Jakub Korab » civil rights http://www.jakubkorab.net Tech, Opinion, and Doing Stuff Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:27:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Further censorship in Australia http://www.jakubkorab.net/2007/04/further-censorship-in-australia.html http://www.jakubkorab.net/2007/04/further-censorship-in-australia.html#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:29:00 +0000 Jake http://www.jakubkorab.net/2007/04/further-censorship-in-australia Every time Australia’s government is in the news these days I can’t help but to be astounded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6551003.stm

Once again, in an election year the “tough on <whatever>” line comes out, further eroding civic freedoms. This time they have started censoring books and films that “glorify terrorism”. The following line in the article below left me absolutely gob smacked:

“the government has dismissed these concerns, saying public safety overrides the issue of free speech“

That sounds suspiciously like something that might be said in regimes like China, North Korea or the former Soviet Union. Put in the context of previous actions such as sedition laws put in place last year, and Australia is progressively sliding down a very slippery slope. I wonder whether movies such as Paradise Now (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445620/) which try to make the viewer understand the background to terrorism will also be pulled from the shelves.

Another set of laws that erodes civil rights, is essentially unenforceable and is just plain stupid – anybody heard of a thing called the internet?

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