Is academic freedom dead in Singapore?

On 22 March 2026, Malaysian activist Dr Fadiah Nadwah Fakir crossed the Malaysia-Singapore border. The trip would be mostly business: she was to deliver a guest lecture at the university where she had recently received her doctorate. To her surprise, Dr Fadiah was refused entry to Singapore and turned back to Malaysia at the Woodlands Checkpoint. She was an undesirable visitor, according to the receipts she posted on her social media accounts. In her own words, the ordeal was "extremely outrageous and distressing". Given that her candidature at the National University of Singapore was uneventful, if not model, Dr Nadiah alleged her "deportation" signals the state's disapproval of her research interests in postcolonial theory.

Safe and nonpolitical medieval students and scholars drinking and gambling,
from the Carmina Burana manuscript

Prof Khoo Ying Hooi, an international relations expert regularly consulted by Singapore's The Straits Times for regional and Malaysian political analysis, has opined that this incident is proof that Singapore actively polices the boundaries of academics to restrict their legitimate activities within education, and away from political activism and advocacy. Such a pity, the prof sniffs, as this overlap is the "common" mode of academic expression in the region.

Dr Fadiah's online theatrics and performative outrage may play to her social media audience,  but Prof Khoo's quiet piece presents a challenge that Home Affairs minister K Shanmugam cannot swat away easily: Was Singapore's action not just heavyhanded, but detrimental to academic freedom? Did striking Dr Fadiah also inadvertently hurt academic freedom and academic independence or autonomy, on which any functional democracy depends?

Will PJ Thum present the first and only poll of the election?

Cancel your appointments for the night of 24 April 2025. If you have decided to attend an election rally, you need to reconsider your life priorities. Sure, you can spend 3 hours in a field or stadium experiencing attempts by politicians and their plants in the crowd to whip the crowd into a frenzy. We at Illusio have found a far more important, more exciting, more elusive event in Singapore's political history, one that is literally singular and may never be repeated again.

A political rally, from Wikimedia

This is why you should attend Dr PJ Thum and New Naratif's The Citizen Agenda at 7pm, at The Projector at Golden Mile (yes, it's a free event).

No kiss and make-up: Sonny Liew and Singapore's National Arts Council

After Sonny Liew won several Eisner awards for the graphic novel which the National Arts Council (NAC) of Singapore has previously denounced as "potentially undermines the authority and legitimacy of the Government and its public institutions", the government agency (despite its reluctance to spell out its direct affiliation to the ministry of culture on its own website) and self-declared champion of the arts in Singapore released a congratulatory statement whose mixture of embarrassment and halfhearted conciliation did not escape notice.

It appears that this would not be the end of the matter, and it was wrong to expect a kiss and make-up between award-winning artist and the nation's arts administrators.

So we decided to interview Sonny Liew ourselves.

Sonny Liew's Eisner win and the future of arts censorship in Singapore

When we wrote a mini-review of Sonny Liew's presentation of The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye almost 2 years ago, we remarked that the graphic novel telling an alternate history of Singapore appeared to be "a pastiche of various periods and styles of comic art that were popular during the 1940s to 1970s".

In the intervening year, we bought a copy of the graphic novel and were amazed at how vastly Liew had undersold himself. Sure, Liew didn't research actually existing comics made by artists in pre-independence Singapore. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye isn't just a pastiche of various periods and styles of comic art; it is a love letter to giants such as Osamu Tezuka, Steve Ditko, Walt Kelly, and Jack Kirby, who have influenced Liew as an artist.

But his book isn't at all an alternate or secret history of Singapore; it is a self-critiquing narrative informed by a historian's understanding that official history is enhanced when it is tempered and even interrogated by the inclusion of multiple viewpoints and the appreciation of paths not taken. It is a masterful love letter to Singapore, warts and all, and a tribute to Singapore's big men and smallfolk alike, and all their dreams.

A post shared by Red Dot Diva (@reddotdiva) on Aug 4, 2017 at 11:34pm PDT

Photograph of Sonny Liew, reproduced with kind permission from Red Dot Diva

But let's talk about how the clown show at the National Arts Council has to deal with Liew's multiple Eisner wins.

Imperial Overreach, redux

Being my sole comment on the entire Mr Brown affair. And I assure you, despite the lateness of my foray, that still no one - not even the brightest of our political bloggers - no one can think like I do, and write as I do.

Imperial Overreach

Occurs when organisational forces attempt to push the limits of their power from a stable configuration.

Typically through an extreme move or a hardline statement, going above and beyond established and accepted principles.

While achieving momentary shock, the move or statement are inconsistent with existing principles, hence untenable, unsustainable, and plain illogical.

Overreach occurs when the population is insufficiently shocked to accept the new proposed standards, or when the organisation is unprepared to back up its new stance and backpedals to the old status quo.

The government this, the government that

Most reactions in the blogosphere make the key assumption that Bhavani's vehement outburst was

1. Officially sanctioned by the Cabinet and the PM
2. Made in her official capacity as a spokesperson for MICA/MITA

leading to the conclusion that

3. Bhavani's smackdown is just the latest manifestation of the age-old plan of our Evil Overlords to curtail freedom of expression.

Bloggers below the age of 25 who made this argument may be forgiven for their ignorance; bloggers like Tan Tarn Howe and Cherian George who made this argument should be viewed with suspicion by any reader - they of all people should know better.

Applying imperial overreach to Bhavani, MITA, and Brown

Nothing profitable comes out of viewing history as a continuous procession of "always has beens". Only when we cast our vision on the continuous erruptions, discontinuities, and zero points of history and discourse can we understand when something profoundly new has taken place, or whether something is truly the same old, same old, or whether imperial overreach has occured.

Just for fun:

1. State MITA's public stance on journalists, their role on political discourse, and the function of the press. State how MITA coordinates its doctrine with the media.

MITA's preferred model of the media can be summed up in the phrase "Nation-building press". It goes back to George Yeo's long reign in the ministry, and every 5 years or so, the Chief Editor of ST would remind everyone in his annual ST anniversary Op-ed that the Straits Times does not wish to adhere to the Western notion of a Fourth Estate imposing curbs and exercising oversight on the national leadership. The press in Singapore is a Fourth Estate that is responsible to frame and present issues to occasion the happy reception of national policy to its citizen-readers, and promote the affections of the public for their leaders.

The Straits Times takes the side, advocates for the Whiteshirt government, and says so brazenly in every other anniversary Op-ed. This policy and stance has been worked out with MITA oversight and approval, and Bhavani is a batshit loony or very, very ignorant of long-standing MITA press policy when she says "It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government", or "If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer...". Highly amusing, somewhat.

2. Name a single occasion when MITA spoke out against journalists in public.

Gee, I certainly can't think of any previous occasions! Cherian and Tan, please take your potshots at me now.

3. State the preferred means and method of rapping journalists' knuckles.

That's because MITA *never* castigates, bodyslams, or gives journalists the smackdown. What is the standard procedure, the historically informed method then? Cherian can answer this, right? The PermSec of either the Minister or the Prime Minister, or the PM himself will do the bodyslamming. Always with a humorous touch, just to show that "even if we believe Mr George got a few facts wrong, he is most certainly welcome to air them, since we will set the facts right. Of course, he is most certainly welcome to air his views, since Singapore got press freedom mah ; )"

Mr George, isn't that essentially how lighthearted your rapping by the PM's PermSec was? Mdm Bhavani, as a PR lecturer, don't you agree your letter to the Today forum page is a classic example of a big character poster (大字报), and far more shrill and poisonous than a Malaysian poison pen letter? Were you hoping that Mr Brown would start walking around the streets with a self-criticism saying "I, Lee Kin Mun, hereby confess to the crime of being a dirty counterrevolutionary, a rightist, and a collaborator. I hereby volunteer myself to 30 years of re-education and hard labour in the countryside"?

As we may notice, Bhavani is not the PermSec to Lee Boon Yang, Balakrishnan, or Balaji. Bhavani is not the PermSec to Minilee, Papalee, or Peanut Goh. Bhavani is a peanut of a mid-level bureaucrat who has embarrassed MICA, the Cabinet, and her political masters by violating protocol, precedence, and contradicting the ministry's long-standing doctrines.

We may have also noticed the off-the-cuff statements by Balakrishnan and his superior, Lee Boon Yang, on the Brown affair.

4. When multiple Whiteshirt ministers speak on the same issue, they will take care to reinforce the rhetoric of the original speaker, and not to contradict any claims made by that speaker. Y/N

Balakrishnan and LBY have commented on the issue. They are bound not to overturn Bhavani's claims, but they made a conscious refusal to adopt or repeat her rhetoric: "distort the truth", "polemic", "encourage cynicism and despondancy", et al. Instead of repeating the Bhavani doctrine that "it is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government", LBY again reiterated the nation-building role of the press.

Imperial overreach: Balakrishnan and LBY are unprepared to back up Bhavani, and backpedal to the old status quo.

If we had a real press instead of the clown show at Today, The New Paper and The Straits Times, we would have reporters continually asking the 3 ministers at MICA:

Where oh where are you, Balaji? Enquiring minds want to know why you're silent on the Brown affair!
Will the Ministers confirm who approved and cleared Mdm Bhavani to write her letter condemning Brown?
Mdm Bhavani, as a lecturer in a PR college for civil servants, do you feel your letter was a model of what not to write as a civil servant?
Will the Ministers explain why they have not referred to Mdm Bhavani's letter, or to the terms she used to castigate Mr Lee Kin Mun, nor her comments on the role of journalists?

My predictions:
Bhavani to be thrown to the lions.
Lee Boon Yang to be kicked upstairs to the Prime Minister's Office as a Minister without Portfolio by year's end.

On film censorship in Singapore

There's an interesting thread going on in Singabloodypore, sparked off by my fellow contributor Clyde posting a clip from Youtube, of Royston Tan's Cut, a diatribe and musical condemning the Film Censorship Board's historic and boundless butchering of films.

You'll have to understand it was made in 2004, shortly after the Film Censorship Board made an incredible 37 cuts to his arthouse homoerotic gangster film 15. You'll have to understand that in Q4 2005, the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) announced a broad restructuring of the censorship system, such that

Distributors indicate preferred ratings upon submission. The Board of Film Censors (BFC) assesses if the film is suitable for the requested rating. If not, the BFC will suggest an alternative rating. Distributors may either accept the BFC's recommendation or edit the film to meet the guidelines for their preferred rating.

Anonymous posters in SBP charge that this is a purely cosmetic change, that "though MDA censorship board no longer cuts films, they can tell "distributors to edit the film" till MDA approves - which is just as good as cutting films.

You'll have to understand that the changes made to the Film Classification Board puts Singapore's film censorship procedures in line with that of the US MPAA film classification process.

You'll also have to understand that the claims made by various anonymouses about the cosmetic changes to Singapore's film censorship system can be easily verified or disproved. Surely any of you can click on this link to the Film Classification Database with me, and look at the films of 2006.

1. Controversial films with sexual content

Basic Instinct 2. R21. Passed with cuts. Of course, audiences need to be protected from sex scenes starring a 47 year old Sharon Stone.
Brokeback Mountain. R21. Passed Clean.
C.R.A.Z.Y. M18. Passed Clean.
Combien tu M'aimes (How much do you love me?). R21. Passed Clean.
Capote. NC16. Passed Clean.
Ask the Dust. R21. Passed Clean. Salma Hayek's rocks rock!
4:30. NC16. Passed Clean. Disturbing images of a 13 year old snipping of sleeping adult's pubic hair didn't get the chief censor incensed. Royston Tan complaineth too much.
Zombie Dogs. R21. Passed Clean.
Kinky Boots. PG. Passed Clean. Sympathetic account of drag queens.
The Hours. M18 DVD. Passed Clean. Lesbian kiss survives.
Chicago. M18 DVD/VCD. Passed Clean.

2. Simply controversial films believed to be blasphemous by fundie Christians
The Da Vinci Code. NC16. Passed Clean. Take that, NCCS!

3. Horror films. Presumbly the biggest beef in "Cut" was the rampant censoring out of all gore in horror films. In 2006, has anything changed?

The Devil's Rejects. M18. Passed Clean.
Boo. NC 16. Passed Clean.
House of the Dead. R21. Passed Clean.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake). RA. Passed CLEAN on second submission even though distributor didn't do any censorship or cutting on their own.
Frostbiten. NC16. Passed Clean.
Saw II. Distributor submitted one uncut version for M18 and one self-edited version for NC16. Both PASSED Clean without tampering from the censors.
Mortuary. NC 16. Passed Clean

All gore in horror films are intact in 2006.

Verdict: Anonymouses should just do some research before shooting off your mouths and indulging in masturbatory spiels, conspiracy theories, and rants on how the film censorship board is oppressing you.

Verdict: Since the liberalisation of film censorship and the reformation of the Film Censorship Board into a proper Film Classification Board, much less censorship has been exercised, with horror/controversial/sex-themed movies moving into NC16, M18 and R21 categories, where they tend to be overwhelming Passed Clean, i.e. passed without cuts.

Imperial Overreach

Being the last in the triptych of comments on Char, Wong Kan Seng, and the NCCS

Imperial Overreach

Occurs when organisational forces attempt to push the limits of their power from a stable configuration.

Typically through an extreme move or a hardline statement, going above and beyond established and accepted principles.

While achieving momentary shock, the move or statement are inconsistent with existing principles, hence untenable, unsustainable, and plain illogical.

Overreach occurs when the population is insufficiently shocked to accept the new proposed standards, or when the organisation is unprepared to back up its new stance and backpedals to the old status quo.

I write this in the light of the police dropping the investigation against Char.

The acquital without formal charges proves overreach - not just by Wong Kan Seng and the police, but by the NCCS and the fringe fundamentalists in Singapore. We witness the breaching of several commonsensical rules:

7. The police should never be used as a tool of frivolous investigation. DPM Wong's asinine announcement that the police will investigate all and any complaints against anti-religious bloggers breaches this rule.

8. There must either be clear guidelines over what on earth is truly offensive to Christians, or investigations should never be held unless there arise pictures that actually incite a supermajority of Christians into possible violence.

8a. Will the NCCS have the guts to seize upon the momentum it has built over the past 5 years, and mutate into the National Circle-jerk of Christian Muftis? Will any Protestant really allow such a body to make essentially pronouncements on church doctrine?

8b. Liberal Christians who have either quit the established churches in light of the recent shift to fundamentalism in the churches during the past 10 years, or have remained silent but not exactly happy campers, will never allow the fundamentalists to make a grab in defining religious doctrine and matters of "sedition" and "blasphemy". Disengaged as they are from formal church politics, the possibility of a backlash by liberal Christians has prevented the mufti-wannabes of the NCCS from speaking out on the Char issue.

8c. Objectively speaking, there was never any majority of Christians wildly offended by Char's pictures. Speaking as a Christian, I find those pictures rather funny, somewhat infantile, but never that insulting. And some of them had nothing to do with Christianity at all.

9. The NCCS should remember what the censorship board and the MDA said when the mufti-wannabes tried to send a secret letter to the ministry to ban the Da Vinci Code movie. The reply, if I recall, was "Fuck off". Grown adults, including Christians, are able to differentiate between fact and fiction. Why a secret letter? I do suppose there was a sizeable fraction of Christians who would not have been comfortable with the idea of the NCCS trying to ban a movie in their names.

9a. What has always been allowed cannot be disallowed. It's bad precedent, for example, to ban any and all depictions of Jesus Christ now, because we HAVE allowed the Da Vinci Code to be screened.

We have allowed Bruce Almighty to be screened.

There was no police investigation or sedition charges thrown at any Singaporean who has made "Father, Son and Holy Goh" jokes since 1992.

Al Franken's Lies: And the lying liars who tell them continues to be sold openly in Singapore's bookshops despite its depiction of a certain Supply-side Jesus.

T-shirts saying "God, save me from your followers!" are still widely available at any good pasar malam or streetwear store.

10. Note to the ever-opportunistic National Circle-jerk of Christian (i.e. Protestant, with self-appointed representatives from Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Rev Kong Hee's church) Muftis: My Jesus forgives your Jesus.

Sedition by the numbers

3 down, 1 more to go

Usedbrainsforsale, my fellow writer at Singabloodypore, reports the capitulation in court of the third blogger to be charged with sedition (for posting racist remarks online) in Singapore.

As xenoboysg (another fellow SBP writer) points out, we are witnessing an incredibly efficient legal process at work: the machinery of the state moves on relentlessly, crushing all miscreants in its way. This is not hyperbole, by the way.

Even the token arch-conservative member of SBP - marked by his espousal of the doctrine of police infallibility and dedication to a strong crime and punishment style towards our polis, is awed by how the state has handled the trial of the bloggers. The judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney assigned to the case are top-notch pillars of the legal community. Judge Bala used to be the most senior deputy public prosecutors persecutors around, with his hardline stance - a stance which Mr Wang neglects to inform readers, may have continued in his tenure as a judge. The prosecutor for the case is Jaswant Singh, a "top guy" in the attorney-general's office. On defence was Edmond Pereira, an ex-judge and DPP.

Mr Wang is convinced that with the best of the crop involved in this case, justice will be impeccably served. Trust these men, he seems to say. Be assured that whatever sentence is meted out will be fair, just, and legal.

Now, all these blogging trials are remarkable. They involve young men shooting off their mouths online and having their politically incorrect remarks read by people who weren't expected to read them. This crime is of such national, political and racial important that it warrants the mobilisation of the Big Guns. Or, you could look at the identities of the judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer and say that they were impeccably selected to ensure a very entertaining and informative show trial. Propaganda through the courts.

So: 3 down, 1 to go.

The Internets problem

Also, gay dating websites with members-only galleries like www.sgboy.com and www.fluffboy.com were fined and shut down respectively. Despite fluffboy being hosted overseas...

Some political bloggers in Singapore have quietly stopped updating their sites, or completely changed the focus content. This is not to say that they can feel what may be in store soon: a political website and blogger(s) being made an example of, under the Political Broadcasts act. Their fear is overstated - the point about the sedition trials is Singapore has passed the age where the state can, with impunity, charge people who are really seditious (spies, traitors, guerillas) with sedition. We are reduced to having people who are nowhere seditious to be hammered with the sedition law. By the same reasoning, the upcoming shutdown of a select few political blogs will not affect any real political blogs.

It's not about racial harmony, promotion of undesirable lifestyles, or political punditry by ordinary citizens. It's about the internets.

No really, it's about the internets

Singapore has an efficient legal system where judges, DPPs and the police will pounce on any criminal and process his case swiftly finish him off.

I want to know why no sedition act was thrown at the following people for making certain racist, antireligious, and misogynistic remarks that were much more offensive and shocking, in view of their status as national leaders and the very public avenues their remarks, which have caused popular condemnation or moral outrage in their time:

Former MP Choo Wee Khiang, in 1992, made a speech to Parliament "One evening, I drove to Little India and it was pitch dark but not because there was no light, but because there were too many Indians around."

Then-Brigadier General (Reservist) and cabinet minister Lee Hsien Loong, in February 1987, clarified in Parliament the reason behind the non-existence of Malay figher pilots: The Government saw armed conflict with Malaysia as a possibility when he defended the policy of taking limited number of Malays into the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) and then not placing them in militarily critical roles. Minilee argued that the policy was intended to avoid dividing soldiers' loyalties between their nation and their religion. [The Pacific Review Vol. 4, No. 3] (Minilee leaves it to us to decide whether Malays cannot be trusted to defend Singapore because of their race or their religion.)

Then-Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, in September 1999, remarked in the "Tanjong Pagar Singapore 21" public consultative forum reiterated that Malays cannot be trusted to defend Singapore in stronger terms than Minilee: "If, for instance, you put in a Malay officer who's very religious and who has family ties in Malaysia in charge of a machine gun unit, that's a very tricky business. We've got to know his background."

As a prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew in December 1967 gave a lecture to the nation's top students at the Premier Institute for Social Engineering on the superior glands of the Chinese race (reported by Michael D. Barr, Journal of Contemporary Asia v29, n2 (1999). The lecture began with an anecdote: "Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development."

Remarkable racism, and very public racism at that.

Note that the text in the Sedition Act do not specify race as a basis to identify groups that are clearly offended and divided from the state by a sedious remark. How about sex/gender as a group?

1990. Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, on a tour of Australia, expressed his regrets about extending higher education and equal rights to women. (Facts on File: Asian Political Alamanac, p387) "The government was young, ignorant, and idealistic," said Lee. In 1986, Lee Kuan Yew mentioned that it was "wrong, it was stupid" to introduce monogamy.

It is certainly my belief that the current crop of seditious bloggers being tried is a testament to the dictum that leaders aren't subject to the same laws they impose on their followers. There are lots of people online who defend the prosecution of the 4 racist bloggers as necessary, legal, and just. Where are they when our leaders shoot their mouths off?

Banned in Singapore

Via Chris Loup:

Banned in Singapore: DVDs too hot for Singapore

As the site author of Banned in Singapore explains,

Singapore has banned movies for sexual content, extreme violence, excesive drug use, and extreme religious views that may encourage violence. The list are movies that can be purchased at amazon.com. I've learned of the extent Singapore bans films via my position as a Customer Service Liaison.

One task is processing returns that have incomplete information and the Media Development Authority sends back just enough information for me to process the undeliverable shipments for the confused customer who only gets part of their order.

Sometimes we receive keepers. That's when the the viewer thinks the DVD is so nefarious that it must be kept in Singapore for further inspection. As of late there have been fewer keepers and some aren't even inspected just refused.

I note that the DVDs too hot or sensitive to order into Singapore include:

The Ten Commandments
Madame Butterfly
American Beauty
American Pie 1/2
Basic Instinct
Monty Python's Flying Circus (they showed half a season on TV here 3 years ago?!)
Samurai X (ANIME - shown on artscentral)
Princess Mononoke (Anime - shown in cinemas here)
Bubblegum Crisis
Terminator 1-3
Vampire Hunter D

Oh, forget it.

As Amy Chua, the head of the MDA's said last year, "the Board of Film Censors, which I supervise, does not function as society's moral guardian, or arbiters of taste and decency, and has never set out to do so. It can only reflect, at best, community standards and what society considers to be generally acceptable."

This is the only appropriate response to the jackasses and prigs at Singapore's customs and MDA, who have driven many a sane Singaporean shrill, through their sheer incompetence, malevolence, and mendacity!

A Party Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party (Part 2)

Elsewhere, others have offered a textual-legal reading of the Film Act. I will not attempt to cross the same grounds here. Instead of the Film Act as the subject of study, we focus on the Film Act (and only its 1998 revisions) as an artefact - a manifestation or symptom, if you will - of the modes of production and subsequent relations of power inherent in Singapore.

What are the pre-existing conditions of Singapore society that facilitate the specific measures and proposals within the 1998 Film Act? In order to answer this, we first have to marshall our evidence.

The Evidence

Sec. 2 (2) appears to offer a straightforward definition of a political film, but the preceding chapter gives away the true intention of the legislators:

A political film is a film or media broadcast...
1(b) which is made by any person and directed towards any political end in Singapore;

Sec. 2 (3) is either uniquely Singaporean, or crafted by unironic legislators with a poor grasp of grammar:

For the avoidance of doubt, any film which is made solely for the purpose of

(a) reporting of current events; or

(b) informing or educating persons on the procedures and polling times for any election or national referendum in Singapore,

is not a party political film.

It seems to say "Yes, you can do all of the above evil things, if you're reporting on current events, or informing people that there is this election".

In case you didn't get the nudge, nudge, wink wink message, here's sec. 40:

1) This Act shall not apply to
(a) any film sponsored by the Government;
...
(c) any film reproduced from local television programmes and is not intended for distribution or public exhibition.
[10/98]

(2) The Minister may, subject to such conditions as he thinks fit, exempt any person or class of persons or any film or class of films from all or any of the provisions of this Act.

"The Government" may make political films that blatantly or subtly influence elections, mould public opinion of its candidates, broadcast them on national propaganda tv. It is exempt to this Film Act, and it is empowered to exempt others (as it sees fit) from this Act.

Under sec. 23 (2); sec. 34 (1-2), the Act gives unlimited power to the police to engage in search without warrants and use of force to investigate violations of the Act. (All these are 1998 provisions) Note that the police authorities do NOT need the opinion of the censorship board to classify a film as violating the Act, in order to launch an investigation. They are also allowed to confiscate all suspected filmmaking material, storage material, etc. (Your cameras, film footage, other film stock for unrelated projects, your computer...)

You can appeal to a committee if you feel your film has been wrongly classified. The 1998 revision adds that the appeals committee will consist of people appointed by the Minister (for the Arts/Communication), under sec. 25 (1).

Even in the original Act itself, the Minister has the power to call for an inspection of any film by the censorship board, and also call for any film that does not contravene the Act (i.e. escaped through some loopholes) to be banned.

The Analysis will come tomorrow... this post is long enough.