Censorship in South Asia

Censorship in South Asia can apply to books, movies the Internet and other media. Censorship occurs on religious, moral and political grounds, which is controversial in itself as the latter especially is seen as contrary to the tenets of democracy, in terms of freedom of speech and the right to freely criticise the government.

Bangladesh

Several books of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin have been banned in Bangladesh and West Bengal [1].

India

Several books critical of Islam have been banned in India or in parts of India. India was the first country in the world to ban The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The book Understanding Islam through Hadits by Ram Swarup was also banned.

There have also been claims that the history of the Islamic invasion of India is being systematically whitewashed and censored in Indian school-books and in other media (e.g. Shourie 1998).

Pakistan

The Pakistani government has banned the import of Indian films, leaving piracy as the only way to distribute them. [2]

The Freedom House, which monitors freedom of speech, has placed Pakistan among countries where the press is “Not Free” in 2004 and 2005. [3]

In early March 2006, the government had all websites hosted at the popular blogging service Blogger.com blocked. Millions of websites from all over the world are hosted at blogspot, along with thousands of Pakistani ones. This step by the government is possibly due to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, as some blogspot websites put up copies of the cartoons.

For more see Internet Censorship in Pakistan

Literature

• Goel, Sita Ram. The Calcutta Qur'an Petition. [4]
• Elst, Koenraad. Negationism in India: Concealing the record of Islam. [5]
• Shourie, Arun: Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud. New Delhi, 1998.

External links

India

• Book banning in India
• Arun Shourie on "Eminent historians"

Pakistan

Internet Censorship in Pakistan

See also

• Censorship
• Banned books
• Banned films
• Salman Rushdie
• Media bias in South Asia
• International Freedom of Expression Exchange