The teenaged members of Kashmiri all-girl band Pragaash decided to shelve their music career after being harassed online, and a fatwa issued against them. Mahima Kaul reports on how the controversy has unfolded
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A woman in Timbuktu says she was lashed by Islamist militants for talking to a man who wasn’t her husband. Salaka Djicke was caught talking to her lover on 31 December last year and was then sentenced to 95 lashings by a Islamic tribunal on 3 January. Djicke fell in love with the married man after he accidentally called when dialling a wrong number more than a year ago, and their relationship quickly blossomed. When Islamic extremists occupied Northern Mali in April 2012, Shariah law was quickly implemented, forbidding women from communicating with men. Her punishment was captured on film by local residents. The man — who Dijcke didn’t name in fear of rebel fighters returning — remains in Mali’s capital after fleeing the night they were discovered. Prior to France’s intervention in Northern Mali earlier this year, Islamist militants introduced strict Shariah law, issuing punishments such as flogging and stoning for perpetrators.
— Is this how you remember Michelangelo’s David? A town in Japan want to preserve the statue’s modesty
On 6 February, a radio station owner was murdered in Paraguay. Marcelino Vázquez was shot by unknown assailants as he left work at Sin Fronteras 98.5 FM in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero. He was on his way from the radio station to a local night club he also owned, but was stopped by two men on a motorcycle and shot several times. While Sin Fronteras is predominately music-focused, it features a regular news show covering a variety of issues. A parliamentary coup in June 2012 and the subsequent removal of President Fernando Lugo has had a negative impact on freedom of information and expression in Paraguay.
Lawyers for three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot are appealing their convictions at the European Court of Human Rights. Representatives for Maria Alekhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Natalia Tolokonnikova are in Strasbourg today (7 February), after they filed a complaint on 6 February against their two year prison sentences. They said the convictions violated four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to free speech, fair trial, liberty and security and the prohibition of torture.The trio was first sentenced following their “punk-prayer” performed at Moscow’s main cathedral in February 2012 protesting Vladimir Putin’s return to power.
A radio journalist was shot on his way to work in Peru on 6 February. At the time of the attack, Juan Carlos Yaya Salcedo was driving to the Radio Max station where he worked, in the town of Imperial. He was shot in the leg by an unknown assailant and is expected to make a full recovery and return to work soon. Yaya, who hosts radio show Sin Escape (Without Escape), has never faced threats in the past but police said the attack was likely the result of his journalistic work, as the perpetrators didn’t attempt to steal anything. Yaya said the attack could have resulted from his reporting on the poor construction of a community building in the nearby town of Nuevo Imperial.
Residents of a town in Japan have complained about the erection of replica statues of Michelangelo’s David, requesting that he wear underpants. Okuizumo citizens told town officials that the 16-foot renaissance sculpture’s exposed penis could frighten their children, as some of the replicas, funded by a local business man, were installed in a local park where children often play. Most of the town’s 15,000 residents approved the Renaissance art tributes, and no plans have been made to clothe the statue. Japan has stringent laws regarding nudity. While watching and distributing porn is legal in the country, the country’s authorities request that genitalia be pixelated.
Pennsylvania high school student Torre Scrimalli could face prison after sending a joke tweet
In a case reminiscent of the UK’s now-infamous “Twitter Joke Trial”, Scrimalli, 18, of Scranton, Pennsylvania has been arrested for “terroristic threats” after joking ahead of a local schools basketball game on 4 February:
“If there is a Facebook or twitter fight tonight over the HC MV game I will just blow up the schools and students involved. #goonsquad.”
The game was stopped in the first quarter and the venue evacuated.
According to local news station WNEP-TV, Scrimalli apologised, saying: “I had no intentions on scaring anyone or bringing violence into this. It was supposed to be a harmless tweet. I realised what it was after I posted it and I tried to get it off as soon as I could but I guess it was just too late.”
But authorities are pressing ahead with charges. Local Assistant District Attorney Gene Riccardo is quote as saying “Two municipalities, two school districts have been impacted by that decision so that’s why we’re going forward with these charges.”
Scrimalli was been released on $20,000 bail after h turned himself over to police on Tuesday night. Classmates and friends on Twitter have rallied around the hashtag #PrayForTorre.
The case comes as the United States debates weapon laws in the wake of December’s Sandy Hook school massacre, when 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman.
Hat tip – Matt F
It’s not easy for cinema goers in China. Film censorship is hardly a new phenomenon under the communist regime, but following the heavy editing of two new films — Skyfall and Cloud Atlas — audiences have called for a reform to China’s censorship standards.
The latest James Bond film opened on 21 January after a two-month delay. 007 directors were keen to appease China’s strict censors, with arial shots of Shanghai filling the screens, but the film was still left with several significant and slightly awkward cuts.
Scenes involving prostitution and the shooting of a Chinese security guard have been removed, and subtitles were changed to hide references to torture by Chinese security forces. It’s not the first time the James Bond creators have felt the wrath of China’s film board — a reference to the Cold War was removed from Casino Royale in 2006. But German-produced film Cloud Atlas fared far worse at the hands of China’s censors when it was released on 31 January. Thirty eight minutes of the films total running time was slashed — comprising mostly of homosexual and heterosexual love scenes, but also including scenes the censors felt confused the plot.
— Skyfall is one of the many films to fall foul to film censorship in China
It takes a lot to win over China’s heavy handed censors. In a deal with Hollywood in February 2012, Chinese film censors agreed to approve 34 foreign films a year — rather than the previous 20. It symbolised a promising development for directors, who are increasingly motivated to break into China’s lucrative film market following a slump in box office sales in recent years.
But film makers are often willing to sacrifice free speech in favour of breaking into China’s market. Last year, Red Dawn directors replaced a Chinese army attack on the UK with North Korean soldiers just before its release, a move typical of Hollywood directors — who are often keen to include positive references to China to win over authorities. DreamWorks Animation had a similar idea, joining forces with Chinese producers to develop Kung Fu Panda 3 in time for its 2016 release.
All imported films have to go through China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), and few remain unscathed. Movies dealing with obscenity, religion, gambling, the supernatural and drinking, to name a few — are addressed with scrutiny by SARFT, meaning that many blockbusters are altered or refused entirely.
China has no motion picture rating system, meaning that all films must be suitable for family viewing. It doesn’t always explain some of the decisions for cinematic alteration though.
In 2010, James Cameron’s Avatar was pulled from some cinemas in its 2D form, amidst speculation that the film’s displacement and land eviction references would cause political unrest, or make people think about forced removal.
Following the 3D relaunch of another Cameron classic — Titanic — in April 2012, censors were quick to edit the film. The famous scene where Leonardo Di Caprio sketches a nude Kate Winslet is edited to show Winslet from the neck up alone. SARFT said in a statement that the measure was taken to avoid cinema goers attempting to reach out and caress Winslet’s three dimensional breasts.
China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest film market last year, with a box office valued at $2 billion (£1.3 billion) in 2011 — and is expected to surpass the US’s by 2020. Hollywood has become entrapped in the hope of success in China, and the expansion hasn’t come without controversy. The Securities & Exchange Commission opened an investigation last year into allegations that US film studios newly established in China were secured through illegal payments to Chinese officials.
Much of the Chinese public are anti-propaganda and express their frustration at missing the whole truth — movie piracy is common and means objectors can usually find an illegal, uncensored copy of a desired film. Free speech and film go hand in hand and Hollywood has always been a staunch defender of the First Amendment. So It’s worrying that economic interests are increasingly foregoing freedom of expression.