On 11 May 2007, Oiwan Lam posted an essay on one of Hong Kong's predominantly Chinese-language, community-oriented forums: InMediaHK.

Lam's essay about the state of censorship in Hong Kong included a photograph (left).

The photo was hot-linked from one of the world's biggest user-generated websites for photos: Flickr.

A week after Lam posted her essay and the photograph, she received a phone call from someone at Hong Kong's Television and Entertainment Authority advising her that it had received "one and only one" complaint and the photo was problematic.

Lam chose to maintain the photo and essay, See here: InMediaHK

Meanwhile, until mid-June, that photo was freely accessible at Flickr. In mid-June, Flickr began limiting access to certain tagged photos for web surfers in four regions: Germany, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong. Why those four? Who knows. Photo: joerrorr at flickr

Fast forward to end of June. Oiwan Lam has now been informed her essay has been classified on a preliminary basis as "Category II: Indecent" by the Hong Kong Obscene Articles Tribunal. The maximum penalty is HK$400,000 and 12 months in jail.

What"s going on? The Obscene Articles Tribunal is harassing citizens -- an interview with Oiwan Lam, by Ip Iam-chong. (1 July 2007: InMediaHK

English translation of Oiwan Lam interview, courtesy of Roland Soong at EastSouthWestNorth

Hong Kong: Sex and the City

Fighting fire with fire, culture war hots up in Hong Kong:

(SCMP) More than 1,400 indecency complaints have been filed against the Bible -- nearly 10 times more than those lodged against the Chinese University student journal. The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority yesterday confirmed 1,406 complaints were received and two of the complaints were made by phone and fax. The rest were filed by e-mail. About 168 complaints have been filed against the university's Student Press.

A Chinese-language website www.truthbible.net, which has launched a campaign demanding a reclassification of the Bible, has stopped transferring complaints to the authority automatically after complaint numbers jumped to 11,660. "The website has been disrupted with the intention of discrediting our credibility. We do not rule out the possibility of reporting the case to police to find out the guilty party who tries to suppress freedom of speech," a statement issued in the website said.

The website said the Bible was full of stories and references to incest, rape, cannibalism and violence. Therefore, it should be classified as indecent or obscene.

More, much more at: EastSouthWestNorth