17 Sep 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
An Iranian religious group has increased a reward offered for the murder of British author Salman Rushdie after blaming him for an anti-Islam film. As Rushdie recounts in his new autobiography, in 1989 Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned him to death for insulting the prophet in his novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie has no links to the film — which has caused riots across the Middle East— he dismissed it as ‘idiotic’, but Ayatollah Hassan Sanei of the 15 Khordad Foundation said the film would never have been released had Rushdie been killed after the fatwa was declared. Sanei increased the reward by $500,000 USD, making the total sum $3.3million USD.
17 Sep 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
Yesterday Iran confirmed that its revolutionary guards corps (IRGC) forces are present in Syria helping Bashar al-Assad’s government fight rebel forces. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, issued a further warning that it would get involved militarily if its Arab ally came under attack. British officials say that the IRGC has provided riot control equipment and technical advice on how to crush dissent, as well as providing support to improve monitor protestor’s use of the internet and mobile phone networks.
17 Sep 2012 | Asia and Pacific, minipost, News and features
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has reportedly ordered the state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block YouTube after the video-sharing website failed to remove a controversial anti-Islam film, The Innocence of Muslims. “Blasphemous content will not be accepted at any cost,” Prime Minister Ashraf is reported to have said. Earlier today officials said over 700 links to the film on YouTube were blocked following orders issued by the Supreme Court. The film has triggered anti-US protests across the Muslim world over the past week.
17 Sep 2012 | Events
Date: Thurs 18 Oct, 10.30am – 12pm
Venue: Free Word Centre (map here)
Tickets: By invitation only. Please email [email protected] to request a place.
Index on Censorship and the Global Network Initiative will be hosting this on-the-record panel discussion considering the government’s planned legislation around our communications online. John Kampfner will chair a panel featuring Emma Ascroft (Director, Public Policy, Yahoo! Europe), Jeremy Browne MP (Home Office, tbc), Dr Ian Brown (Associate Director, Cyber Security Centre, and Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute) and Kirsty Hughes (Chief Executive, Index on Censorship).
Key questions to be covered:
- Do we need the Communications Data Bill to ensure as good online protection against criminal and terrorist behaviour as offline?
- Can we protect privacy and free expression, while ensuring good security protection?
- How will the government ensure protection against misuse of the vast amounts of data collected across all of the public, and across all types of communications activity?
The invited audience will be made up of influential policy, media, corporate, civil society and government representatives. This a key opportunity for frank discussion on the questions that arise in balancing free expression, privacy and security. It will be on the record.
