Censorship in South Asia
overview about the 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.
Censorship by country
Bangladesh
In June 2006, the government of Bangladesh issued a restraining order preventing Sigma Huda, the UN's 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 11 June 2007. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, 2007, 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.
Selective blocking of web sites for brief periods has been reported, including:
The Bangla blogging platform Sachalayatan during July 2008
YouTube during March 2009
Facebook in May 2010
YouTube again in September 2012 was blocked for refusing to remove the controversial Innocence of Muslims movie trailer
Later these blocks were removed.
Several books of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin have been banned in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
India
Several books that are critical of religions have been banned in India, or in parts of India, which was stated to be a precautionary measure to prevent riots or other attacks. 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.
India is listed as engaged in selective internet filtering in the conflict/security and internet tools areas, and no evidence of filtering was found in the political and social areas by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) in May 2007.
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