The Asian Human Rights Commission yesterday condemned the Indonesian governments ban of books and films under the guise of maintaining “public order” and “state unity”. The banned material covers subjects including the 30 September Movement and the conflict in East Timor.
A recent report by the OpenNet Initiative has revealed that search terms in both Arabic and English relating to homosexuality are censored in some Middle Eastern countries. The study showed that the level of censorship on Microsoft’s Bing ranged from ‘substantial’ to ‘pervasive’ and ‘selective’ in Algeria, Syria, Jordan and United Arab Emirates. Other sexually explicit search terms were also found to be censored.
Journalists working in China will now be required to undergo training in Marxist and communist theories of news. The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) revealed that it will launch a new certification that will encourage reporters to serve the government and not undermine its initiatives. According to the South China Morning Post, Li Dongdong, deputy director of the GAPP, said that some Chinese journalists were giving the country a bad name as they have not been properly trained.
Reporters Without Borders has named Burma, China, North Korea and Vietnam as among the worst violators of freedom of expression on the internet. The Enemies of the Internet 2010 report claimed that governments in these countries are either preventing citizens from accessing the web or developing increasingly sophisticated filtering techniques.