Update: I’m told that Hungary now has the same access as we have here in the USA (i.e. with the content warning).
The new Mohammed movie by Imran Firasat and Terry Jones, The Innocent Prophet, was released yesterday. Sometime yesterday one of YouTube’s “content warnings” was attached to the video, but it is still available, at least in the USA.
However, as of this morning, the video has been blocked in at least one country. Here’s the report from Vlad Tepes:
New Imran film blocked in Hungary
Hermes just sent me the following email:
Hi folks, I’ve just tried to click on my last liveleak post, that of Imran’s film, and this is what I met:
“Your country is prohibited from accessing this item!”
Amazing.
So now we know that countries are able to block out specific material to a degree at least, and we know that Hungary has decided to block a film about the pirate Mohamed for the sole reason that Muslims are thought likely to violently object to it.
This of course is the most likely reason as the material contains no factual error and no other material of a historical or historical biographical nature is blocked, as far as I am aware, in Hungary.
I also think it is unlikely that there will be a reaction to this film in any case, as in the other instances where riots took place, they had all been carefully stage managed well after the fact. The Danish Cartoons for example, and the other US made film which had been out for months and months with nearly no views before the riots started, conveniently and symbolically on 9/11 of this year. This will likely cause as little issues as the hundreds of other anti Islamic videos and documents which are produced daily. Many of which are downright insulting to all things Islamic and not just accurately but unflatteringly biographical.
At the end of the day this means that citizens of Hungary and for that matter, any other nation that discovers they cannot access this sort of material should take it upon themselves as a matter of social and civic responsibility, to produce this material in some manner that people can access, and make it publicly available. Perhaps printing it on DVD’s for example and starting a ‘Grateful-Dead’ style copying tree. Except without all the crappy music.
Governments do not have any right to prevent it’s citizens from accessing information or art. Triply so when it is accurate, and information that a person needs to make decisions about what sort of a future they want for their own people. They may pass laws, but they have no right. If anyone is reading this from Hungary please go to youtube and try and access the film and if that doesn’t work, we shall see what we can do from here as well.
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