30 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
This is really quite brilliant. Philip Pullman is asked whether his new book on Jesus is “offensive”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w&feature=player_embedded
“It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.”
Hat tip: Cory Doctorow
23 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost
United Arab Emirates’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has ordered ISPs to block a Facebook page supposedly authored by Allah. The TRA has also said it will ban the unnamed author, who claimed he believes in no god but himself, from holding an internet account. The author behind the page soon has over 600,000 followers and answers questions on the site.
17 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Editor-in-chief of the Firat newspaper Hacı Boğatekin has been sentenced to five years in jail. Bogatekin was charged with “insult” and “defamation” and “attempting to influence a fair trial”. Three other journalists were charged with similar offences. In one of the offending articles Bogatekin argued that the real threat did not come from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party but from religious leader Fethullah Gülen’s congregation. He also published prosecutor Sadullah Ovacıklı’s criticism of his abbreviation of Gülen’s name to “Feto” and made allegations about the prosecutors relationship with Güle. Boğatekin was awarded the Press Freedom Award in 2008 and was awarded by the Contemporary Journalists’ Association (ÇGD) in 2009.
25 Jan 2010 | Uncategorized
Seismic Shock, a Yorkshire-based student (real name Joseph Weissman) who received an alarming visit from local police late last year. Seismic, a Christian, had been heavily critical of Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer on his blog, alleging that Sizer associated with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
On 29 November, he received a visit from local police, who advised him to remove certain posts from his blog. The police officers maintained that this was an “informal chat”, but the blogger, understandably intimidated, agreed to remove his original Blogger site, while maintaining his WordPress blog.
Index on Censorship has made numerous attempts to contact West Yorkshire Police in order to clarify a) under what authority the blogger was visited by police and b) what potential breach of law had been commited by the blogger that warranted such a visit.
So far, no explanation has been offered.
Meanwhile, Stephen Sizer has seemingly been gloating about the visit on another site:
Index on Censorship will continue to demand a response from police.
UPDATE: This just in: “A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “As a result of a report of harassment, which was referred to us by Surrey Police, two officers from West Yorkshire Police visited the author of the blog concerned. The feelings of the complainant were relayed to the author who voluntarily removed the blog. No formal action was taken.”
This begs a question; was any attempt made in the investigation to establish whether any material posted on Seismic Shock could conceivably be construed as harassment? And was any consideration given to free expression and critical debate?
