Middle East News

One of the Arab world's best known Egyptian actors has been sentenced to three months in jail for supposedly offending Islam.

The judge confirmed that  veteran actor Adel Imam was convicted in absentia of insulting the religion. The judge said Imam can appeal.

The state-run Ahram Online English website reported that he was found guilty for defaming Islam in a 2007 movie in which he plays a corrupt businessman who tries to buy a university diploma. The film, Morgan Ahmed Morgan, included a scene with bearded Muslim men wearing traditional Islamic robes. Other reports said the court objected to his use of Islamic symbols in the film and others he has appeared in.

A leading music distributor has closed its Kuwait operations after claiming censorship of albums and artwork had made it impossible to run a full-scale operation.

Music Master, which distributes music from major labels such as Universal, Sony and EMI, said curbs on content from bestselling artists such as Lady Gaga and Beyonce had left it battling to maintain its profit margins.  Music Master is one of the Middle East's largest distributors with operations in the Gulf States, Egypt and Lebanon. The company sells into some 50 stores across Kuwai.

Saeed El Ajou, managing director of the Dubai-based company said:

It comes down to censorship issues. There is too much censorship to justify having a full-scale operation there. If you can't push your top-selling artists then it makes it hard to justify having a full-scale business. The avant-garde artists - Lady Gaga, Beyonce - who are the bestsellers, tend to cause a problem.

It is basically lyrics and artwork and anything that is seen as provocative won't go through. Anything which has any provocative lyrics or any innuendo.

It is purely Kuwait-specific, everywhere else we are very fortunate that there are no censorship issues. Even Saudi has been liberal in what they allow through.

The Turkish prime minister has said a bill passed by the French parliament on the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule is racist.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Turkish parliament in Ankara that the bill murdered freedom of thought.

This is a racist and discriminatory approach and if you cannot see this, then you are deaf to the footsteps of fascism in Europe.

Turkey, he added, hoped for the success of a French appeal against the bill to the constitutional commission.

We will wait and see the developments and decide on our reply to them, he said.

Turkey, which rejects the term genocide, has said the number of deaths was much smaller.

Iranian protestors gathered in Geneva, demanding the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency, to take action on the Iranian government's illegal internet and communications censorship.

The protesters held placards demanding an end to the Iranian government's censorship and satellite jamming. The gathering drew the attention of attending diplomats to the widespread repression of freedom of speech and access to information.

In this rally, that was afforded protection by the Geneva police, participants demanded ITU members to act to the fullest extent of their legal capacity to stop the jamming of Persian-language satellites and eliminate censorship conducted by the Iranian government under the banner of national internet.

The French Senate has approved a controversial bill that makes it a criminal offence to deny that genocide was committed by Ottoman Turks against Armenians during World War I. The Senate approved the bill by 127 votes to 86.

The measure will now be sent to President Sarkozy for final approval.

The bill's passage in the lower house caused major tensions with Turkey. Ankara froze ties with France after the vote last month and promised further measures if the Senate backed the proposal.

The BBC's correspondent in Istanbul, Jonathan Head, says stronger Turkish measures could include the withdrawal of ambassadors and creating more barriers to French businesses in Turkey.

In the first reaction from Ankara, Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin condemned the bill. He told the CNN-Turk television channel:

The decision made by the Senate is a great injustice and shows total lack of respect for Turkey.

The Turkish embassy in Paris warned that if President Sarkozy approved the bill, the damage done to relations between the two countries would be permanent.

Turkey's TV censor RTUK has imposed massive fines and rebuked a television channel and six musical videos judging them to be obscene and a threat to the morals of the country's youth.

According to a report on Turkish website Bianet, the 160,000-euro fine was imposed on the channel Show TV for the mambo and cha-cha-cha dances it broadcast, which the judges found to be erotic, and performed by dancers wearing obscene costumes. The same epithet was applied in fining parts of a serial M.U.C.K.. As the supreme council for Turkish radio and television noted, these transmissions had gone on the air during protected times of day and without and warning about the nature of their contents, even though they could damage the physical, mental or moral development of children and young people.

The six pop videos, which are available for view on other channels, were reprimanded for similar reasons. The films have clear erotic references, as in the case of one made by singer Teoman, and they are very popular because of the podium dancers they feature in a 1920s brothel setting. The dances feature a great deal of gyration, but no full nudity.

The artists interviewed by the site criticised the reprimand. Do we have to play with the Smurfs in order to make it here? asked Murat Dalkilic, somewhat ironically.

Criticism of the intervention has also come from opposition newspaper Hurriyet, which opposes the Islamic government ruling under Turkey's secular constitution. The paper speaks of unfounded fines imposed because the honourable members of the RTUK panel have ruled that sexy dancing is an act of evil.

The fined videos are: Tek Basina Dans (dancing alone) by Teoman, Beni Seviyor (loves me) by Berkan, Geri Donus Olsa (if you should come back) by Murat Boz, Merhaba Merhaba (hi there) by Murat Dalkilic, Saat Uc (3 o'clock) by Bengu and Bize Yeter (enough for us) by Ziynet Sali.

Teheran police last week told toy shops that the Barbie doll can no longer be sold and as a result some of Tehran's large toy stores have started removing them from shelve.

The police wasted little time and shut down dozens of toy shops in Teheran offering Barbie dolls for selling manifestations of Western culture, the Mehr news agency reported.

The move comes as clerics and conservative quarters in Iran have stepped up their criticism of Western culture. The Gerdab website argued last week that playing with the impossibly busty and long-legged Barbie triggers a psychological change in children and increases the influence of values that go against the values of Iranian-Islamic culture.

In the mid 1990s, Iranian clerics called the full-figured, glamorous Barbie doll, not to mention her clingy gowns, skimpy swimsuits and her more lately acquired feminist pretentions, a Trojan clothes horse for Western influences into the Islamic republic.

In 2002, the influential Institute for the Development of Children and Young Adults institute attempted to offset the popularity of Barbie and her life partner Ken with an Iranian version called Dara and Sara. The modestly dressed brother and sister were aimed at promoting traditional Islamic values. But it soon became clear that the dumpy Iranian dolls could not capture the hearts of Iran's children.

Several months ago a conservative website criticized the Iranian authorities for not doing enough to stop the use of Barbie's image on such children's items as schoolbags, stationery, clothes and watches. The website claimed that the doll is taking over the souls of the youngsters and that the authorities need to collaborate with local manufacturers to encourage the use of Iranian and Islamic characters instead of Barbie.

An Iranian actress has been told she is no longer welcome in her homeland after she posed naked in a French news magazine as a symbolic protest against strictures on women.

Golshifteh Farahani left Iran last year in protest against restrictive Islamic codes that the Iranian cinema industry has to follow under Ahmadinejad's conservative cultural policies.

Now she said the government has sent a communication telling her not to travel back to her homeland: I was told by a Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guide official that Iran does not need any actors or artists. You may offer your artistic services somewhere else.

Ofcom has revoked the licence for Press TV to broadcast to the UK.

Ofcom cites The Communications Act 2003. Under section 362(2) of the Act, the provider of the service for the purposes of holding a licence is the person with general control over which programmes are comprised in the service.

Ofcom explained:

In the course of correspondence and meetings with Ofcom, statements made by Press TV Limited about the operation of the Licensed Service failed to satisfy Ofcom that the Licensee had general control over which programmes and other services were comprised in the Licensed Service. Ofcom therefore concluded that Press TV Limited had ceased to provide the Licensed Service in accordance with section 362(2) of the Act and that, accordingly, it was appropriate to revoke the Licence.

The Licence was revoked on 20 January 2012.

A Cairo court has banned a television program that has been attacking Egypt's pro-democracy revolutionaries. The television program is hosted by Tawfiq Okasha, an Egyptian Presidential candidate for the Egypt National Party.

According to Egypt Independent, the General Authority for Investment and Nile Sat authorities should stop the broadcasting of a program titled Misr al-Youm, which is aired by Al-Faraeen private channel and presented by Tawfiq Okasha, the channel's president.

Ahmad Reza Hashempour was arrested in 2007. A lower court had sentenced him to death, and the Supreme Court this week upheld Hashempour's death sentence on charges of membership in anti-religion and blasphemous websites.

During his four-year detention, Ahmad Reza Hashemour spent a long time in solitary where he was physically and psychologically tortured to make television confessions against himself.

This is the latest injustice in the Mozelleen 3 case. Many of the suspects in this case were forced to make television confessions against themselves and to accept the charges leveled against them. Several individuals implicated in this case released open letters several months after their arrests, speaking up about unbearable torture during their detention period. Another suspect in this case, Vahid Asghari, was also sentenced to death this week, after four years in prison.

Update: Death sentence confirmed for Canadian website programmer

19th January 2012. See article from xbiz.com

Website programmer Saeed Malekpour's death sentence for developing and promoting porn sites has been upheld by Iran's supreme court. The Iranian-born Canadian resident now faces imminent execution despite a reprieve last June when the sentence was suspended and set for judicial review after his defense lawyers introduced expert evidence amidst an international outcry for justice.

He appeared on state television confessing to a series of crimes detailing his involvement with porn sites that led to his conviction. But in a letter from his prison cell, the programmer ultimately retracted his confessions and claimed he made the statements under duress that included physical and psychological torture and threats against his family.

Malekpour wrote:

Once, in October 2008, the interrogators stripped me while I was blindfolded and threatened to rape me with a bottle of water. While I remained blindfolded and handcuffed, several individuals armed with cables, batons, and their fists struck and punched me. At times, they would flog my head and neck.

Such mistreatment was aimed at forcing me to write what the interrogators were dictating, and to compel me to play a role in front of the camera based on their scenarios.

Saeed's lawyers were told that his death sentence will be issued this week.

A British engineer is facing a month in jail after he told colleagues in a meeting, When will we finish with the damn mosques?

The worker, who has not been named, told an appeals court that he did not mean to insult the Islamic religion.

The British engineer works at the parks and recreation section of Abu Dhabi Municipality, and is appealing against a one-month prison sentence imposed by the Court of Misdemeanours. The slow completion of a Mosque in Abu Dhabi caused the British engineer to make the statement that has landed him in court and facing jail.

The engineer told the court he lost his temper during a meeting because the project he was leading was progressing slowly.

He was then reported to the police by his work 'colleagues' for asking the offending question.

A decision on the appeal will be announced on 7th February

A member of Iran's Corporate Computer Systems reports that Iran will be cut off from the World Wide Web once the country launches its own national internet network next month.

Iranian media report that Payam Karbasi, the spokesman for Corporate Computer Systems of Iran, said: With the launch of the national internet, the internet providers can increase the speed of access to their desired websites by two megabytes... however, it will be just like a corporate network, which cannot be accessed by outsiders, and some material cannot be accessed through that network.

The national internet network will allow service providers to decide which sites the users can be accessed speedily, which sites will be provided at the lowest speed, and of course which sites will be totally blocked.

In the past two weeks, Iranian internet users have reported an extreme reduction in internet speed. While access to government sites remains easy, using proxies to access blocked sites only via the slow lane.

Karbasi said: Imagine there is a monitoring system that checks all the internet packages and then allows it to pass through or regards it unclean. Because of the high volume of internet packages, they remain in a line-up in order to be checked, and this causes the reduction in the speed of access.

With the launch of the so-called clean internet network, Iranian authorities aim to separate Iran from the World Wide Web in order to block access to supposedly immoral content and maintain control of what Iranian users can access.

Update: Spy in the Caf

9th January 2012.  See article from rferl.org

Iran's cyberpolice have issued new restrictions for Internet cafes that appear to be part of the Iranian establishment's efforts to impose further controls on the Internet.

According to the new rules, the personal information of citizens visiting cybercafes, such as their name, father's name, national ID number, and telephone number, will be registered. Cafe owners will be required to keep the personal and contact information of their clients and also a record of their browsing history for six months.

Another new rule that has been announced requires cybercafe owners to install closed-circuit cameras and keep the video recordings for six months. The guidelines also say that installing circumvention tools that allow access to banned websites will be illegal at Internet cafes.

Deputy cyberpolice chief Mohsen Mirbehresi has said that owners of Internet cafes should deny Internet access to those who do not show their IDs. Internet cafes have 15 days to implement the restrictions, which were announced on January 3.