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.