'Let's Talk about sex' Column Controversies
Since December 2006, the CUSP began to publish the 'Let's talk about sex' Column. In a questionnaire of the February and March 2007 volume included two questions involve taboo subject such as "human-animal sex" and incest, and was ruled indecent by the Obscene Articles Tribunal after receiving 200 complaints. Its ruling on CUSP sparked angry calls from students that authorities were eroding freedom of speech in Hong Kong.
Here are the details:
The event first drew public attention on May 7th, 2007.
On May 5th, 2007 , a number of print media
received complaints from several priests and readers, condemning the
CUSP's publication for its "immoral" content. On May 6th, the CUHK
Student Press Chief Editor, Mr. Thomas Tsang, was interviewed
by several print media, while the articles were published on May 7th.
On May 8th, some more print media and electronic media began reporting
on the issue, and escalated the whole issue by releasing critiques on
their editorial sections. As reported by three newspapers, the CUHK
officials assured the public of their seriousness in handling the
issue. While the website of the CUSP ceased to operate due to the
site's being overloaded; at the same time, the public blasted the CUSP
of its unwillingness to admit to the claims.
On May 9th, the issue was widely reported by the press and thus became
a hot topic in the society, while the print media were flooded with
calls from various members of the community. The government's
Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority began to receive a
number of complaints about the publication. In meeting the demand from
the society, the government officials passed the concerned publication
to the Panel of Adjudicators of the Obscene Articles for judgment.
The CUSP published an extra edition to explain the issue and make
defense. On the very same day, many of this extra edition publication
were stolen, though were finally found in a rubbish dump.
On May 10th, the university's discipline board held a meeting. After
that, the Acting Registrar issued a warning letter to all the 12
members of the CUSP. Letter stated that CUSP's publication contained
obscene or indecent content. It requested CUSP stopped publishing and
distributing the publication.
On that afternoon, CUSP held a public forum in the university. Media
has also commented the issues from different points of view. The
public has turned to support the students that they should stick to
the principle of independent editing & freedom of speech.
On May 11th, diverse statements from student organizations in CUHK
have been announced. United College Student Union has issued
proclamation﹐condemning the CUSP's behavior. It was rumored that the
chief editor of CUSP has to take criminal responsibility for the
incident. In the meantime, university officials also turned public
attention to other topics by stating CUSP's committees' unwilling to
discuss with them and may be controlled by some outside organizations.
Some local social organizations issued proclamation. Most of them
challenged CUHK official's action to the students.
On May 12th, newspapers reported that The Obscene Articles Tribunal
initially determined the sex page of CUSP's publication as Class II -
indecent. Public attack CUSP and urge CUSP publisher would
compromise with school. CUSP publisher refuse.
The Hong Kong Federation of Students, League of Social Democrats along with some liberal organisations held forums and protests in support of CUSP. However among the pro-democracy camp, Civic Party leader Audrey Eu and Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union chairperson Cheung Man Kwong urged the CUSP to apologize.
The student vow to fight this ruling. And it is now in the process of appealing the decision.
Bible Complaint Incident
Christian conservative The Society For Truth And Light, which is widely suspected on its involvement in CUSP incident, was seen as operating against freedom of speech by angry students. Some fear the overzealous reaction, as well as 'abuse of freedom of speench' by CUSP and its supporter like Federation of Student would bring disastrous effects to the development of Hong Kong, as their behaviors bear some similarities to the Cultural Revolution in which all people opposing Mao Zedong are being accused to be opposing socialism.
Afterwards, the Christian Bible was being complained of being "indecent". Those complaints alleged that using the same logic and same standard which CUSP is judged, the Bible contains more obscent and indecent material than CUSP. The TELA received more than 2,000 complaints in a week. While some pointed responsibilities to the CUSP, the Bible complaint website has existed for more than 2 years. And it is only waiting for a precedence of 'literally indecent' to act on, which is meant to challenge the underlying logicality of CUSP decision. The TELA decided that the complaints will not be handled as "they are just nonsense", which is similar to the response of Society of Truth and Light: 'The Bible is a historical docuement that make contributions to humanity, and is within the accepted standard of morality of Hong Kong citizen.' Next day, the Ombudsman's server is brought offline due to the sheer volume of complaint emails charging Double-Standard of TELA's judgement. And Office of Ombudsman is now beginning to investigate this complaint.
Also, to challenge this line of defense of TELA against Bible complaints, hundreds, if not thousand of complaints of indecent and obsent material are emailed to TELA within a month. Majority of them are from the adult sections of three major newspapers. TELA reveal that the processing of complaints is slowed down due to the existing volume of complaints. One Google group, NLITHK promises to carry on the attack on censorship system by generating complaints systematically to attack the logicality of the OAT judgement.
7.1 demonstration
The truthbible website then later organized a 30 people strong demonsration taken place in 2007/07/01, which marked the annually Pro-Democratic rally. They are shouting slogan like 'The censorship system is hajacked by the Christian Right', as well as against 'The Society of Truth and Light'.
Online Battles
Since the protest of is published in several major newspaper, an ongoing tug of war is happening between a loose collusion of groups of liberal, liberal Christian, atheist, secularist, GLBT activist and anti-online censorship activist against what they see as conservatist. Many refer the later as Christian Right, and compare their activities to the counterpart in USA. The debate is waged throughout the webpages and bloggers in Hong Kong. It is still the hottest topic in Hong Kong.
More Censorship bodies embrassment
In the Book Fair at Hong Kong, it is an embrassment to the censorship bodies when they had to publicly apologize for one of the books they want to remove from the Book Fair. There is a public outrage immediately in the Book Fair and in the Internet on the lack of 'common sense' in the decision of the civil servants. Some even joked that they had a nudity phobia, and mechanically place any book depicting nudity with nipples or penis as indecent. All four major Chinese newspapers and all TV channels criticize the TELA as stupid and an embrassement of Hong Kong. Noticeably, the Oriental-Sun newspaper, which originally sided with censorship bodies and generally considered to be politically conservative, also joined hand with Appledaily, the political liberal, in criticizing the censorship bodies. Is this as a sign that liberal has succeeded in turning the public opinion into their favor?
Fundraising of Society of Truth and Light at 7/25
The biggest confrontation happen when STL decided to publish its fundraising activity in New Terrioties at 7/25 in newspaper. It is estimated it has spent more than 350k in advertisement. Many bloggers and webmasters at the same time initialize a boycott campigan against this fundraising activity, urging the public to not donate any money to this organization, which is seen at working against the civil liberty. CUSP and ally organizations, GLBT and sexual right activist is taking the fight to the street. They open banners and shout slogans whatever anyone approach a fundraiser. STL complained that their volunteer is 'threaten' and has released a public statement calling an end to the 'uncivility'. From the public statement of STL, it appears that the boycott may have achieve its goal. GLBT groups has charged that STL may employ fundraisers younger than 15 years old, and the case is being investigated by Social Welfare Department. There are also peoples working at delist the STL from the Tax-exemption list because they consider STL is NOT a charity organization, but a religion-political group no different from a Christian Party. Social Welfare Department is being attacked as indiscriminately approve any fundraising activity by any organization.
Society of Truth Light is threatening to sue Light-Truth website
In according to the public statement released by STL after the fundraising, it is calling all anti-STL activist as ally of radical sexual-liberation activist. 'If you disagree with our goal, don't donate to us then. But don't intimade our volunteers. It is uncivility.' And is considering legal action against the 'black-hand' behind all these sabotaging activities. One of the website named in the accusation is truth-light.org, which reverse the two character of STL from 明光 to 光明 for mocking the former. That is the arguments STL employ behind their 'copyright infringement' claim, though it is unclear that whether STL could applied copyright to a common term in Chinese, nor styles of the website could be copyrighted . It is known that a local newspaper South China Morning Post has employed similar tatics to shut down a website mocking SCMP as political conservative; and Microsoft has employed similar tatics against Lindows .
A new round of battle may ensue because of that.
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