Free speech issues making news around the world

INDIA
India’s Central Board of Film Certification‘s Cut-Uncut Festival (26-28 April) “aims to clear the air on the process of film certification and provide a common, and public, platform for aggrieved filmmakers and activists to thrash out issues of censure and censorship of the movies.” (Live Mint/Wall Street Journal)

THAILAND
Nontawat Numbenchapol, director of a banned documentary about Thai-Cambodia border conflicts, said on Thursday that Thailand’s censorship board will allow the film to be shown if dialogue is muted in some scenes. Fah Tam Pan Din Soon, or Boundary, was prevented from being released commercially on Tuesday. The scenes in question show villagers on both sides of the conflict discussing the Thai political climate during the last three years. (Bangkok Post)

UNITED STATES
An opinion piece in Tennessee’s Jackson Sun urged the US state’s governor to veto a bill which would criminalise, “anyone, including new media, taking pictures of livestock abuse and not turning over all unedited photos and videos of suspected abuse to police within 48 hours.” (Jackson Sun)

YEMEN
The Freedom Foundation for Media Freedom, Rights and Development issued a report saying media freedom in Yemen is at an all time low. The report follows several recent assassination attempts on journalists. (Yemen Times)

BRAZIL
The BBC reports that a Brazilian judge ordered the removal of a Facebook memorial page for a 24-year-old journalist at the request of her mother, who said the material being posted by her daughter’s friends was causing her family emotional distress. Though Facebook declined to comment on the case to the BBC, Judge Vania de Paula Arantes ruled 19 March and 10 April. A third ruling this week ordered the social network to remove the page within 48 hours. (BBC)