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].

In June 2006, the government of Bangladesh issued a restraining order preventing Sigma Huda, U.N. special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, from leaving the country to deliver a key report on trafficking before the Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 11, 2007.[2] U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has asked Bangladesh to clarify corruption charges against a U.N. human rights investigator, which will prevent her from addressing the main U.N. rights body.[3] The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women issued a statement calling this "an outrage and a violation of her right to freedom of movement and freedom of speech."[4]

India

Several books critical of religion have been banned in India or in parts of India. India was the second country in the world to ban The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The book Understanding Islam through Hadis by Ram Swarup was also banned. Pornography is illegal and media depicting sex are frequently cut.

Pakistan

The Pakistani government has banned the import of Indian films, leaving piracy as the only way to distribute them. [5]

The Freedom House, which monitors freedom of speech, has placed Pakistan among countries where the press is “Not Free” in 2004 and 2005. [6]

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.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has blocked Tamilnet as it is seen as a Pro-LTTE news website. Further the goverment spokesmen has said that he is looking to hire hackers to disable Tamilnet. Tamilnet has been producing news about the Sri lankan civil war focusing in the North and the East of the country. ^[1] ^[2] ^[3]

Literature

Goel, Sita Ram. The Calcutta Qur'an Petition. [7]
Elst, Koenraad. Negationism in India: Concealing the record of Islam. [8]
Shourie, Arun: Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud. New Delhi, 1998.

v t e Censorship
Media regulation	Books books banned Films banned films Internet circumvention Music Postal Press Radio Speech and expression Student media Televisions banned televisions Thought Video games banned video games
Methods	Bleeping Book burning Broadcast delay Censor bars Chilling effect Collateral censorship Concision Conspiracy of silence Content-control software Damnatio memoriae Euphemism Minced oath Expurgation Fogging Gag order Heckling Heckler's veto Internet police Memory hole National intranet Newspaper theft Pixelization Prior restraint Propaganda Purge Revisionism Sanitization Self-censorship Speech code Strategic lawsuit Surveillance computer and network mass Whitewashing Word filtering
Contexts	Criminal Corporate Apple Facebook Google Hate speech Online Ideological LGBT issues Media bias Moralistic fallacy Naturalistic fallacy Politics Propaganda model Religious Suppression of dissent Systemic bias
By country	Censorship Chinese issues overseas Freedom of speech Internet censorship Muhammad controversy

Censorship in South Asia

Bangladesh

India

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

Literature

External links

Bangladesh

India

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

Maldives

Reference

See also