Religious Intimidation and Blogger blocked/controled

Human expression in weblog/ blogger is being reined. Some where by state power / central power (government power), somewhere by service provider, it should be condemned.

in Blogspot, Pakistan, Blogger Blocked
Indus Asia Online Journal reports that the government of Pakistan has blocked Blogspot, cutting off access to thousands of blogs in the country. It was last reported blocked in Pakistan in September.
Mizzima reports that the tinhorns in Burma have, through the country’s two ISPs, blocked access to the Blogger.com blogging platform (also known as Blogspot).
In a bid to stop the flow of information outside Burma one of the most popular blog sites http://www.blogger.com/ has been banned by the Myanmar Post and Telecomm Ministry as of […]
Blogging as Protected Speech
According to Law.com, a judge in Manhattan has ruled that Google, the ISP of a blogger critical of a school board, is under no obligation to disclose the name of the blogger, known as Othormom. The ruling, based on the details of the complaint against the blogger, are not necessarily going to further establish blogging […]
Nazi Blogger Shut Down
Google has closed down the blog of Serbian neo-Nazi, Novosadjanin Goran Davidovi?. I just checked it and the message said, “This blog is in violation of Blogger’s Terms of Service and is open to authors only”. Blogger/Google is a private company, but the tendency to cinch up on weird thought is troubling. It certainly doesn’t […]
Burmese Bloggers Go Dark, Pt. 2
It has being widely reported throughout Pakistan that access to the entire blogspot.com domain has yet again been blocked in Pakistan. For about four months (since May, 2007) Google fortunately had changed the IP address of its Blogspot servers. The new IP addresses were not demarcated as prohibited by the censorship […]

According to Global Voices Advocacy, China Telecom has blocked feeds from the popular FeedBurner service. If you use China Telcom in China, you will not be able to reed the RSS feeds generated by FeedBurner.
Moon-Blog, who has done a traceroute from China to check the block, found that the traceroute failed at the backbone level […]

Update: Three hours of sleep is not your friend. I had a very old Slashdot posting. (Thanks, Anil.)
According to BBC News, Blogger has been hacked.
Google’s Blogger site is being used by malicious hackers who are posting fake entries to some blogs.
The fake entries contain weblinks that lead to booby-trapped downloads that could infect a […]
source http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/category/blogger/


The Associated Press reports that today the Chinese government has blocked the video-sharing service YouTube. The block was in response to the posting of dozens of videos showing footage of the Tibet riots. Like last year’s Burmese riots, these have also been led by monks and have resulted in over 80 deaths so far.

A car belonging to YemenPortal, was vandalized today. Editor Walid Al-Saqaf indicated in a note that he believes official representatives of the Yemeni government directly responsible. He believes the action was a result of his attempt to provide alternative URLs for his site. He created an alternative domain and emailed it to several hundred subscribers […]
Report on Anti-Blogging Measures from Burmese Blogger
http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/category/censorship


NEW LAWS THREATEN FREE EXPRESSION
http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/95192/

ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia has passed a new media law that bans censorship of private media and the detention of journalists, but which critics say maintains other threats to free expression.
"Under the new law, previous restrictions against private media outlets, such as detention of journalists suspected of infringement of the law, has been scrapped," a Parliament statement said.
But opposition members say the law, passed on 1 July, still allows state prosecutors to invoke national security as grounds for impounding publishing materials prior to publication and distribution.
Opposition Parliamentarian Temesgen Zewede told reporters, "Although censorship is abolished, such a right to impound press material before distribution is tantamount to censorship."
The government is also planning to impose strict controls and "draconian" criminal penalties on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in a separate law, say Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Ethiopia says the draft law on charities and societies is a way for NGOs to be financially transparent and accountable to their stakeholders. But Human Rights Watch says the government's intent is "to consolidate that trend by taking the 'non' out of 'non-governmental' and putting civil society under government control."

For example, the draft law imposes stiff criminal penalties for anyone participating in "unlawful" civil society activity - jail time for participating in a meeting held by an unlawful organisation or disseminating the organisation's information.

Who decides which NGOs are lawful? The government of course - the bill calls for a Charities and Society Agency with extensive powers to license NGOs, monitor their activities and interfere in their management and staffing, says Human Rights Watch.

Plus, all non-Ethiopian NGOs are not allowed to carry out work related to human rights - making it difficult for IFEX members to report free expression violations or engage in human rights activities in the country. Meanwhile, Ethiopian rights NGOs that get more than 10 percent of funding from foreign sources would be considered foreign and would also be closed down.

"The law's key provisions are blunt and heavy-handed mechanisms to control and monitor civil society groups while punishing those whose work displeases the government," say Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. "It could also seriously restrict much of the development-related work currently being carried out by some of Ethiopia's key international partners."

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty are calling on donor governments, especially Ethiopia's biggest donors, the United States and the United Kingdom, to speak out publicly against the criminalisation of human rights work in Ethiopia.

"Their policy of silence has had the effect of helping to embolden the Ethiopian government to make further assaults on human rights, exemplified by the draft NGO law," says Human Rights Watch.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, once considered a pioneer of democracy in Africa, had seen his reputation wane since post-election violence that killed 200 people in 2005. Journalists and opposition members viewed as sympathetic to the protesters were then arrested and charged with treason, and now formal political opposition has become nearly extinct in most of the country.

Visit these links:
- Human Rights Watch: http://tinyurl.com/5jplq2
- "The Nation" (Kenya) on new media law: http://allafrica.com/stories/200807040064.html
- IFEX Ethiopia page: http://tinyurl.com/58q5rr

Intimidation-Free Europe?
July 9, 2008 by centurean2 The right of free expression is at stake
Holland, FITNA & Islamic Intimidation
Terrorism Lance Fairchok, Featured Writer April 3, 2008

“The film equates Islam with violence. We reject that interpretation,”
The Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
Geert Wilders film FITNA is a 15-minute indictment of Islamic radicalism. This terrifies the government of the Netherlands and it hopes minimize any violent reaction by condemning it. However, saying something does not make it so, no matter how endlessly it is repeated. It is not a matter of “interpretation,” it is a matter of truth; Islam brings violence. Decades of naïve multiculturalism, generous handouts and easy asylum for “Muslim refugees” has made Holland a land of two incompatible belief systems. Islam has become the largest active religion in Holland, its churches do not draw a fraction of the attendance that its mosques do.
The Dutch Prime Minister also rejects free speech in his condemnation, which is not surprising; the Netherlands may be the first European country to allow Shari’a law to compete with national courts. They may not have a choice. While the Dutch see themselves as eminently civilized and able to negotiate and appease conflict away, Muslim immigrant populations skyrocket. They dither while their country is stolen from under them.

Last October a Muslim radical attacked and seriously wounded two police officers with a knife in the city of Amsterdam. One officer was able to get off a shot, which killed the attacker. That officer nearly died. The event touched off days of riots and car burnings. Moroccan residents ironically claimed they were upset at being “stigmatized” as violent. The attacker, a member of a radical group with a long criminal record shouted “Allah Akbar” as he attacked. The fact that he was shot by a female officer did not help matters. The Dutch press avoided any mention of Islamic radicalism. The government-spun tales of disadvantaged youth, mental illness and economic inequities to distract the citizenry and like the French, deftly side stepped the problem.

Islam has been eating away at the Netherlands for many decades. Its sway is far out of proportion to its population. It demands special treatment and gets it. The government fears them, they know it, and exploit that fear at every turn. Dutchmen who speak out against Muslim violence toward women, such as Theo Van Gogh, are murdered in the street. Outspoken critics of Islam such as parliamentarian Ayan Hirsi Ali are hounded out of the country by a combination of intimidation and government cowardice. Residents in her apartment building asked for her to move after death threats were made. They did not feel safe. Perhaps the cowardice is cultural.

Europe is being methodically Islamicized. The steady undermining of the rule of law and democratic institutions by Islamic supremacists attempts to create two separate societies, with Islam preeminent. The intrinsic multicultural tolerance of nations like Holland and Belgium is turned against them. Islam is a bully, and the endless concessions to its hypersensitive self-image inevitably go unrewarded. Tolerance is a weakness, one gleefully exploited. Islam does not share the Dutch humanist ideology, an ideology that has transformed from a primrose path to utopia into a suicidal pathology.

“I condemn, in the strongest terms, the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film. There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here. I acknowledge the efforts of the Government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of this film, and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the film FITNA

The UN General Secretary, as usual, has it exactly backwards. His muddle-headed timorous leftism supports censorship to appease a violent minority, not social responsibility. When does the accusation of “incitement” translate into intimidation and extortion? At the point where free speech is silenced by threats, when incitement is defined as any criticism, however logical, when our standards of freedom, free expression and reason are overturned.

Wilders film does not incite violence, he merely points out the root cause, Islam provides the rest. The insistence that the Koran does not encourage violence is absurd. Of course it does, one merely has to tally the recorded acts of terror worldwide since 9-11 to see that unfortunate fact. The numbers do not lie. A quick cross reference with their holy book reveals violent virtues on many of its pages, as well as guidance for misogyny, pedophilia and genocidal hatred. They do not consider them metaphors. They act on them.

The outrage about this film is an inarticulate shout from a belief system trying to disguise its innate depravity and hide its hypocrisy. We cannot fight what we do not understand, and we cannot understand unless we examine more than the propaganda of Islamic apologists and their useful idiots. The film asks us to see a truth too many people, and too many governments simply ignore.

Geert Wilder’s film is easily accessible on the web. It should be spread to the widest possible audience. He says nothing in the film that is not true, nor does he make any unsupportable accusation. He is a man watching his nation and his culture slowly strangled. Making FITNA was an act of bravery and love of country, which has put Geert Wilders in mortal peril. It is a desperate rallying cry that may well be too late.
“So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam.” – Qur’an 8:39
http://www.therant.us/staff/l_fairchok/2008/04032008.htm
http://uk1884.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/intimidation-free-europe/
http://citizensagainstsharia.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/notice-what-does-not-offend-muslims/


We’re for freedom of expression and equality for women and religious minorities.Home About Standard Arguments Reform or Apostasy? Sharia More Sharia Resources:
Notice What Does NOT Offend Muslims .
The Amboy Times ( http://amboytimes.typepad.com/the_amboy_times/2007/02/how_the_pope_se.html
http://amboytimes.typepad.com/the_amboy_times/2007/02/how_the_pope_se.html )

watch.islam@gmail.com has posted a growing list of Things That Offend Muslims. Several of the items on this list have been protested quite visibly by many Muslims, in some cases including death threats, violence and even murder.

Thousands upon thousands of Muslims have protested a bunch of cartoons published in Denmark. Muslims worldwide have expressed their outrage, not only through peaceful protests, but also by burning down embassies and murdering innocent people.
More recently, the movie Fitna was produced by Geert Wilders, a Dutch PM. Again, thousands protested.
Now, let’s look at what does NOT offend Muslims….
If worldwide demonstrations, violence, and mayhem shows us what offends Muslims the most, then it is equally revealing to pay attention to the events that do not cause sufficient offense for Muslims to muster any noticeable protest at all:

Apostates Tortured, Killed: As we have noted, apostates of Islam may be threatened with death, even in the West. Recently, a Muslim man who converted to Christianity in Iran was arrested, tortured, and may yet be killed. Many other apostates have been killed, beaten, or threatened. Where’s the Muslim outrage over this travesty? Why are there no large, visible groups of Muslims fighting for the right of apostasy?
Religious Minorities Persecuted Throughout Muslim Lands: Christians, Jews, Bahais, Hindus, Buddhists and others are persecuted throughout the Muslim world. Why aren’t Muslims more offended by this than they are by a movie?
Women Treated as Second Class Citizens: In Pakistan, thousands of women in prison are rape victims. Honor killings, stoning of adulteresses, and FGM (female genital mutilation) plague the Muslim world. Saudi women can get into trouble for driving a car. Why no big demonstrations against this appalling treatment of women? Is this less of an offense than a cartoon?
Islam Linked to Militant Jihad by Muslims: Muslims are offended when non-Muslims discuss Islamic Jihad (which was one subject of the movie Fitna). However, there are Muslims who have linked militant Jihad to Islam, in modern times and throughout history, yet these Muslims who promote militant Jihad are never protested in a large way by other Muslims. A press release may be issued, but Muslims are not demonstrating in the streets over this. Why the double standard?
Mohammed’s Example Justifies Marital Sex with Nine-Year-Olds: According to a Saudi marriage official, a girl can be married at any age, even one year, so long as the marriage isn’t consummated until she is nine. This is based on authenticated Muslim Hadith (traditions) that Mohammed married Aisha, his favorite wife, when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. How is it possible that Muslims aren’t sufficiently offended by the Saudi’s comment to protest his words?
Jews Marked for Death Worldwide: According to Palestinian cleric Wael Al-Zarad on Al-Aqsa TV, the Muslims’ blood vengeance against the Jews “will only subside with their [the Jews] annihilation.” This is not the only recent example of Muslims calling for a new Jewish holocaust. Why are Muslims not offended by these calls to genocide? Why is there no obvious sign of Muslim outrage over this?
OIC Moves to Quash Free Expression in the West: The OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) is making bold moves to stifle criticism of Islam through the UN. There is a plethora of other Muslim groups attempting to stifle free speech about Islam in the West. All Muslims who embrace free speech and free press must be terribly embarrassed about this. Where are the demonstrations?
Slavery Practiced by Muslims: Recently, UAE royals enslaved 17 women at a luxury hotel in Belgium. Slavery has never been entirely abolished in the Muslim world. Surely this would be enough to generate some Muslim outrage, but I have seen no mass demonstrations against those Muslims who continue this abhorrent practice.
It isn’t that no Muslims are offended by the above list. On the contrary, there are some examples of decent Muslims speaking out against abuses committed by Muslims, often in the name of Islam. To notice the lack of public demonstrations over the above list does not disparage the tremendous efforts of these brave individuals and small groups. However, the Muslim community as a whole does not seem sufficiently disturbed by the items on this list to protest them en masse. Why would some cartoons be more offensive than torturing and killing apostates? Why would a movie be more offensive than declarations of genocide? Where are the Muslims who would demonstrate in the streets for the right of apostasy, true equality for religious minorities in Muslim lands, equality for women, full renunciation of militant Jihad, marriage for adults only, respect for Jews, free expression, and a real abolition of slavery? Hello? Are you out there?

http://citizensagainstsharia.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/notice-what-does-not-offend-muslims/

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
'Public' online spaces don't carry speech, rights
by ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer Sun Jul 6, 2:17 PM ET

Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed.
Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that's controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors.
The governmental role that companies play online is taking on greater importance as their services — from online hangouts to virtual repositories of photos and video — become more central to public discourse around the world. It's a fallout of the Internet's market-driven growth, but possible remedies, including government regulation, can be worse than the symptoms.

Dutch photographer Maarten Dors met the limits of free speech at Yahoo Inc.'s photo-sharing service, Flickr, when he posted an image of an early-adolescent boy with disheveled hair and a ragged T-shirt, staring blankly with a lit cigarette in his mouth.

Without prior notice, Yahoo deleted the photo on grounds it violated an unwritten ban on depicting children smoking. Dors eventually convinced a Yahoo manager that — far from promoting smoking — the photo had value as a statement on poverty and street life in Romania. Yet another employee deleted it again a few months later.

"I never thought of it as a photo of a smoking kid," Dors said. "It was just of a kid in Romania and how his life is. You can never make a serious documentary if you always have to think about what Flickr will delete."

There may be legitimate reasons to take action, such as to stop spam, security threats, copyright infringement and child pornography, but many cases aren't clear-cut, and balancing competing needs can get thorny.

"We often get caught in the middle between a rock and a hard place," said Christine Jones, general counsel with service provider GoDaddy.com Inc. "We're obviously sensitive to the freedoms we have, particularly in this country, to speak our mind, (yet) we want to be good corporate citizens and make the Internet a better and safer place."

In Dors' case, the law is fully with Yahoo. Its terms of service, similar to those of other service providers, gives Yahoo "sole discretion to pre-screen, refuse or remove any content." Service providers aren't required to police content, but they aren't prohibited from doing so.

While mindful of free speech and other rights, Yahoo and other companies say they must craft and enforce guidelines that go beyond legal requirements to protect their brands and foster safe, enjoyable communities — ones where minors may be roaming.

Guidelines help "engender a positive community experience," one to which users will want to return, said Anne Toth, Yahoo's vice president for policy.

Dors ultimately got his photo restored a second time, and Yahoo has apologized, acknowledging its community managers went too far.

Heather Champ, community director for Flickr, said the company crafts policies based on feedback from users and trains employees to weigh disputes fairly and consistently, though mistakes can happen.

"We're humans," she said. "We're pretty transparent when we make mistakes. We have a record of being good about stepping up and fessing up."

But that underscores another consequence of having online commons controlled by private corporations. Rules aren't always clear, enforcement is inconsistent, and users can find content removed or accounts terminated without a hearing. Appeals are solely at the service provider's discretion.

Users get caught in the crossfire as hundreds of individual service representatives apply their own interpretations of corporate policies, sometimes imposing personal agendas or misreading guidelines.

To wit: Verizon Wireless barred an abortion-rights group from obtaining a "short code" for conducting text-messaging campaigns, while LiveJournal suspended legitimate blogs on fiction and crime victims in a crackdown on pedophilia. Two lines criticizing President Bush disappeared from AT&T Inc.'s webcast of a Pearl Jam concert. All three decisions were reversed only after senior executives intervened amid complaints.

Inconsistencies and mysteries behind decisions lead to perceptions that content is being stricken merely for being unpopular.

"As we move more of our communications into social networks, how are we limiting ourselves if we can't see alternative points of view, if we can't see the things that offend us?" asked Fred Stutzman, a University of North Carolina researcher who tracks online communities.

First Amendment protections generally do not extend to private property in the physical world, allowing a shopping mall to legally kick out a customer wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a smoking child.

With online services becoming greater conduits than shopping malls for public communications, however, some advocacy groups believe the federal government needs to guarantee open access to speech. That, of course, could also invite meddling by the government, the way broadcasters now face indecency and other restrictions that are criticized as vague.

Others believe companies shouldn't police content at all, and if they do, they should at least make clearer the rules and the mechanisms for appeal.

"Vagueness does not inspire the confidence of people and leaves room for gaming the system by outside groups," said Lauren Weinstein, a veteran computer scientist and Internet activist. "When the rules are clear and the grievance procedures are clear, then people know what they are working with and they at least have a starting point in urging changes in those rules."

But Marjorie Heins, director of the Free Expression Policy Project, questions whether the private sector is equipped to handle such matters at all. She said written rules mean little when service representatives applying them "tend to be tone-deaf. They don't see context."

At least when a court order or other governmental action is involved, "there's more of a guarantee of due process protections," said Robin Gross, executive director of the civil-liberties group IP Justice. With a private company, users' rights are limited to the service provider's contractual terms of services.

Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard professor who recently published a book on threats to the Internet's openness, said parties unhappy with sensitive materials online are increasingly aware they can simply pressure service providers and other intermediaries.

"Going after individuals can be difficult. They can be hard to find. They can be hard to sue," Zittrain said. "Intermediaries still have a calculus where if a particular Web site is causing a lot of trouble ... it may not be worth it to them."

Unable to stop purveyors of child pornography directly, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo recently persuaded three major access providers to disable online newsgroups that distribute such images. But rather than cut off those specific newsgroups, all three decided to reduce administrative hassles by also disabling thousands of legitimate groups devoted to TV shows, the New York Mets and other topics.

Gordon Lyon, who runs a site that archives e-mail postings on security, found his domain name suddenly deactivated because one entry contained MySpace passwords obtained by hackers.

He said MySpace went directly to domain provider GoDaddy, which effectively shut down his entire site, rather than contact him to remove the one posting or replace passwords with asterisks. GoDaddy justified such drastic measures, saying that waiting to reach Lyon would have unnecessarily exposed MySpace passwords, including those to profiles of children.
To read more click the link
http://greatlibrarynews.blogspot.com/2008/07/public-online-spaces-dont-carry-speech.html

Free speech and fearless listening
By Rashme Sehgal
The digital revolution has ensured that more and more films are made on subjects dealing with exploitation, injustice and terror. But filmmakers from South Asia reported the intensity and frequency of state, mob and media censorship is also increasing

The spectre of censorship is spreading through South Asia, manipulating control of its democratic structures and traditions and creating increasingly authoritarian regimes.
Expressing concern at this trend, documentary filmmakers, lawyers and journalists from across South Asia gathered at the Max Mueller Bhavan in New Delhi in February 2006 to participate in a seminar titled ‘Free Speech and Fearless Listening: The Encounter with Censorship in South Asia’.
Sri Lanka’s Vimukhti Jayasundra’s film The Forsaken Land won a prestigious prize at the Cannes Festival in 2005. A triumphant Jayasundra returned home and to his surprise, he found a hostile environment. There were no reviews and no criticism either. As if this was not discouragement enough, the army entered the fray and decided “it was not a good film” and must be banned. Jayasundra got news that a group of army officers were planning to kill him and the members of his crew. Jayasundra fled the country and remained in exile for several months.

Prasanna Vithanage, also from Sri Lanka, described how several kinds of censorship have made life very difficult for the independent documentary maker who he describes as “being part of a vanishing breed”. Corporate censorship ensured that only large production houses were given the finance to make films. Worse was the draconian ‘army censorship law’ whereby any film that was perceived to affect national security would not receive a censor certificate.

The former was extremely dangerous because the intensification of the ethnic war had created a situation where filmmakers had become soft targets against whom it was easy to whip up a sentiment of hate.

Filmmaker Tanvir Mokkamel from Bangladesh confirmed the presence of a harsh censorship regime in his country. Although he is director of the Bangladesh Film Institute, he described how he has had several skirmishes with the censor board which behaved in contradictory ways that could be harsh, trivial or downright inconsistent.

Mokkamel recalls, “Many of my films were banned including my documentary Remembrance of ’71. The film focused on the killing of over 300 intellectuals in then East Pakistan. They were kidnapped, blindfolded and shot by the soldiers of the Pakistani army and by Islamic fundamentalists. It was one of the most horrifying periods of our life.”

Mokkamel added when his feature film Nadir Nam Modhumat (A River Named Modhumati) was being screened before the censor board. It turned out that the film had several shots of boats negotiating the river. The boat however turned out to be an election symbol of the opposition party and that had the censor board worried. “Why are there so many boats in the film?” he was asked.
Hasan Zaidi, writer and filmmaker from Karachi, pointed out that the present quasi-military dictatorship in Pakistan was following the method of “killing through ambiguity”. The government was not clamping down on the media but was concentrating on tightening the screws on the television media. For one, it was much easier to put pressure on their owners, and for another, television reached much wider audiences. It was for this reason that Indian networks had been taken off the air since they were threatening the cultural sanctity of the nation.
Anurag Kashyap, who has written scripts for such hits as Satya, Yuva and Nayak, describes the insurmountable problems that he faced while trying to release his two films Paanch and Black Friday. Paanch deals with the sub-culture of violence that has spread through Mumbai while Black Friday deals with the Mumbai riots of 1992. Kashyap described how Black Friday had received a censor clearance. But eight hours before its release, the consent was withdrawn. “I realised then that the police did not want it to be screened; neither did the politicians. .. Underlying this changed stance was the fact that if this film was released, other filmmakers would also start making similar films,” said Kashyap.

Other parallel issues were also explored during the course of this three-day seminar. At a session dealing with censorship-related laws participants pointed out the problems of invoking the right to freedom of expression laws because these invariably led to the invoking of other restrictions. Lawrence Liang, a Bangalore-based lawyer, spoke about the need to move from a prohibitive model which curtails freedom of speech to the productive model which removes curbs on creativity.

Surprisingly, censorship is as prevalent in western nations as it is in our part of the world. The highly-acclaimed German filmmaker Andres Veiel spoke about the problems he faced while making a film on Alfred Herrhausen, the chairman of Deutsche Bank, who is reported to have been killed by the CIA (at the behest of US banks) because he wanted to waive third world debt. While there was no proof about this theory, Veiel admits to having been at the receiving end of intimidation and threats. The film called Black Box Germany received the European Film Award for best documentary of 2001.
InfoChange News & Features, March 2006
http://infochangeindia.org/200603116240/Film-Forum/News-Views/Free-speech-and-fearless-listening.html

'Everyone has right to freedom of speech'
Fri, Mar 28 07:19 PM

Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan refused to be drawn into a controversy over the MNS campaign against him saying that India was a free country and everyone has a right to freedom of expression.

"India is a free country and we have the right to freedom of speech and expression. I abide and respect the Constitution. Beyond this I have nothing to say," Bachchan said on the sidelines of International Indian Film Academy function.

Bachchan, who is the Brand Ambassador of IIFA, also said that he was not affected by the comments made by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/indianexpress/20080328/r_t_ie_en_bwd/ten-everyone-has-right-to-freedom-of-spe-80df384.html
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article&sectid=44&contentid=20080510200805100228367447cd2c196
_____________________________
This web log(blog) is dedicated for ‘Freedom of Expression’, as a measure/ manoeuvre of social service all news and information, posted herein, are collected from mostly electronic media/ online (published) news, the source party/ or the name who has the credit of the news shoulders all responsibility of the concerned news have been mentioned along with the original news at bottom of every news, maintained and updated by Albert Ashok on behalf of http://rainbowartistsandwritersfoundation.blogspot.com a non-profit artists’ and writers’ organization defends ‘Freedom of Expression’ and ‘Human Rights’.If you find any news/information is incorrect/wrong then please bring it to our knowledge for immediate correction, we express our unwilling ignorance and ready to make information correct. . email : rawfoundation@ymail.com Please visit us