8 Mar 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Two journalists, Nedem Sener and Ahmet Sik, were sentenced to prison on Sunday pending an investigation into allegations that the military attempted to overthrow the Turkish government in 2003. About 60 journalists are currently imprisoned and thousands face prosecution for their work, reported the Turkish Journalists’ Association.
Meanwhile, there are other concerns about press freedom in Turkey; 600,000 bloggers cannot access their blogs, after Google’s blogging service, Blogspot, was blocked in the country, for example. The site was banned by a Turkish court after users showed football matches on their blogs. Digiturk, a satellite TV firm, has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches in Turkey and approached the courts when it became aware of the matches being shown on the blogs.
8 Mar 2011 | Uncategorized
There will be two billboards in London this month – at Angel and in Hammersmith – displaying the slogan of the British Humanist Association Census Campaign: “If you’re not religious, for god’s sake say so”. Other than online, those two billboards are the only place you are likely to see that slogan, which this week should have been visible on railway stations and on the sides of buses in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff, Exeter and other towns and cities across England and Wales.
The hundreds of other posters supposed to be appearing across the country this week have been prevented from appearing in case they cause offence.
Bus posters with the phrase “for God’s Sake” were turned down by the owners of the space on buses because of the advice of the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) that, under 4.1 of its code, the phrase “for God’s sake” had the potential to cause “widespread” and “serious” offence. We had to amend the slogan to get the bus posters out there.
Posters bearing the slogan intended for railway stations were rejected by the owners of the space for same reason, but the companies owning the space went further and said that, in any case, they didn’t want to take adverts relating to religion. So, we were allowed no posters at railway stations at all.
This sorry episode raises two serious questions about advertising in a free society.
Firstly, how is offence to be measured? We received emails at the office from Christians who weren’t offended by our slogan and at least two Christians I discussed the issue with on radio said the same thing. On what grounds did CAP believe that offence at our slogan would be “widespread”? And what would make that offence – taken in response to a common idiomatic phrase as thoroughly secularised as Christmas – so “serious”? And why did the owners of the railway station spaces shy away from our posters when posters from the Trinitarian Bible Society saying that anyone who doesn’t believe in god is a “fool” are a perennial part of my daily commute? Is offence only serious if people who believe in a god feel it?
The second question is, although we all know that the ASA is responsible for dealing with complaints about adverts once they are up, who is responsible for deciding whether an advert gets up in the first place?
Especially in an area as sensitive as censorship, simple principles of the rule of law would demand that any regulations should be clear, accessible and universally applied and that, in the event of a decision being made, it is clear who has made it, why they have, and how it can be appealed. In our situation, this was all impossible. Both parties – CAP and the owners of the advertising space – were able to place responsibility for the censorship of the adverts on the other.
CAP advised that our adverts could break the code. Owners of the advertising space said they would not take adverts that CAP had advised could break the code. We could not appeal against the advice of CAP because it is non-binding and CAP said it was entirely up to the owners of the space whether to take our adverts. The owners of the space said they would not go against advice from CAP. We could not appeal against them because they are commercial interests perfectly free to refuse any adverts they care to.
If public advertising space becomes increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, there is every reason to fear that what we see will be only what unaccountable and (naturally) offence-shy commercial interests will allow us to see. In this situation, a more suitable role for a regulator than sniffing out offensive potential would be to advance and guarantee free expression against such interests, for all our sakes.
Andrew Copson is chief executive of the British Humanist Association
7 Mar 2011 | Uncategorized
Muslims Against Crusades member Emdadur Choudhury has been fined £50 under the Public Order Act for his part in a protest on Remembrance Day.
Muslims Against Crusades seem to be becoming, at least in media terms, the Westboro Baptist Church of Britain: a fringe group of religious fanatics whose sole purpose seems to be to wind-up right-thinking people and condemn people like Index and the ACLU to defending their rights to be annoying/idiotic.
Of course, this is only half the story. Anjem Choudhary et al, in their various guises, al-Muhajiroun, the Saved Sect, Islam4UK… are not merely a fundamentalist freakshow. They are part of a movement which advocates terror in the name of the defeat of democracy and free expression. Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, the suicide bombers who killed three people and wounded 50 at Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv in 2003, for example, are known to have at very least attended al-Muhajiroun lectures (though any closer link was denied by the organisation).
But Emdadur Choudhury has not been convicted because of his organisation’s links to the global jihadist movement. He has been convicted for burning plastic poppies. This much is clear from the judgment and the acquittal of Choudhury’s fellow protestor, Muhammad Razul Haque. Haque was not convicted, mainly it seems, because he was not filmed with a lighter in hand.
Now, lots of other people were shouting lots of things that day. During the normal remembrance two-minute silence, the MAC protesters had shouted “British Soldiers Burn in Hell” and other charming, catchy slogans. But only Choudhury has been fined. Because it seems only Choudhury set light to the poppies.
Chief Magistrate Howard Riddle has here, singled out the poppy as fetish. While his judgment suggests a respect for free expression, and even the right to shout “British soldiers burn in hell” during a two-minute silence, it draws the line at the desecration of the symbol of this great nation at war. As the narrative of the war in Afghanistan drifts from swift liberation to long-haul, with no end in sight, criticism of the army (our brave boys, to be precise) has become taboo.
It does not add up that a country that claims to be at war with the medieval censors of the Taliban should itself drift into worshipping symbols — religious, secular or martial.
7 Mar 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry has announced a ban on all protests and marches in the kingdom, warning that security forces will come down hard on any demonstrators. Thousands of additional troops have been sent to the restive eastern province of the country. The statement came as opponents of the government called for a “day of rage” on Friday 11 March.
