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Chinese New Year is set for 18 February. 2007 is supposed to be the Year of the Pig on the Chinese calendar, but the government just put a huge damper on the whole thing. The Chinese government doesn't want to offend fastidious touchy sensitive adherents of a certain religion—the one that, as Mark Steyn likes to put it, starts with "Is-" and ends with "-lam".
China's ruling Communist Party has banned images and mention of pigs in television advertisements aired over the lunar new year to avoid offending the country's Muslims, an advertising agency said on Friday.
'We were told by the CCTV (China Central Television) censorship team that the CCTV advertising department announced a new regulation on pigs in its internal document,' an executive at the Shanghai-based Mindshare agency told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone.
The ban also applies to cartoons and traditional paper-cut images of pigs, and to slogans such as 'golden pig brings you fortune' and 'wish you a happy pig year,' the executive said.
China, a nation with over 1.3 billion people, has about 21 million Muslims.
OneManBandWidth, an American professor blogging from China, points out that the ban risks offending Buddhists.
So, how are the Buddhists, who think that the animals were chosen after Buddha himself summoned them all to a meeting in which he would designate the first 12 animals as rep’s, going to feel?
Buddhists may not like it, but they have a reputation for self-immolation, not other-immolation.
In related news, Qatar has censored pictures of Piglet in children’s books. As Kathy Shaidle suggests, the "Free Piglet" campaign needs to be revived.
h/t: Global Voices Online
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