KL to allow uncensored satellite TV

KL to allow uncensored satellite TV

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia will not censor international
programs broadcast by its first satellite television station
despite current stringent rules aimed at keeping sex and violence
off the air, officials said yesterday.

"It will be a direct broadcast without delay and censorship,"
Information Minister Mohamed Rahmat said, refuting an earlier
statement by one of his officials that the programs would be
filtered.

The ministry's parliamentary-secretary Mohd Shafie Apdal was
earlier reported saying that programs transmitted by MEASAT
Broadcast Network Systems Sdn. Bhd. would undergo an hour-long
"filtration" period before being shown.

Mohamed said the ministry would still have veto power over the
channels chosen by MEASAT Broadcast. But once approved, these
channels would be aired untouched.

"We are still talking about values, still very concerned about
pornography, " the minister said.

The government clamped down on television stations in February
after a guest on a live talk show uttered an expletive on air.

The program, Teleskop, was swiftly axed and Mohamed ordered
existing television stations to snip off all sex, horror,
violence and anything coming under the ambiguous category of
"counter-culture" to be removed from shows.

"Counter-culture" referred to anything deemed harmful to local
cultural values, he said.

MEASAT is scheduled to begin broadcasting 20 television and
eight radio channels of international programming by satellite
from mid-1996.