The Indian government has banned 857 pornography websites with no warning, reports the BBC.
Within hours of the ban, social media was awash with complaints from disgruntled people finding their access blocked.
Indian Flag. Image Credit: Sanyam Bahga (Flickr)
No official warning was offered, leaving many flummoxed by the sudden block. Adding to the confusion is the fact that only a month ago, India’s Supreme Court denied a request to block internet pornography. India’s chief Justice said that adults had the right to choose to consumer pornography in their homes.
This request came from activist and lawyer, Kamlesh Vaswani, 43, who has been attempting the change India’s pornography laws since the disturbing 2012 Delhi gang rape. Having been declined by the Supreme Court it seems he won over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Writing of the effects of pornography, Vaswani said:
‘Nothing can more efficiently destroy a person, fizzle their mind, evaporate their future, eliminate their potential or destroy society like pornography […] It is worse than Hitler, worse than AIDS, cancer or any other epidemic […] It is more catastrophic than nuclear holocaust, and it must be stopped.’
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Blogger Jonathan Turley says the move is ‘denying millions of adults the right to choose their own associations and entertainment. It is a triumph for morality codes and a significant erosion of free speech and privacy protections for the Indian people.’
He also expresses concern in a more global sense: ‘ The effort to impose a state morality code harkens back to a bygone era in the West — a legacy of criminalized speech and associations. Not only will this effort to ban sites fail, the effort itself will only fuel greater and greater demands for speech laws and morality codes in one of the most pluralistic nations on Earth.’
An official in New Delhi told the BBC:
‘There is no total ban. This was done in the backdrop of Supreme Court’s observation on children having free access to porn sites. The idea is also to protect India’s cultural fabric. This will not prevent adults from visiting porn sites.’
See the BBC for the full story.
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