Writers Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, JM Coetzee and Umberto Eco are among those demanding that Liu Xiaobo be released. He has been in prison in China for a month after signing Charter 08.
Archive for the ‘censorship’
Canadian citizen reportedly arrested in Iran
There has been some speculation online (from credible sources like The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, or, closest to home, Kate Heartfield’s excellent blog for the Ottawa Citizen) that Hossein Derakhshan, a Canadian citizen, has been arrested in Iran (for spying for Israel, purportedly), and might face the death penalty.
Quebec publisher hit by a SLAPP
At a talk given by Howard Zinn tonight at UQAM, I was reminded of this piece of news that I saw a while back (because the proceeds of the talk were being given to help fight this case). The Québec publisher Écosociété is being sued for libel by two Canadian mining companies for publishing a book about abuses in Africa by mining companies. This website gives more information:
Noir Canada. Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique brings together and analyses national and international documents already available to the public (reports, books, documentaries…), concerning various abuses from several Canadian companies working in Africa, in particular in the mining and oil areas. It also deals with the supports these corporations benefit on behalf of the Canadian government. The debate the book wishes to make public is all the more legitimate given that Canadians’ assets (retirement funds, RRSP, public funds) are often indirectly invested in these corporations through the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Following the publication of Noir Canada, Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold producer is suing the small non-profit Quebec publisher and the authors of Noir Canada for $5 millions in damages, as well as one million on account of exemplary damages, a sum that represents 25 times Écosociété’s annual revenue.
They also give several ways to help the authors and the publisher, including signing a petition for an anti-SLAPP law (Strategic lawsuit against public participation).
The dangers of crown copyright
This is the title of an interesting post by a colleague, Olivier Charbonneau. He writes about how the Harper government is refusing to make public a report by Health Canada that link Global warming to health problems. The government insists that the document is too big, and thus can only be provided on demand. A physician for Health Canada has therefore decided to make the report freely available for download on his blog. More info here and here.
Charbonneau mentions how in the USA, the government does not retain copyright on its publications, and that they are automatically put into the public domain, making them available immediately, without barriers to access. However true that may be, it does not stop the American government from pressuring scientists to submit reports that are convenient to the government, or have those reports rewritten by government policy makers. The Union of Concerned Scientists set up a webpage documenting political interference in science. Here is one example of how the government interefered with (and played down) a Congressional testimony on the dangers of global warming to public health.
Seems like the Harper government is taking notes.
Response to POPLINE censorship
This entry in the Wired blog outlines responses from the John Hopkin’s Dean, Administrators, and USAID’s director of communications. Also included is some background on the Bush Administration’s anti-abortion policies.
The word is that “abortion” as a search term is being restored and an investigation will ensue. The American Library Association was quick to condemn any policy that gives priority to ideology over scientific inquiry.
UPDATE. April 5.
New York Times article.
Blog post from Women’s Health Matters including statement by Johns Hopkins Dean.
-PC-
Government funded database censors the word “abortion”
A librarian wrote to the POPLINE database providers to ask why a search strategy, probably involving the word abortion, retrieved fewer results than it did 3 months earlier. The response was:
Yes we did make a change in POPLINE. We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.
You can contact POPLINE here. You could ask that they make an announcement of this change on their website and provide a clear explanation as to why this term was eliminated.
POPLINE, is a database on reproductive health, population, family planning, and related health issues. It’s maintained by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
UPDATE: Women’s Health News has a great post on the topic, identifying work-arounds for the problem (for example, browsing the subject index instead of doing a search will retrieve articles on abortion).
Friday Fun Link - What The F***? Why We Curse (Oct 12, 2007)
I’ve done a pretty fucking exhaustive swearing-related FFL before but this fucking article is a nice fucking addition to that list. Fuck yeah!
- JH
Internet filtering discussion forum
Kudos are in order for the London Public Library’s decision to post an online discussion forum to invite public debate on their controversial Internet filtering policy.
Librarians, please weigh in on this important discussion regarding the connection between intellectual freedom and internet filtering. Thus far, the discussion is largely one-sided in favour of filtering.
Go to Internet Filtering Pilot Project Feedback Forum.
Some quick and dirty Internet filtering references from the librarian blogosphere:
Librarian.net
A search on Libworm for both the terms “internet” and “filtering” gave back these results.
I’ll conduct a more thorough review of the arguments both pro and con in the not too distannt future - in the meantime, please use the LA blog for information sharing!
-PC-
Friday Fun Link - “I Swear” (Aug 10, 2007)
- How Swearing Works
- BBC’s List of Most Offensive Words (in ranked order)
- Urban Dictionary - a user-created dictionary of slang including many offensive terms. Great for understanding the latest teen slang.
- The Great Internet Swearword Project - picking between two choices helps define the “best swear words in the world“.
- Learn To Swear in any Language
- Letter Cursing - How to Swear Without Swearing
- The Greatest Swearing Moments in Cinematic History
- JH
The ACLU on Internet Filtering
As Mr. Kleinman noted in this comment to the LAblog, spirited debate is a good thing. Agreed.
Misrepresenting information, however, does not in the least contribute to spirited debate.
The discussion and information posted to this blog concerning Internet filtering at the London Public Library has been in reference to Internet filtering at adult terminals only.
Mr. Kleinman makes reference to a recent ACLU case, ACLU vs. Gonzales. This case refers to the ACLU’s fight to replace a draconian censorship law with Internet Filtering as a means to protect children from inappropriate online content. The purpose of this lawsuit was to protect content producers (such as artists, online dating websites, etc.) from unfair criminal prosecution.
If this blog’s readers are interested in the ACLU’s position on Internet filtering in public libraries for adults, this would be the case that is actually relevant to the issue. As you can see, the ACLU supports the right of the (adult) public to access information freely through the internet in a public library setting, as do we (in case you didn’t already catch that … ).
-PC-