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After looking into this in more detail I realize two things that need amplification:

1. Tela suggested Oiwan Lam get the Tribunal to screen the picture before publishing. This costs HK$1,200 each time. The interesting thing to me here is that the Government is telling Lam it sets the agenda and that Lam has to instill the Government's values into her creative process before she makes her own decisions. Big problem when a non-elected Government tells a citizen to do this. It's called fascism!

2. The image is posted on the Inmedia Site, it is not just a link pointing to it, as Joel points out. Thank you, Joel.

I was all set to tell you about the first seminar at the Seoul Digital Forum today in Seoul, South Korea, but Lam caught my attention, so I bring you this news flash:

The debacle over what is considered indecency in Hong Kong has heated up again. This time, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority, or Tela, in Hong Kong has warned Oiwan Lam, founder of InmediaHK, that a link she posted on the Inmedia Web site pointing to a photo in Flickr is considered indecent and should be taken down.

"We refused to take in down. Tela said that they might hand the case over to the police," said Lam in an interview with Flourescent Paradise.

Lam is refusing to give in. She argues that the Government's authority was diminished when it was revealed that the Obscene Articles Tribunal a volunteer body that governs decision-making on this subject, is overwhelmingly not following the interests of the public. She and others claim that conservative church members have overloaded the board, putting power in the hands of conservatives that don't follow Hong Kong's best interests.

Earlier this year, a local university was called to task by the Tribunal and threatened with punishment for publishing a series of questions involving sexual matter. The sex topics, somewhat mild in nature, have consumed the local media in the past few weeks. Lam says the Tribunal's attitude informed her decision to post a photo of a nude woman on the Inmedia site, to prove that the scope of the Tribunal is narrow and that it is acting in its own interests.

"As I am the author, I am defending that the photo is not indecent. It is a Flickr public photo and I criticize the government's stupid bureaucracy," said Lam. The photo shows a nude woman displayed in an artful pose, draped in leaves and garlands.

Lam said she is willing to face whatever punishment comes to her in this debate. "I am willing to face the police arrest," said Lam.

Several incidents involving government monitoring of the citizen body in Hong Kong have increased media attention on the country's position in global media and citizen politics in the past few months.

Earlier this month, a harbour front activist was told by a judge that she had behaved irresponsibly in the presence of police when she tried to tear down a plastic sheeting surrounding the famous clock tower of the Star Ferry terminal. The clock tower was dismantled to make way for a government development project, despite days of protests.

Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal turned down a BitTorrent user's plea and sent computer user Chan Nai-ming, also known as Big Crook, to jail for uploading movie files, making Hong Kong the first-ever place to criminally charge a BitTorrent user for distributing copies of movie files.

"The Government doesn't have any legal expert on internet law [and they] know nothing about Internet culture," said Lam.

Recently, the Government issued a consultation paper document on the copyright policy for Internet media. A read through the document showed that in the consultation, the Government relied almost exclusively on the opinions of power brokers in the criminalization of uploading: Internet Service Providers, copyright holders and the police. Bloggers and a lawyer reacted to what seemed to be the lack of any meaningful contribution from consumers of new media by issuing their own statements.

Lam said the focus of special interest groups needs to be widened because the people who are making decisions about Hong Kong's future are not aware of the true scope of life in Hong Kong, or its relevance to global concerns like media or heritage.

Lam said that in reference to the Tribunal which looks at what is or is not obscene, the makeup of the body is weighted to the side of overly conservative members.

"The Tribunal is not representational, many are from the conservative church," said Lam. "Although we lived (sic) in a globalized environment with the Internet, the value judgement of the city is becoming more conservative when compared with the past."

 

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