15 Apr 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
The Maltese Front Against Censorship said that it believes that a penis-like sculpture at Luqa should not be removed before the Pope visits the capital of Malta, Valetta, this weekend. The Mayor of Luqa, John Schembri, said yesterday that the sculpture, on the Pope’s route to Valetta, should be taken down “as a sign of respect”. Colonna Mediterranea (Mediteranean Column) is the work of ceramic artist and sculptor Paul Vella Critien and was installed on a roundabout at the entrance to the village of Luqa in January 2006.
30 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
This is really quite brilliant. Philip Pullman is asked whether his new book on Jesus is “offensive”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w&feature=player_embedded
“It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.”
Hat tip: Cory Doctorow
23 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost
United Arab Emirates’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has ordered ISPs to block a Facebook page supposedly authored by Allah. The TRA has also said it will ban the unnamed author, who claimed he believes in no god but himself, from holding an internet account. The author behind the page soon has over 600,000 followers and answers questions on the site.
17 Mar 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Editor-in-chief of the Firat newspaper Hacı Boğatekin has been sentenced to five years in jail. Bogatekin was charged with “insult” and “defamation” and “attempting to influence a fair trial”. Three other journalists were charged with similar offences. In one of the offending articles Bogatekin argued that the real threat did not come from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party but from religious leader Fethullah Gülen’s congregation. He also published prosecutor Sadullah Ovacıklı’s criticism of his abbreviation of Gülen’s name to “Feto” and made allegations about the prosecutors relationship with Güle. Boğatekin was awarded the Press Freedom Award in 2008 and was awarded by the Contemporary Journalists’ Association (ÇGD) in 2009.
