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New Delhi:A countrywide protest against censorship on the Internet saw youngsters join hands at Jantar Mantar in the national capital. Wearing 'Guy Fawkes' masks, synonymous with global protests where protesters prefer to keep their identity concealed, the protesters raised slogans to create more awareness on the new amendments to the IT Act.

The call for demonstrations was given by the Indian arm of international hackers' group 'Anonymous', after a March 29 court order in Chennai demanding 15 Indian Internet providers to block access to file-sharing websites such as Pirate Bay.

The protest was spearheaded by 'Save Your Voice' and planned at various historic monuments in 16 cities, including at the Jantar Mantar.

Holding banners, the members of the group raised slogans like, "Raise your voice, save your voice."

The order has resulted in access being denied to a host of websites that carry pirated films and music among other legal content, including http://www.isohunt.com and http://www.pastebin.com.

On Wednesday, the Anonymous forum fired an opening shot by attacking the website of state-run telecom provider MTNL, pasting the logo of the group - the mask of 17th century revolutionary Guy Fawkes - on http://www.mtnl.net.in.

In an open letter the same day, the group accused the government of trying to create a "Great Indian Firewall" to establish control on the Web and issuing a "declaration of war from yourself... to us."

Concerns about Internet freedom in India go beyond the court order in Chennai, however, and stem from an update to India's Information Technology Act that was given by the IT and communications ministry in April last year.

The new rules regulating Internet companies - providers, websites and search engines - instruct them that they must remove "disparaging" or "blasphemous" content within 36 hours if they receive a complaint by an "affected person".

Groups such as the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, have waged a year-long campaign for amendments to the rules, which were quietly released in April.

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'Anonymous' protests in Delhi against Internet censorship

Film industry insiders lament that the criteria by which films are judged are too vague and say the process is plagued by bureaucracy

Scenes from Bay Cap 3 (literally Level-3 trap) by Vietnamese-American director Le Van Kiet, which has been banned in Vietnam

The teen horror film Bay Cap 3 (literally Level-3 trap) by Vietnamese-American director Le Van Kiet is the third and the latest film to be banned in Vietnam this year.

Vietnamese-made films are seldom banned, as Vietnam actively promotes its film industry.

Bay Cap 3 was banned for its inappropriate content to Vietnamese culture and tradition, raising questions about the process of censoring films and the criteria which is used to determine what is inappropriate.

According to the Vietnam Cinema Departments May 7 decision issued to leading local film distributor Megastar, nine members of the National Movie Censorship Council disapproved of the film which tells the story of an ignored, disregarded high school student.

On a field trip to Da Lat with his friends, he kills them with a series of unexpected traps.

On one hand, the statement continues, the film highlights sexual lust among the teenagers, on the other hand, because the student hates to such an extent that he does not hesitate to consciously kill people, it describes and incites violence.

The films content is inappropriate for Vietnamese culture and tradition, especially for high school students. Therefore, the Vietnam Cinema Department does not approve the release of Bay Cap 3 in any way, and makes this announcement to Megastar in order to keep the film from spreading around the local market.

The films content violated article 9 of decree 54/2010/ND-CP, which details the type of content prohibited by Vietnams Cinema Law.

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Trap of censorship

OTTAWA Defence department censoring of crucial internal documents is impeding the search for the truth of why a young Canadian veteran killed himself, the chairman of a federal military inquiry said Tuesday.

In his first, albeit brief, public criticism of DNDs repeated blocking of documents related to the 2008 suicide of Afghan veteran Cpl. Stuart Langridge, Glenn Stannard said the censorship flies in the face of seeking the truth.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has refused to allow the release of documents though has not publicly stated why.

Military Police Complaints Commission lawyer Mark Freiman echoed Stannards comment as the thorny issue of solicitor-client privilege and redacted documents sparked another round of testy sniping between inquiry lawyers.

I want to note how awkward and artificial ... extraordinarily artificial ... what we are doing is, said Freiman toward the end of his questioning of military police Sgt. David Mitchell, an investigator with the National Investigation Service (NIS).

Freiman, who has clashed several times over the redaction issue with federal lawyer Elizabeth Richards, said advice Mitchell sought from military lawyers during his investigation was key.

We are looking to see whether a reasonable investigation was conducted, said Freiman. A key element in that investigation has to do with legal conclusions that were formed in the course of the investigation, and we are not able to look at anything to do with that key element.

Richards has repeatedly told Stannard that Parliament has given his commission limited power and says he has no right to see documents that fall under solicitor-client privilege.

MacKay is legally the client of DND lawyers and the only person who can waive the privilege.

Parliament in its wisdom has seen to exclude from the oversight of this commission the ability to look at the legal advice that was sought and received by military police.

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Censorship impedes military inquiry, official says

PETALING JAYA (June 4, 2012): The laws of the land must prevail over the Internet as promises of no online censorship was not meant to prejudice existing legislation, said Information, Communications and Culture minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

He was responding to former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's call for the government to reconsider the "absolute (Internet) freedom" as provided for under the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998, as well as the Bill of Guarantees of the Multimedia Super Corridor.

"When I said there should be no censorship of the Internet, I really did not realise the power of the Internet. The power to create problems and agitate people.

"Before (pornographic) magazines and all that could be banned from coming into our country, now it (the Internet) is so porous that we cannot prevent all this filth from coming into our country," Mahathir reportedly said in an interview with New Sunday Times.

As such, Rais said that the former premier's call for tightening regulations on online contents is timely because if left unchecked, the country may turn into a free for all domain.

"A segment of our society has now become culpable of various ills through the Internet: Internet gambling, child pornography, illicit adverts, false reporting, cheating, privacy intrusions and many more," he said stressing that Internet freedom does not equate to flouting the laws.

On the same note, Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi argued that what constitutes as an offence offline, should also be made illegal online.

"People need to distinguish between censoring (the Internet) and enforcing laws of the land," he said, citing the controversial decision to block 10 file-sharing websites found to have contravened the Copyright Act 1987 as an example.

"If stealing is illegal offline, than downloading of pirated contents is also an offence," he added.

Mohamed Sharil also pointed out that the Communications and Multimedia Content Forum, since its inception in 2001, has been put in-charge of overseeing the implementation of a self-regulatory content code which includes "model procedures for dealing with offensive and indecent content."

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INTERNET CENSORSHIP: Rais echoes Dr M's call

Google recently launched an anti-censorship tool for Chinese search users, announcing the update on their Inside Search blogwhile carefully dancing around any direct mention of government censorship. Searchers will see a warning when the term they are searching for could cause an interruption in their connection with Google.

Google reports theyve observed that users see messages such as This webpage is not available, or The connection was reset, followed by service interruptions of a minute or more when searching Google from mainland China. The problem isn't on their end, they say, noting that theyve found the interruptions are closely correlated with searches for a particular subset of queries.

They explained in the blog post:

To ensure that users understand which queries could result in a frustrating loss of connectivity, Google is now displaying warnings on flagged queries, with options to either edit the search query or continue anyway.

The word interruption in the warning links to a Google web search help article that makes clear the interruptions are are outside Google's control and unrelated to our technology. They manage to point the finger at government censors without coming right out and saying Hi, youre being censored.

Google hasnt actually operated in China since early 2010, when they decided they would no longer censor search results on Google.cn. That move came after Google sustained a cyberattack originating in China, designed to steal the GMail information of Chinese human rights activists. The Chinese government has long denied any involvement.

Users in mainland China can still search using Google Hong Kong.

Google released a video detailing their findings after investigating user complaints. They used three different browsers and searched 350,000 of the most commonly searched terms in China to recreate the issue.

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Google Search in Mainland China Now Shows Censorship Warnings