months many TV channels in Pakistan have been taking a very critical posture vis-Ã -vis the State and the Army with reference to the current judicial crisis. On June 1, PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) issued notifications to private TV channels to inform them of the decision banning TV coverage of the events related to the chief justice. Amir Wasim writing in the Dawn yesterday says,
The Pemra letter to the TV channels, a copy of which is available with Dawn, states: “No programme shall be aired which (i) is likely to encourage and incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which promotes anti-national and anti-state attitude; (ii) contains anything which amounts to contempt of court; (iii) contains aspersions against the judiciary and integrity of the armed forces of Pakistan; (iv) maligns or slander any individual in person or certain groups, segments of social, public and moral life of the country; and is against basic cultural values, morality and good manner.†“You are, therefore, advised to refrain/desist from relaying programmes which deviate (from) Pemra laws and Code of Conduct. Non-implementation of the directives in this respect shall invoke legal action under Pemra Ordinance 2002 and rules/regulations made there under,†says the letter carrying the signature of Pemra director-general (enforcement) Rana Altaf Majid.
A great piece from our guest writer Adnan Sattar:
**
Pakistan’s Tryst with Destiny
Sixty years too late, a nation is having its tryst with destiny. Pakistan is being reborn in court rooms and cafes, on bus stations and streets, and of course, on television screens. General Musharaf, who was pretty much invincible in his military regalia a few months back, seems to be hanging by a flimsy thread now. What is most promising about the emerging movement is the convergence of media, legal community, politicians and increasingly the common men and women, on the imperative for rule of law, democracy and justice. Today, Pakistan is mobilizing on progressive, secular lines and not around religion or ethnicity.
The suspension of chief justice in March this year turned out to be a catalyst for the kind of political momentum that can topple powerful regimes. In Chief Justice, Iftekhar Chaudary, Pakistan today has a symbol of resistance, a David who decided to take on Goliath by refusing to step down.
Found something that should be NSFW but is Totally SFW. Check.
It reminded me of when Meenu was talking about spectatorship and DVD’s here . The point to keep in mind, I suppose, is that VCDs, DVDs, pirated PS2 games, DVD players and CD players often distort, scratch, hang and blur here. There is a trend where the ‘cut’ the ‘gap’ and the ‘fissure’ are brought into sharp relief through the artist’s or theorist’s clever use of technology - but, there are some places where the cut, the gap and the fissure are the norm. Anybody who has put toothpaste on his scratched CD’s, screamed when the pirated game did not work, installed pirated software only to realise that the serial number was not included in the txt file on the CD, waited four hours on dial up to download a 20 second movie clip only to have it come out incomprehensible, will know what I am talking about.
This series is part of an ongoing research on visual ways to dissolve pornographic imageryn abstraction and absurd.
For the Les Brouillages / Scrambled series, using video footage downloaded from Internet, I exploit the artifacts, errors, blurs inherent to heavy digital compression and incomplete files.
Published by Meenu March 16th, 2007
in Latest news, Pakistan and censorship.
This is a video of the still ongoing police attack on the Geo TV office put up minutes ago on Youtube. The Pakistan Chief Justice issue has escalated and larger questions about democracy and censorship are being raised. The many videos on Youtube on the issue go with titles like ” Bol ke lab azaad hain terey” (Speak up because your lips/mouth are free to speak) or “Those who said no” and even “Long Live chief justice” (!)
There is also a short prayer for the rulers of the nation after the report which prays that those in power receive good council, have the courage to think and take the right decisions! Ame(e)n!
Published by Meenu March 15th, 2007
in Latest news, Pakistan and censorship.
The suspension of the Chief Justice in Pakistan led to violent clashes with the police and massive protests by the lawyer community. Our guest writer Adnan had written on the events in an earlier post. As I googled †Chief-justice-removal-pakistan†I got stories from many years, 1997, 2001etc. Censorship of both the print and electronic media followed this incident with some channels being put off air because of their reportage of the events.
The Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) suspended the broadcasts of two privately-owned television stations - Aaj and Geo TV - for several minutes on 12 March, after they transmitted footage of blood-soaked lawyers who had been beaten by police during a demonstration in support of supreme court president Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.
Read the entire article here.
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