Category Archives: Transhuman News

Books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast media and Internet access are censored in Saudi Arabia.

In 2014, Reporters Without Borders describes the government as "relentless in its censorship of the Saudi media and the Internet",[1] and ranked Saudi Arabia 164th out of 180 countries for freedom of the press.[2]

The Royal Decree On Press and Publications (1982) set up the initial government regulation of Saudi books, newspapers and magazines, as well as all foreign publications sold in the kingdom. In addition to obtaining government permission, the Saudi citizen creating and distributing the content, had to ensure that it did not cause sectarian tension among citizens, or insult the royal family or Islamic values.

In 1992 the "Basic Law of Governance" was enacted as an informal Constitution. Article 39 of the kingdom's "Basic Law of Governance" states that

Mass media and all other vehicles of expression shall employ civil and polite language, contribute towards the education of the nation and strengthen unity. It is prohibited to commit acts leading to disorder and division, affecting the security of the state and its public relations, or undermining human dignity and rights. Details shall be specified in the Law.[3]

The Ministry of Interior has "responsibility for all the Saudi media and other channels of information".[4] The ministry has been called the "main agent of censorship" in the kingdom.[4] It is charged with the `purification` of culture prior to it being permitted circulation to the public. A special unit, the Management of Publications department, "analyzes all publications and issues directives to newspapers and magazines" stating that way in which a given topic must be treated.[4]

According to the Encyclopedia of Censorship

There is no precensorship of publications but if any material goes against a directive, or more generally qualifies as `impure`, the department will check it and notify the minister of information, who decides in what way and to what extent the publication and its employees are to be punished. The main effect of this system has been to impose on journalists rigorous self- censorship.[4]

Saudi Arabia directs all international Internet traffic through a proxy farm located in King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology. A content filter is implemented there, based on software by Secure Computing.[5] Since October 2006, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has been handling the DNS structure and filtering in Saudi Arabia in the place of KACST. Additionally, a number of sites are blocked according to two lists maintained by the Internet Services Unit (ISU):[6] one containing "immoral" (mostly pornographic or supportive of LGBT-rights) sites and sites promoting Shia Ideology, the others based on directions from a security committee run by the Ministry of Interior (including sites critical of the Saudi government). An interesting feature of this system is that citizens are encouraged to actively report "immoral" sites (mostly adult and pornographic) for blocking, using a provided web form, available on the government's website.

The initial legal basis for content filtering is the resolution by Council of Ministers dated 12 February 2001.[7] According to a study carried out in 2004 by the Open Net Initiative "the most aggressive censorship focused on pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of Muslims, and filtering circumvention tools."[5]

This resolution was subsequently modified and expanded into The Anti-Cyber Crime Law (2007). Article 6 of this royal decree makes it a crime to produce, possess, distribute, transmit or store Internet content or a computer program that involves gambling, human trafficking, pornography or anything deemed to be against Islam, public morals or public order.

On 11 July 2006 the Saudi government blocked access to Wikipedia and Google Translate, which was being used to bypass the filters on the blocked sites by translating them.[8][9]

In 2011, the Saudi government introduced new Internet rules and regulations that require all online newspapers and bloggers to obtain a special license from the Ministry of Culture and Information.[10] The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) is responsible for regulating the Internet and for hosting a firewall which blocks access to thousands of websites, mainly due to sexual and political content. Many articles from the English and Arabic Wikipedia projects are censored in Saudi Arabia with no given explanation.

As of 2014, Saudi Arabia has plans to regulate local companies producing input for YouTube. The General Authority for Audiovisual Media, a recently formed watchdog, will issue a public declaration to regulate the work of YouTube channels. They plan to censor material that is "terrorist" in nature which according to the proposed rule will be any content that "disturbs public order, shakes the security of society, or subjects its national unity to danger, or obstructs the primary system of rule or harms the reputation of the state".[11][12][13]

Any speech or public demonstration that is deemed to be immoral or critical of the government, especially the royal family, can lead to imprisonment or corporal punishment.

Saudi and foreign newspapers and magazines, including advertising, are strictly controlled by censorship officials to remove content that is offensive. Newspapers and magazines must not offend or criticize the Wahabi Muslims and especially The Royal family, Wahabi government officials or government version of Islamic morality.

Censorship of foreign newspapers and magazines tends to focus on content of sexual nature.[14] Nudity and pornography are illegal in the kingdom and this can extend to inking out public displays or affection like hugging and kissing, the uncovered arms and legs of women and men or anything deemed to be promoting "sexual immorality", such as adultery, fornication, sodomy or homosexuality. Even advertising for driving classes for women is banned, in keep with the ban in the kingdom.

In 1994, all Saudi women magazines were banned by the Ministry of Information. This move was considered to be related to the pressures of the religious establishment or ulema. After this ban, nineteen of twenty-four magazines closed down since their major revenue was advertisement earnings paid by the Saudi companies.[15]

Public cinemas have been illegal since the 1980s when conservative clerics deemed cinemas to be a waste of time and a corrupting influence.

In 2007, permission was granted to two hotels to screen American children's films, to celebrate the end of Ramadan. That following year the first Saudi film festival took place.[16]

Television and radio news, educational and entertainment programming is subjected to government censorship and control. Live television broadcasting on government-owned national TV stations was briefly suspended in 2008 after disgruntled callers on a live show on Al-Ikhbariya news channel displayed discontent with the latest governmental salary increases and made critical remarks of some Saudi officials. The minister of Culture and Information then fired the network's director, Muhammad Al-Tunsy, and replaced him with one of his personal assistants. The minister also formed a censorship committee of which the approval would be required prior to airing any program or inviting any guests on national television stations. The legal status of satellite receivers is in something of a grey area.[17]

In 1994, the government banned ownership of satellite television receivers but throughout the 1990s, an increasingly large percentage of the population bought a satellite receiver and subscribed to various programming packages. Despite the ban, the Saudi government was, generally, willing to tolerate satellite television as long as the programming content was not pornographic, critical of the Saudi government or Islam.[17]

In the 2000s, the Saudi government launched its own satellite stations and expressed a desire to work with other governments in the region to develop common censorship guidelines and restrictions.[18]

In 2005, the two-part episode of American Dad! named "Stan of Arabia" was banned by the Saudi government. The English daily ArabNews published an article that accused the series of "a particularly brutal portrayal of Saudis and Saudi Arabia"; although some of what was being shown, such as intolerance of homosexuality as well as the ban of alcohol, was true. As a result, the two-part episode was banned in Saudi Arabia, although the rest of the TV series itself can still be seen.[19]

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Censorship in Saudi Arabia - Wikipedia

Photo from Womens March on Washington

Following the Womens March on Washington and its sister marches around the world, Chinese women were noticeably absent from the international media spotlights. This is because street protests and demonstrations that promote falsehoods are illegal in China, and the Chinese government has a history of cracking down and retaliating against public events and figures that bring light to gender inequality.

While the Chinese governments restriction of public protests and demonstrations is nothing new, over the past few years, China has been slowly increasing its censorship of feminist media and publications. For example, in 2015, the imprisonment by the government of the Feminist Five, a group of vocal Chinese womens rights activists, made headlines and led to an international outcry, leading to their subsequent release. The members of the group had been detained for distributing pamphlets about sexual harassment on March 8, International Womens Day.

This event from last year also mirrors a recent attack on feminist press. Just last week, a Chinese feminist social media account run on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, was suspended for a month after it re-posted news about a strike taking place in the United States to honor International Womens Day. The account, Feminist Voices, which is one of the most popular in the nation with 80,000 followers, has temporarily moved to a different name. Citizens reacted with anger and fear on social media, warning of the threat to general civil liberties and to womens groups who want to remain outspoken against U.S. President Donald Trump and on gender equality issues.

However, besides high-profile cases such as this, the more insidious censorship and oppression of female artists and writers in China who dedicate their lives to the production of pieces that will inform and illuminate a worldwide audience has remained less publicized throughout the last year.

Consider the film Hooligan Sparrow, which was on this years short list for the Oscars category of feature length documentary. The director, Nanfu Wang, captured the story of Ye Haiyan, one of the most prominent womens rights activists in China. Ye and seven other activists risked arrest for publicly protesting against the outcome of a child rape case in Hainan involving a government official. Wang filmed undercover and smuggled the footage out of the country. The documentary was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

Before the announcements of the final Oscar nominees, local authorities shut off all of Yes utilities and Internet from her apartment on the outskirts of Beijing. The film was not ultimately included in the nominee list; if it had been, Ye would have had an extremely difficult time remaining in China and most likely would have had to leave the country somehow, though the government confiscated her passport in 2014. Ye is now facing eviction, and her daughter is not allowed to enroll in school because of Yes political activities.

The film is strictly prohibited from being shown within China but has garnered international acclaim. Wang and Chinese organizations have worked to plan underground screenings of the film domestically, risking government backlash.

Though the Chinese government supposedly supports the promotion of gender equality, it views any press or publicity that reveals a less-than-stellar status quo of womens rights as a threat to its order and stability. Working in these unfavorable conditions, Chinese feminists have increased efforts and are looking to forge alliances with other womens rights activists in the United States and beyond in order to foster international awareness. Journalists and activists such as Lu Pin, who is New York-based, have founded organizations such as the Chinese Feminism Collective that promotes the communication of Chinese feminism to Western nations.

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Chinese Censorship of Feminism - Daily Trojan Online

North Koreans have gained unprecedented connectedness with greater access to media and devices like cellphones over Kim Jong Un's five-year rule. But private citizens' embrace of a state-controlled network has opened the way to unparalleled state censorship and surveillance in the long-isolated, totalitarian country.

A U.S.-government-funded report, released Wednesday, said technology is giving North Korean authorities "more modern forms of control" as they step up efforts to stop foreign content creeping in.

"North Korea not only demonstrates technological sophistication but also has the ability to dictate what devices their citizens use, and they have complete control over hardware and software that essentially no other country does," said Nat Kretchun, co-author of the report by the consulting group Intermedia.

While the global explosion of network communications and internet use over the past two decades has provided surveillance opportunities for both authoritarian and democratic governments, North Korea's case is unique. The communist government prohibits public access to the World Wide Web. Outside media trickles in, but with significant challenges.

The state's stranglehold over the flow of information was first subverted during a famine in the 1990s when informal markets emerged and citizens began trading with each other. For the past decade or more, outside digital devices and content have flowed into North Korea across the border from China, enabling people to watch forbidden content, typically South Korean and Chinese soap operas.

The Intermedia report, which is based on interviews with North Korean defectors, refugees and travelers, found more such information making its way in over the past five years, notwithstanding Kim's intensified efforts to stop it. He took power after his father's death in late 2011 and has cracked down on smuggling and illicit viewing of foreign media.

Nearly every segment of society, from the elite in Pyongyang to farmers in inland areas, has access at least to televisions and DVD players, the report found. North Koreans have shifted toward using thumb drives instead of compact discs as they can hold more content and are easier to hide and share.

Viewing outside content, rather than the stodgy fare of state broadcasters, is shaping people's behavior.

The report quoted a 22-year-old construction worker who defected in 2014 as saying that South Korean and Chinese dramas have made men more willing to voice their affection to women. He said men increasingly marry women they date rather than having arranged marriages.

The report also cites respondents who have more than one TV. One is fixed to the state TV channel and put on display in the house; the other is concealed and dedicated to South Korean programing.

The government is finding new methods of control. Kretchun said North Korea was taking steps on regulation of cellphones "to regain control of the information climate." It can do so without relying on internet service providers to spy on people in its network, as other governments might.

There are now more than 3 million cellphone users in the North Korea-only network that was established in 2008. The growth has allowed authorities that traditionally relied on human surveillance to gain "a far greater ability to monitor the communications of its citizens," the report found.

Authorities have tried to stop people sharing and viewing nonsanctioned media content on their phones, the report said. Around three years ago, authorities updated software used by all phones, making nonsanctioned media files unplayable.

North Korea also uses a program that records the browsing history on the user's SD data card, making it harder to conceal illicit content. While laptops and computers are less widespread, the operating system they use "watermarks" files, allowing authorities to track their origin.

In effect, North Korean devices are "completely compromised," Kretchun said, creating options for state surveillance and censorship "much more effective than just about anywhere else."

To call outside the country, North Koreans need illicit phones that can tap into Chinese networks along the nation's northern border. Limiting that option is now a priority for North Korea, the report found, and its technological capability to locate users has improved.

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As North Koreans use phones, state finds new ways to censor - ABC News

Despite not being there in person, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi won big at Sunday nights Oscars, taking home Best Foreign Language Film for his movie The Salesman. Farhadis victory was broadcast on Iranian TV, but not without a few alterations; according to The Hollywood Reporter, at least one outlet decided that presenter Charlize Therons Oscars dress needed some touch-ups before it could be broadcast to the people.

But the digital wizards at the Iranian Labour News Agency didnt content themselves with a mere blurring of Therons body; instead, someone at the state-run agency attempted to take advantage of the relative immobility of Oscar presenters to add their own flair to her outfit, filling in long black sleeves and a high neckline with what looked like the black spray paint tool from MS Paint. The effect wasless than convincing, especially when Theronpresenting with Shirley MacLaineabruptly moved, forcing her dress to trail a few seconds behind her.

As displayed in a video by Facebooks My Stealthy Freedom, the censor team at ILNA later reverted to a simple censorship bar for Therons body. But they got a little creative again when Iranian-American engineer Anousheh Ansari took the stage to accept the award on Farhadis behalf. (The director boycotted the ceremony in protest of the policies of President Donald Trump.) Rather than editing out all of Ansaris pretty modest dress, they simply filled in one exposed bit of skin with blurring, resisting the urge to add some earrings or a new pattern of their own devising to her ensemble as they did.

For the record, heres what Theron and Ansari were both wearing Sunday night:

(Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

(Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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Iranian TV censors got creative with Charlize Theron's Oscars dress ... - A.V. Club (blog)