Monthly Archives: July 2017

An ACLU letter sent to Kansas Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, 10th District, has resonated with at least one Gardner resident. Wes Rains, Gardner, recently sent a letter to Lee Moore, Gardner councilman, requesting Moore unblock his ability to post to Moores official city councilmans Facebook page.

Lee Moore

Recently, a more famous public official (state Senator) has practiced the same form of censorship that you have, and she now has been asked by the ACLU to cease this behavior, Rains said in his e-mail. I believe this to be a similar situation, and am considering writing to the ACLU myself to appeal to your better nature and judgement, but before I do that, I am asking you myself as a Gardner citizen and constituent and voter. Rains attached the American Civil Liberties Union July 5, 2017, letter to Sen. Pilcher Cook in his email to Moore. According to the ACLUs letter, blocking opposing views violates citizens well established First Amendment rights to criticize elected officials and express opinions of public concern. Censoring a constituents viewpoint violates the First Amendments Speech Clause. According to Moores response received by Rains and supplied to The Gardner News, I am not required by ordinance or by statute to maintain an official Facebook page. Therefore, my social media activity, all of it, is a completely private endeavor. In fact, all of the content I place on my page, is licensed to Facebook by virtue of the EULA they make you sign when you create the account. In fact, because they own the platform, they may even elect to censor me, should they so desire. So, to make the argument that I can somehow violate your First Amendment rights from within a platform that I do not own or otherwise have any authority over, beyond that licensed to me by the owner of the platform, and that I am not even legally obligated to use for official business is absolutely laughable. I mean, what are you going to do if Facebook bans you for violating their terms of service? Will you claim that is also a violation of your First Amendment right? Thanks for the laugh. You may engage with me anywhere you find me in public, over the phone, and through my official email just like constituents who have no access to Facebook. You may also share content from my page on CFG and engage me there. Until I am required by statute to maintain an official public social media presence, I will reserve the right to control the content associated with my name. That said, I think you were banned only because you were backing the opposition and got obnoxious with me when I was running for office and this page was servingas my campaign page. However, I checked and you are not even banned and have not been banned for a very long time. If I do ban you in the future, maybe all it takes is asking me nicely instead of threatening me. Enjoy your weekend. Cheers, Lee According to Doug Bonney, Kansas legal director for the ACLU, Social media has become an essential tool of communications between elected officials and their constituents, and blocking someone from an officials Facebook page violates the First Amendment and the well-established right of the public to criticize elected officials. On July 5, we sent a letter to Senator Pilcher-Cook outlining these concerns and requesting that she cease censoring the comments on her page and reinstate those who have been blocked. In an e mail to The Gardner News, Moore said there was not anyone currently blocked on his social media page, although he admits Rains was temporarily blocked during Moores election campaign two years ago. He also says he is unclear when Rains was unblocked. Nobody is currently blocked from posting comments on the Lee Moore Gardner City Councilman Facebook page, Moore wrote. However, he indicates that he reserves the right to limit abusive or harassing language and makes note that the social media platform is not required nor government owned. Moore says he will not be bullied, but that he will not try to use his Facebok page to silence opposing opinions. Thus, Mr. Rains email to me and the rest of the Governing Body was received by me as an ignorant, ill-conceived, and unprovoked threat, he writes. Although, the ACLU is an organization which holds no authority over me or the City of Gardner. Nevertheless, I will not be bullied. Likewise, I cannot and will not try to use my Facebook page as a tool to silence people who hold opposing opinions. However, I will also not tolerate comments from people who are unable or unwilling to maintain civility and basic relevance to the topic being discussed. The complete text of his response is adjacent to this story. Since the ACLUs letter was sent, it appears the problem with censorship is more widespread than originally thought, said Bonney, ACLU. Theres a lot more of this than I realized, he said. The core first amendment right is to speak and be heard by your elected officials, Bonney continued. When elected officials censor those voices, they are violating the First Amendments core principle. If elected officials dont voluntarily comply by allowing constituents to comment, Bonney said other options will be considered. We will evaluate our options, Bonney said. At this point, there are no individual lawsuits anticipated, but it may become necessary to file a lawsuit. ACLUs around the country are looking at this, Bonney said. Currently, there is at least one ACLU branch preparing a lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Unions website says, Last month, we were contacted by a constituent of the 10th District of Kansas who had been blocked from the official Facebook page of Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, the state senator representing her district. The constituent was blocked after leaving comments on the page expressing opposition to the policy stances taken by Senator Pilcher-Cook, which were also subsequently deleted. The ACLUs letter to Pilcher-Cook is available online at: https://www.aclukansas.org/en/news/aclu-letter-senator-pilcher-cook-regarding-facebook-page-censorship As of July 11, Rains said his posts to Moores page were still blocked.

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ACLU may sue over censorship of social media pages by elected officials - Gardnernews.com

This statement was originally published on freedomhouse.org on 13 July 2017.

Sarah Cook, Senior Research Analyst for East Asia

July, more than most other months, is loaded with politically sensitive anniversaries that keep Communist Party of China (CPC) censors and security forces on their toes.

First comes the July 1 anniversary of Hong Kong's transfer from British to Chinese rule. Then there is July 5, marking the 2009 ethnic violence in the Xinjiang region that sparked an unprecedented crackdown on its mostly Muslim Uyghur population. The very next day, July 6, is the Dalai Lama's birthday, and July 9 is the second anniversary of a sweeping repressive action against China's human rights lawyers. Finally there is July 20, the date in 1999 when the CPC banned the popular spiritual practice Falun Gong and began a massive - and often violent - campaign to eradicate it.

This year, the anniversaries overlap with other news stories that Beijing likely wants to quash, including an international uproar surrounding democracy activist Liu Xiaobo's belated release on medical parole with terminal cancer, and a campaign by exiled tycoon Guo Wengui to publicize corruption allegations involving top Chinese leaders.

It is not surprising in these circumstances that the CPC has tightened information controls. But the party has not simply intensified its efforts in the short term. It has also gradually adapted its methods to a changing technological environment, one in which mobile phones, social media applications, and digital surveillance are critical features.

The result is a new level of intrusiveness and sophistication, as well as danger for populations that are already at risk of severe human rights violations.

One of the escalating restrictions that may have the widest reach is a crackdown on virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow users to bypass official censorship. Several VPN applications have been disabled or removed from online stores since July 1. In a June 22 message to customers, prominent VPN provider Green said that after receiving "a notice from the higher authorities," it planned to cease operations on July 1, causing a ripple of conversations on social media about what circumvention tools could still be used. The latest initiative builds on increasing official efforts to stop the dissemination of such tools, including some that the authorities had long tolerated.

The applications' removal will have the secondary effect of cutting off software updates for users, leaving their devices more vulnerable to hacking. And while many use VPNs to access uncensored news or blocked social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the tools are also used for security purposes, to protect businesses and activists from pervasive state surveillance.

Other recent controls have focused on ethnic and religious minorities. In Xinjiang, authorities in a district of the regional capital Urumqi issued a notice on June 27 instructing all residents and business owners to submit their "personal ID cards, cell phones, external drives, portable hard drives, notebook computers, and media storage cards" to the local police post for "registration and scanning" by August 1. One district employee told Radio Free Asia that the campaign was taking place throughout the city. The goal is ostensibly to identify and purge any "terrorist videos," but the action violates the privacy rights of Urumqi's three million residents and exposes them to punishment for a host of other possible offenses, including those related to peaceful religious or political expression.

In Tibet, the instant-messaging application WeChat has become increasingly popular in recent years, as it has across China. But using it to communicate about the Dalai Lama or his birthday is difficult and dangerous. A test conducted in January by the Canada-based Citizen Lab found that the Tibetan spelling for "Dalai Lama" was automatically deleted in WeChat messages. Meanwhile, at least two Tibetans are known to have been jailed for participating in a WeChat group commemorating the spiritual leader's 80th birthday in 2015. After a new spate of self-immolation protests took place in early 2017, Tibetans in Sichuan Province report that police are monitoring communication on the platform more closely and detaining those suspected of sharing information about self-immolations with overseas contacts.

These developments reflect a broader trend identified in a recent Freedom House report on religion in China. The study found that Chinese government tactics of religious control and persecution have been changing to incorporate new technologies and match the evolving communication habits of the public. Even in the absence of sensitive anniversaries, various modes of electronic surveillance have expanded dramatically at sites of worship and public spaces frequented by religious believers.

The CPC's information controls also appear to be spreading to traditionally less persecuted groups, like state-sanctioned churches and non-Uyghur residents of Xinjiang. Since March, authorities in Zhejiang have reportedly been implementing a campaign to install surveillance cameras in churches and possibly Buddhist temples, in some cases sparking altercations with police and violence against congregants. In Urumqi, the order to turn in digital devices for inspection applies to ethnic Han and Kazakh residents as well as Uyghurs, while local Kazakhs have reported increased monitoring and some prosecutions related to expressions of their Muslim faith in recent months.

The Chinese government's actions are partly a response to creative initiatives by minority activists to share their stories and perspectives in a heavily restrictive information environment.

"It is a nonstop game of cat-and-mouse," journalist Nithin Coca wrote in a June 27 article about China's high-tech war on Tibetan communication. "As the Tibet movement's digital-security abilities and training improve, the Chinese government implements more sophisticated hacking techniques."

Similarly, as Falun Gong practitioners devise new means of disseminating information to debunk vilifying state propaganda and expose abuses they have suffered, security forces have adapted by increasing electronic surveillance and deploying geolocation technology to find and arrest them. Local authorities in places like Jiangsu province have also upgraded anti-Falun Gong propaganda efforts, deploying LED rolling screens, cartoons, microblogs, and QQ messaging - including in schools - last month to demonize Falun Gong and other banned religious groups.

The result of the escalating controls is that there are even fewer avenues for persecuted groups and individuals to defend themselves, offer alternatives to the party line, or expose violence committed by officials. Meanwhile, other Chinese interested in knowing more about these and other censored topics find it increasingly difficult - and risky - to obtain information.

There is also a cost to the CPC. Such aggressive "stability maintenance" methods ultimately increase tensions with key populations, intensify resentment of the party's heavy-handed rule, and inspire anti-government activism and even violence, including among otherwise apolitical citizens.

From that perspective, while the CPC's efforts may successfully silence some critics this year, party leaders may face an even more daunting challenge next July.

This article was also published in the Diplomat on July 7, 2017.

Sarah Cook is a senior research analyst for East Asia at Freedom House, director of its China Media Bulletin, and author of "The Battle for China's Spirit: Religious Revival, Repression, and Resistance under Xi Jinping".

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China's newest censorship methods on display - IFEX

For filmmaker and professor of economics Suman Ghosh, the irony is difficult to miss. His 2011 Bengali feature film Nobel Chor , which was inspired by the theft of Rabindranath Tagores Nobel medal and became a politically controversial topic in Bengal, was cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Four years later Kadambari , a biopic based on Tagores special relationship with his sister-in-law, also got the CBFCs nod. Why then is his most recent venture, The Argumentative Indian , a one-hour documentary on economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, facing the heat from the governments censorship body?

Ghosh has been asked to mute out four words/phrases Gujarat, Hindutva view of India, cow and Hindu India to get a goahead from the CBFC. The words in question are not part of the directors script but figure in Sens opinion in the course of a conversation with Kaushik Basu, a fellow economist and former chief economic advisor of the government of India. The documentary, which has been screened once in Kolkata for a select audience, was to be released this week, when it was stalled by the Kolkata office of the censor board. He has uploaded a trailer on Facebook.

Im still in a state of shock and trying to figure out what to do next so that film can be screened without beeping out the words, says the award-winning filmmaker whose first feature film Poddokkhep in 2006 won two national awards, including best actor for Bengali thespian Soumitra Chatterjee. Ghosh, a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, will be in India for another month because he has just started shooting for his next film, Basu Paribar , with Chatterjee and Aparna Sen. He hopes that he will be able to sort things out and The Argumentative Indian will be released before he goes back to the US.

The disturbing trend of arbitrarily curbing creative freedom of film directors started with Abhishek Chaubeys Udta Punjab , during the tenure of CBFC chairman Pahlaj Nihalani, who took charge in early 2015. More recently, the CBFC refused a release certificate to Lipstick Under My Burkha . And now I feel that the fact that Amartya Sen has been critical of the BJP government may be one of the reasons for the curbs on my film, Ghosh told ET Magazine over phone from Kolkata. He feels that the Bollywood film fraternity, along with their counterparts from regional cinema in India, should come together and raise their voices against the censor board to ensure that directors freedom of expression is not attacked.

Setting Limitations Ghosh is not the only filmmaker having problems with censorship. Madhur Bhandarkars much awaited Indu Sarkar , which is based on the Emergency period in India and scheduled for release this month, has run into rough weather with the CBFC having demanded 14 cuts. The things that CBFC is asking us to change will change the essence of the film. We would surely go to the Revising Committee or the Tribunal if need be, the director said in reply to ET Magazine s questions on email. The Revising Committee is the second panel with a different set of members from the Examining Committee (the first panel). The final panel is the Film Certificate Appellate Tribunal (FCAT), which usually comprises retired judges and senior industry members. There is nothing derogatory in the film and all the names that we are using have been used for many documentaries, books and have been reported in the public domain. Also, the film is a human drama; the Emergency is just the backdrop, Bhandarkar added. I would request people to let the film release, see it in totality and then judge. Asking for ban, burning effigies or asking people to blacken my face is not the way.

Lipstick Under my Burkha , which was grounded by the CBFC last October because of its lady-oriented content, is now scheduled for a release next week after the FCAT overturned the CFBC ruling. Director Alankrita Shrivastava feels that in a democratic country, the censor body should have no role to play beyond a basic certification of films. Citizens have a right to engage with and consume whatever content they want to and the censor authorities should not come with any moral baggage, says Shrivastava. Now that her film, which went on to win several international awards, has been cleared with an A certificate, she is relieved. Not allowing the film to be released in India at all would have created a wrong precedent, discouraged women directors and been a step against artistic freedom, she says.

Filmmaker Onir, whose Shab was released on Friday, says there is an urgent need to revise film censorship guidelines. The Cinematograph Act is completely illogical in the present context. We should only follow a basic certification system in keeping with the principles of freedom of creative expresssion, the director said, adding that he was fortunate that his new film, which is about relationships and set in Delhi, was cleared with an A certificate, without any visual cuts and he had to only mute four words.

Director Prakash Jha, who is also the producer of Lipstick has long called for the scrapping of the censor body for films in India and feels that only basic certification guidelines should be followed. If you give anyone the authority to decide what other people will watch, they will look at it from their own perspective which will be determined by upbringing, education and other factors. No one should be given such authority and an authoritarian mindset can only harm creative expression and freedom of film directors. I have always said this and continue to say it, Jha told ET Magazine. While he was expecting Lipstick to run into problems with the censor board, he was surprised that the body completely refused to release the film.

There was no response to an email with questions sent to the CBFC chairperson at the time of writing. The problem may not be only with CBFC, points out Mumbai-based film and TV editor Irene Dhar Malik. The I&B ministry too recently didnt grant screening certificates to three documentaries that were selected for the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala they were on Rohit Vermula, JNU & Kashmir.

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Why censor body should not be deciding the films you should watch and the words you should hear in them - Economic Times

The death on Thursday of Chinese dissident activist and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo elicited an outpouring of grief and anger in China, particularly from its artists. Though usually preferring to remain safely apolitical, members of the Chinese art world defied a ban on covering or mentioning Liu and expressed their sorrow and frustration at his death through mostly indirect references on Chinese social media.

Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist now living in Berlin, told the BBC yesterday: "It still comes as a big shock... because he has been such a symbol for China's human rights or democratic movement." Ai said of his friend, "I think Liu Xiaobo will be remembered as an individual, a strong mind, with his belief, and as a brave fighter, believing in democracy and freedom of speech. And he sacrificed his life for his belief."

His compatriots still based in China, though unable to speak so freely, found creative ways to mourn Liu on the social media platform Wechat. According to some reports, the national outpouring was so widespread that the government banned the emojis for candles and clasped hands on Twitter clone Weibo, though they remain permitted on Wechat.

Articles mentioning Liu's death, with titles like "The Death of Freedom", were quickly expunged, but artists and curatorshave instead posted screenshots of the error message, with comments like, "Do you not understand what bullshit this is!" Screengrabs of global media reports were also popular, as technology currently does not facilitate the searching of textual images.

One artist listed the characters of Liu Xiaobo's name but on different lines, slowing their removal. Many posted simple all black or grey squares were posted to represent censorship, sometimes adding the prayer and candle emojis and references like Liu's age of death, 62, or simple expressions of gratitude.

Some posted the works of Liu Xiaobo's poet and artist widow Liu Xia, who remains under house arrest, depicting mutilated dolls positioned in bleak landscapes. Paintings of empty chairsreferencedthe empty seat at Liu Xiaobo's 2010 ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the Chinese government refused to release him to receive.

Liu Xiaobo was a professor spurred to activism by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and negotiated the safe passage of hundreds of students from the square. In and out of prison since for his fearless criticism of the government, he was last sentenced to 11 years in 2009 for co-authoring Charter 08, a 2008 call for political reform and greater freedom.

Officials announced Liu's terminal liver cancer last month, and moved him to a hospital in Shenyang under high security but refused to release him for treatment abroad. And while his name can be erased from China's public domain, his memory remains powerfully present.

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China's artists defy censorship ban to mourn Liu Xiaobo - Art Newspaper