13 Sep 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
Last week, a Google spokesperson announced that Google.cn’s Chinese Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence had been renewed to 2012.
When Google stopped censoring search result in 2010 and left mainland China to set up in Hong Kong, Google’s ICP renewal by the Chinese government looked doubtful. But to the surprise of many, in July 2010 its licence was successfully renewed. This year, after Google’s announcement, Chinese journalists looked at WHOIS, a Chinese website for checking domain name information noticed that the licence has been extended to March 17 2012.
Experts in China, particularly state media commentators, suggest it is likely Google managed to wrangle this renewal through some sort of compromise. International Finance News, a newspaper run by the state mouthpiece the People’s Daily, suggested this is a sure sign that Google does not want to leave the biggest internet market in the world, and was willing to compromise. According to the local technology provisions issued on 26 August 2011, foreign companies cannot evade censorship by any method, without their government contract being terminated.
In another development, today Google launched Google Shihui, a group buying discount site under its Chinese platform Google.cn. Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based consulting firm Marbridge was quoted in PC World saying that “[Shihui is] a fairly safe neutral area of business in which Google can participate without risking as much.” But Google’s insistence on staying in the Chinese market will mean that it will face continued, and possibly tougher, censorship from the government in the future.
13 Sep 11 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa
Tomorrow, the Cinema Office of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance must decide on the country’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 2012 Oscars. The obvious choice would be A Separation, director Asghar Frahadi’s latest film that screened worldwide this year with overwhelming success. In An Iranian Movie ‘Masterpiece’…And why it may not make it to the Oscars, Ali Chenar presents the convoluted issues and politics at play, exposing a whole new dimension to censorship of film in Iran.
Of course the impact on any artist attempting to pursue their work in this industry is manifold. This month saw the US release of the controversial Circumstance (winner of Sundance Audience Award 2011), a film exploring lesbian love in Iran, and director Maryam Keshavarz felt compelled to make a “goodbye” trip to the country as soon as the work was complete, on the clear understanding that she would become a target of the regime once it was released. The official trailer ends with “Let no love fall victim to circumstance. Freedom is a human right.” And circumstance is exactly what filmmakers must constantly overcome — in the choices that they make and the reality that ensues.
Award-winning director Jafar Panahi under house arrest since December 2010, with an imposed 20-year ban on making films, has bravely played with the limitations of this ban by collaborating on This Is Not A Film, a film poignantly showing the banality of Panahi’s life under house arrest. The film was smuggled out of Iran on a USB pen and screened at Cannes this year. The reels keep turning.
12 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
Bangladesh‘s government has passed a new broadcast law which will censor TV programmes and movies. The law, which will go into effect in three months’ time, prevents the broadcasting of content depicting non-Muslim holidays, as well as “kiss scenes” in films on foreign channels.
12 Sep 11 | Uncategorized
A German TV show depicting a marriage between two men is being prevented from being screened by Italian state broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). The ARD series “Um Himmels Willen” (literally “For Heaven’s Sake”) has been shown in Italy since 2004, yet episode 125, entitled “Romeo and Romeo” and due to screen on RAI Uno on Tuesday, will be left out of the 10-part season in order to “avoid controversy”, according to the broadcaster.
Gay marriage being if not universally accepted then at least legal in Germany, the TV show itself concerns the struggle of two men to see their marriage and sexuality accepted by the society around them. Ironically given the normally religious basis of anti-homosexual activity in Italy, this particular episode sees the couple seeking advice from regular “Um Himmels Willen” character, Sister Hanna, a nun.
Anna Paola Concia, Italian parliamentary lobbyist for the opposition Democratic Party and the only openly gay person in her profession, was quick to underline the hypocrisy of RAI’s decision. “RAI have pushed for censorship of reality itself here,” she said “especially when you consider that there have been several films showing homosexual relationships on TV here.” Concia told Tagesschau, the news-channel from the ARD network (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, since you asked), that reactions to her marriage to her wife in the German town of Frankfurt am Main proved that RAI is working on the false assumption that the Italian public will be angered by seeing a gay relationship on TV. “We received thousands of letters from ‘normal’ Italian people; Catholic, non-Catholic, heterosexual, in order to congratulate us and wish us well,” she said. “There is an enormous gap between the beliefs of the government and the people in this country, and it’s getting wider.”
Italy, with its prime minister Silvio Berlusconi known for his promotion of traditional values, also recently banned an IKEA advert depicting two men shopping in the store with the strapline “we are open for all families.” State secretary for families, Carlo Giovanardi, stated in response: “While homosexual marriage is legal in maybe three or four countries worldwide, here it remains unconstitutional.”
Um Himmels Willen also screens in Hungary, which explicitly banned gay marriage in its new constitution of April 2011.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance writer based in Berlin, Germany
