30 Aug 11 | Uncategorized
It’s not only China that’s working on a musical blacklist. Over 2,600 songs have been banned in the past two years in South Korea after being flagged for “hazardous media content” by the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
But it’s not 1990s boy bands whose declarations of love are being censored. Lyrics deemed “problematic” by the ministry have included references to the effects of alcohol made by contemporary Korean groups.
The ministry’s aim is to protect young people from “negative cultural influences”, but both musicians and fans have criticised the ban as an infringement on freedom of expression. One netizen wrote,
This is pitiful. We are living in the internet era and they forbid songs due to their references to liquor? One can easily access to more hard-core stuff online… Why dont you just block the internet, deeming it inappropriate for kids below age 19. […] They spent about 21 billion 940 million Korean Won (approximately 200 million USD) of government money this year in censoring these songs! [This refers to the Ministry’s yearly budget, not the total amount of money spent on the censorship alone] Will songs about liquor (exclusively) prompt kids to drink alcohol? The kids are not that simple. Why don’t you, the Ministry, focus on taking care of runaway kids rather than doing this?
Lee Yoo Eun at Global Voices Online has a great wrap-up of the story.
30 Aug 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has attacked injustices in China in a candid and scathing article posted on Newsweek magazine’s website.
He writes of Beijing,
Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper.
(…)
Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.
He adds,
The worst thing about Beijing is that you can never trust the judicial system. Without trust, you cannot identify anything; it’s like a sandstorm. You don’t see yourself as part of the city—there are no places that you relate to, that you love to go. No corner, no area touched by a certain kind of light. You have no memory of any material, texture, shape. Everything is constantly changing, according to somebody else’s will, somebody else’s power.
He also alludes to his own 81 day-detention:
My ordeal made me understand that on this fabric, there are many hidden spots where they put people without identity. With no name, just a number. They don’t care where you go, what crime you committed. They see you or they don’t see you, it doesn’t make the slightest difference. There are thousands of spots like that. Only your family is crying out that you’re missing. But you can’t get answers from the street communities or officials, or even at the highest levels, the court or the police or the head of the nation. My wife has been writing these kinds of petitions every day, making phone calls to the police station every day. Where is my husband? Just tell me where my husband is. There is no paper, no information.
Ai’s remarks come just days after reports surfaced that claimed the People’s Republic was planning to give police legal powers to hold some suspects for up to six months without telling their next of kin of their whereabouts or charges against them. Human rights activists and legal scholars have said the move would legitimise, and potentially increase, detentions.
Ai’s arrest was the most high-profile in a large-scale crackdown in which dozens of Chinese activists, dissidents and lawyers were held this year. State media said he was held for “economic crimes”, though his supporters and family have claimed he was targeted due to his social and political activism. Ai was released in June “because of his good attitude in confessing” and health concerns.
