I like the internet and I like blogs. The internet is one of the few remaining un-monitored places where you can roam free and do and say what you want. Or is it?
Jesus cartoons could draw jail for Singapore blogger
Wednesday June 14, 06:36 PM
A Singaporean blogger is under investigation for posting cartoons mocking Jesus Christ and could be jailed up to three years, the police said.
A police spokesman declined to give details about the suspect, who was described by the Straits Times as a 21-year-old office worker with his own blog site. His race and religion were not disclosed.
The blogger, who described himself as a "free thinker," had first posted a cartoon depicting Jesus Christ as a zombie biting a boy's head in January, the Straits Times said.
He ignored an online message asking for the cartoon's removal and went on to post more caricatures of Christ to spite the sender.
"I never thought anyone would complain to the police because the pictures were not insidious," he told the newspaper, adding the cartoons have already been removed from his site.
He was called in by police in March and the investigation is ongoing.
"It is a serious offence for any person to distribute or reproduce any seditious publication which may cause feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes," said a police statement sent to AFP.
Singapore, a multi-racial island nation, clamps down hard on anyone inciting communal tensions. Two ethnic Chinese men were jailed last year for anti-Muslim blogs.
Read the Full Story
Now, whilst I'm not actively encouraging tension of any sort - be it racial, cultural, to offend anyone's beliefs, etc - I just think that it's somewhat disturbing that the internet can be monitored in such ways. There are many similar cases to that quoted above; and also similar situations but through different manifestations - but who 'owns' the internet to the extent of being able to censor the content?
Some governments, such as in
Iran and
China restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet, especially political and religious content, through software that filters domains and content, so they may be easily accessed or obtained without elaborate circumvention.
Many countries have enacted laws making the possession or distribution of certain material, such as child pornography, illegal, but do not use filtering software. But still this poses the question of who should be allowed to censor the internet? What gives your government the right to censor you from the rest of the world?
An interesting read
(as ever) on this particular subject is the pages of
Wikipedia, from which I learnt the following;
In the United Kingdom, the new Home Office Minister Vernon Croaker set a deadline of the end of 2007 for all ISPs to implement a “Cleanfeed”-style network level content blocking platform.
Currently, the only web sites ISPs are expected to block access to are sites the Internet Watch Foundation has identified as containing images of child abuse. However such a platform is capable of blocking access to any web site added to the list (at least, to the extent that the implementation is effective), making it a simple matter to change this policy in future.
The Home Office has previously indicated that it has considered requiring ISPs to block access to articles on the web deemed to be “glorifying terrorism”, within the meaning of the new Terrorism Act 2006.
This is of concern to me. Not because I'm wishing to peruse the child abuse or terrorism sites on the internet, but because the government are restricting what we can do and say on the internet - the last remaining source of total free speech.
If you have any opinions on this, leave me a comment or trackback this entry. I'd also be interested in hearing what lengths you'd go to to protest against the censorship of the internet.
My Opera
