A lawyer for a Florida school district says a handful of students have been sent home from schools this week for wearing shirts that read “Islam is of the Devil.” The shirts are connected to a local church called the Dove World Outreach Center who say that spreading the church’s message is more important than education. Read more here
In Italy state-owned TV channels have refused to show the trailer of the latest documentary by Erik Gandini, Videocracy, which looks at the rise of Berlusconi’s TV stations and impact on the Italy’s customs and ethics. In a press statement state-owned Rai TV executives justified their decision by saying that the documentary is critical of the government. Read more here
Ramazan Yesergepov, the editor of an independent weekly paper in Kazakhstan, Alma-Ata Info, has been jailed for three years on a charge of “collecting information that contains state secrets.” He was sentenced in the absence of a lawyer, his family, and the press. Read more here
In Kuala Lumpur, copies of the inaugural issue of Gedung Kartun magazine have been confiscated by officials due to a “lack of publication permit” as well as for “content checking.” The magazine’s editor-in-chief and well-known cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque aka Zunar disputes this and claims to have verbally obtained a license serial number. Read more here