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India Court Forbids Antireligious Language on Social Network Sites

A Delhi Court on Saturday ordered 22 social networking sites, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, to remove all "anti-religious" or "anti-social" contents in the next one-and-a-half-month and file compliance reports by February 6, 2012.

Uh Oh. No comments about Atheist Nexus or other Ning Atheist sites. I imagine this site would be considered antireligious by the court.

also http://businesstoday.intoday.in

So much for freedom of speech, freedom of/from religion.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 3, 2012 at 5:59pm

LOL

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on January 3, 2012 at 6:04pm

cool

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 3, 2012 at 5:59pm

there is a bloke on the ''a club'' on facebook who wants to get this judges email address to pass on some thoughts.... :)

I did a basic google search but couldn't find the email address for Civil Judge Mukesh Kumar - any ideas?

Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on January 4, 2012 at 6:17am

Alice

Internet use is not so well spread in India as in US. It is mostly used by youth. An oldie like me using internate is a rare case!

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 4, 2012 at 5:07pm

OK - there are a lot of up and coming middle class in India aren't there.... the culture seems to be changing - becoming more modern and rich....

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on January 3, 2012 at 9:05pm

As Christopher Hitchen's said "Religion Poisons Everything". That includes freedom of speech. In his book "God is not great" he describes the hell that Salmon Rushdie went through, including murders of some of his associates, on account of religion.

According to LegalIndia, the suit was filed by Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi. A mufti is a professional jurist who interprets Islamic Law - Shari'a.

So in response to Loren, yes, this does look like it's part of the Muslim war on free speech. However, I don't know the judge's personal background and motivation. For all we know he could be afraid of a fatwa if he doesn't cave.

Permalink Reply by Pat on January 4, 2012 at 6:18pm

Alice made reference to trains arriving in India loaded with the dead and murdered. I'm assuming the reference is to the 2002 slaughter in Gujarat. Then, we have partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 which left over 1/2 million dead in a period of 6 months. Hindus and Muslims killing each other. Not unlike Protestant and Catholics killing each other in Ulster, or Hindus and Buddhists killing each other in Sri Lanka. Maybe some well placed barbs against the insanity of superstition would get people to open their eyes, or at leat their mouths, about the toxic virulence of religion.

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 4, 2012 at 8:08pm

Personally I think that religion is a cope out - it's not religion that is doing this stuff - it's humans - who feel bonded together as a group under whatever guise - it may be that religion promotes this due to it's retardation of rational thought - but it is the groups of humans that are causing the violence, not religion.

Permalink Reply by Pat on January 4, 2012 at 9:15pm

True, it is humans that are killing humans. If you give a gun to a person who then uses it to kill someone, you blame the person. But, absent the gun, we may not have a murder. I'm not saying that if you get rid of religion, all human evil will cease. Recently went to a funeral of an 89 year old gentlemen who died of lung cancer, but never smoked a day in his life. However, getting rid of smoking still improves health. Getting rid of religion would improve societal health.

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 4, 2012 at 10:06pm

pat - i think to get anywhere with religious believe we need to be very clear about what is causing the problems and to what extent - otherwise we fail ourselves to show rational thought to start with .....

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on January 4, 2012 at 9:08pm

Pakistan is famous for this sort of action. However, it has happened before in India. Everybody Draw Mohamed Day is a good example. Internet censorship is the norm in China.

wikipedia

  Pervasive censorship = dark pink

  Substantial censorship = light pink

  Selective censorship = white

  Under surveillance = gold

  No evidence of censorship = green

  Not classified / No data = grey

Internet censorship in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya has changed since the Arab Spring of 2011.

Permalink Reply by Alice on January 4, 2012 at 10:04pm

sentient - well i'm glad that the US, UK and NZ are all green - not so lucky for us in Australia - that we are gold..... i did hear about this - and signed some petitions - not sure what's next - whether the next step is censorship....

i think it might have been the child porn issue that caused problems - although there where lots of questions about what would be next and where it would lead - haven't heard anything since as to whether we are now censored or not?