Turkish publisher Ragıp Zarakolu, honoured by the International Publishers’ Association for his ‘exemplary courage in upholding freedom to publish’ this year, details the historical and political context behind repression of free speech in Turkey
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London Metropolitan University has expressed ‘regret’ at offence caused to China by its recent award of an honorary doctorate to Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama in May.
A report on state-run China Daily said that the university’s vice-chancellor, Brian Roper, had sent a letter to China’s embassy in London on 16 June to apologise for any upset felt by the Chinese people over the award.
A spokeswoman for London Metropolitan said the move came after the university’s media monitoring service had noticed negative comment about the decision on Chinese websites.
However, a representative of the Chinese embassy in London confirmed to Index on Censorship that the letter of apology had come after the embassy had demanded it from the university.
Britain’s universities now hosts over 49,000 Chinese students.
Italians are protesting against proposed laws that could make investigative journalism almost impossible, writes Cecilia Anesi
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The government’s latest legislation on ‘extreme pornography’ is based on ill-informed notions, writes
Julian Petley
Question: what do Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Last Exit to Brooklyn and Inside Linda Lovelace have in common? Answer: they were all subject to failed prosecutions under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 & 1964 (OPA). Next question: what do the Protection of Children Act 1978, the Video Recordings Act 1984, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Criminal Justice Act 2008 have in common? Answer: they are all attempts to circumvent the OPA, whose provisions the censorious have long agitated against as overly liberal and ‘permissive’.
Thanks to the last of these measures, those suspected of possessing the ‘wrong’ kind of pornography can now look forward to having their homes and offices trashed by the police and their reputations publicly dragged through the mud; if convicted, they could languish for up to three years in prison. So how did we arrive at this extraordinary state of affairs?
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