Malaysia: New guidelines for Film Censorship Board

30 Mar 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized

The Malaysian Home Ministry website has just published new censorship guidelines for films this week. Restrictions around profanity and displays of intimacy between adults have been relaxed, if they are “appropriate” to the context of the film. However the Board still remains firm on nudity, sex and negative depictions of Muslims, unless the filmmaker is wishing to “depict a person’s transformation from being evil to good”.

Malaysian officials seize magazine

26 Aug 09 | Index Index, minipost

In Kuala Lumpur, copies of the inaugural issue of Gedung Kartun magazine have been confiscated by officials due to a “lack of publication permit” as well as for “content checking.” The magazine’s editor-in-chief and well-known cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque aka Zunar disputes this and claims to have verbally obtained a license serial number. Read more here

Malaysia in web censorship U-turn

13 Aug 09 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost

Malaysian rights activists have welcomed the government’s decision not to implement a controversial plan to create an Internet filter blocking “undesirable” websites. The proposal had been described as a “horror of horrors” by the opposition which said it would destroy the relative freedom of the Internet in Malaysia, where the mainstream press is tightly controlled. Read more here