Censorship in Singapore
[11] Janet Jackson's albums Velvet Rope and All For You were also banned due to homosexual and sexually explicit themes that the BPAA found "not acceptable to our society".
Katy Perry's hit single, I Kissed a Girl, was banned from the airwaves as its lyrics that described homosexuality violated the Free-To-Air Radio Programme Code.
Examples: Mario Party 10, The Lego Movie Videogame, and Angry Birds Examples: Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed II, Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, and Hitman: Blood Money Examples: Kingpin: Life of Crime, Yakuza 3, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Grand Theft Auto III, and Manhunt 2 A video game, in the most extreme cases, may be refused classification when the game contains content that exceeds acceptable social standards and could be potentially harmful to society.
The scripts of all plays to be performed in Singapore must be vetted in advance by the Media Development Authority (MDA), which has the right to ban any it views as "contrary to the public interest".
[13] In 2005, the MDA withheld the licence for the play Human Lefts by Benny Lim and Brian Gothong Tan unless some scenes were edited and all references to the death penalty removed.
The play was originally written about the hanging of Shanmugam Murugesu and was to have been staged one day after the controversial execution of Australian national Nguyen Tuong Van.
Artistic director Ivan Heng says the council told him funding was cut because its productions promoted alternative lifestyles, were critical of government policies and satirised political leaders.
In March 2011, NAC increased to $1.92 million, a 25% hike, the amount to be given to 16 arts companies, including W!LD RICE, under its one-year Major Grant scheme.
The Info-communications Media Development Authority, through its Programme Advisory Committees for each of the four official languages,[18] monitors and provides feedback on broadcast content.
In April 2005, a blogger, Chen Jiahao, then a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was made to apologise and shut down his blog containing criticisms on government agency A*STAR, after its chairman Philip Yeo threatened to sue for defamation.
Proposed amendments to the Penal Code intend to hold Internet users liable for "causing public mischief", and give the authorities broader powers in curtailing freedom of speech.
[25] In September 2008, US citizen Gopalan Nair was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment for insulting a public servant after he accused a Singapore judge of "prostituting herself" in his blog.
These websites must then post a "performance bond" of 50,000 Singapore dollars and remove any objectionable content within 24 hours of receiving a government order.
