Artist: B. P. Hasdeu
Confronting Bodies: Committee for the Inspection of the Schools Beyond the Milcov River, the Minister of Cults and Public Education, and judicial authorities at the National College of Iasi.
Date of Action: 1863
Specific Location: Romania
Description of Artwork: Hasdeu's Duduca Mamuca is a novel about the erotic adventures of an undergraduate at a German University. He and an older friend seduce a mother and daughter, who are both actresses and the women give lessons in love making to the two men.
Description of Incident: In Duduca Mamuca, Hasdeu had lampooned several political figures. This provoked the Committee for Inspection of schools beyond the Milcov River to send him a written complaint. He mocked the letter in a copy of his magazine. A month later, the Minister of Cults and Public Education dismissed Hasdeu from his position as chair of history at the National College of Iasi. The judicial authorities in Iasi found his writing to have defied public morals.
Results of Incident: A month afterwards, a criminal court found Hasdeu not guilty, judging that the novel does not allude to specific persons so that one may claim public morals have been infringed by attacks directed at somebody in the community.
He released a version of the novel with deleted segments in 1864, although he had defended his writing through comparing it to equally "indecent" passages from the works of classic Romanian writers.
Source: Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. Ed. Derek Jones. Chicago; London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001.
Date Input: Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Akram Haniyya
[ Edit ]
Date: 1985 - 1995
Location: Middle East and Caucasus
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Print Journalism
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Artist: Akram Haniyya
Confronting Bodies: Israeli censors
Date of Action: Several incidents in the early 1980's up until 1986, when he was deported from the Occupied Territories.
Specific Location: Jordan
Description of Artwork: The newspaper "Al-Sha'b," which Haniyya was editor-in-chief of, published several articles, which were on topics that had been forbidden. In 1985 he published statements from the President of Sudan on the topic of Jewish immigration, which Israeli officials had repeatedly stated no newspaper should touch on. Another incident came three months later when censors instructed newspapers to ignore an incident involving two young Palestinians who were killed in an auto explosion. Haniyya did not report the event but instead published a death notice. After this al-Sha'b was closed by censors for three days. The paper was also not allowed to cover stories about the West Bank for large periods of time (Despite Palestinian affairs being the purpose of al-Sha'b) due to orders from the censors and was closed down temporarily after the invasion of Lebanon.
Description of Incident: In December 1986, Haniyya was to be deported from the Occupied Territories. Due to an outdated law that was never revoked, Haniyya was not allowed to see the evidence against him. The charges could be summed up as trying to influence public opinion, which describes Haniyya's job as a journalist.
Results of Incident: In 1995, Haniyya returned to the West Bank during the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. He became editor-in-chief of a new newspaper (al-Ayyam) and gained a position as an unofficial assistant of Yasser Arafat, which protects his journalism from censorship. His political columns are read not only by Palestinians, but also by Israelis and other foreigners today.
Source: Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. Ed. Derek Jones. Chicago; London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001.
Date Input: Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Student banners removed over political content
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: North America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Design
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Artist: Callum Kyle and Alicia Henderson.
Confronting Bodies: Erica Cherney, chairwoman of the Downtown Buisiness Improvement Area in Peterborough.
Date of Action: July 2007
Specific Location: Peterborough, Canada.
Description of Artwork: Two banners to be hung from street posts.
One depicts the stripes of the American flag morphing into bombs along with the Statue of Liberty having an X placed over it. The other banner shows a jet fighter flying over a city labeled as Detroit.
These were hung along a street with 20 other student-made banners.
Description of Incident: After hearing the banners described over the phone, Cherney ordered that they be taken down. The students were not notified that their art have been removed.
Cherney explains that she removed the banners so as not to damage the upbeat mood of an upcoming street sale and Ribfest event.
Results of Incident: The banners were removed and the Downtown Business Improvement Area has been asked to explain the removal to the students.
Source: The Peterborough Examiner
Date Input: Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Painter targeted over religious-bias
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: Asia
Subject: Religious
Medium: Painting
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Artist: M F Husain
Confronting Bodies: Protestors in India
Date of Action: 2007
Specific Location: Mumbai, India
Description of Artwork: A painting of a nude goddess bent into the shape of a map of India.
Description of Incident: In the case of the 91-year-old M F Husain, the protests have been both constitutional and anarchic. His paintings have been slashed and burned and spray-painted, his films banned in Gujarat, and until recently there were obscenity cases against him in courts across the country.
Although some find nothing controversial about his works, his becoming a target can be attributed to him being Muslim.
Results of Incident: Husain continues to be protested, as there is no means of countering the attacks.
Source: The Times of India
Date Input: Monday, July 9, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Nude, non-sexual photography exhibition refused permission
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: Asia
Subject: Nudity
Medium: Photography
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Artist: Nguyen Kim Hoang
Confronting Bodies: Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture and Information
Date of Action: April 2007
Specific Location: Vietnam
Description of Artwork: Close angle shots of the "most sensitive parts of a woman," which are the back, shoulders, arms, elbows, and breasts.
Description of Incident: The HCM City Department of Culture and Information refused to give permission for the exhibition because it was not considered suitable to Vietnamese values and customs.
Uyen Huy, Vice Secretary General of the HCM City Art Association, defended the exhibit by claiming they are, "merely beautiful images of bodily curves and lines.
Photographer Nguyen Kim Hoang said she was willing to shelve photos considered inappropriate if necessary. Yet, she was completely surprised to hear that her works were rejected because they were "unsuitable" to Vietnamese values and customs.
Results of Incident: Vietnam Photographer's Association Chairman Thanh said that by the end of this year, the Ministry of Culture and Information and the Vietnam Photographer's Association would organize an unprecedented conference on nudity since these two authorities havent developed special guidelines on this subject.
Source: VietNamNet Bridge
Date Input: Monday, July 9, 2007
Date Edited: Monday, July 9, 2007
Name: Singapore film festival cuts two films over sex and religion
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: Asia
Subject: Religious
,Sexual/Gender Orientation
,Explicit Sexuality
Medium: Film Video
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Artist: Anders Morgenthaler and Loo Zihan.
Confronting Bodies: Singapore's Board of Film Censors
Date of Action: 2007
Specific Location: Singapore
Description of Artwork: "Princess", an animated film by Danish director Anders Morgenthaler, tells the story of a priest who tries to erase his dead sister's past as a porn star. The film is considered "religiously offensive" due to a scene where a porn star in a nun's habit has a cross protruding from her behind.
"Solos", the other cut film, is about the homosexual relationship between an older man and a boy. It was censored because of "explicit homosexual lovemaking scenes including scenes of oral sex and threesome sex", the board said.
Description of Incident: The scenes in question were cut from the films.
Results of Incident: Loo Zihan, co-director of "Solos" said he was appealing the censor's decision, claiming the sex scenes are meant to be viewed as art and not porn, but has not yet withdrawn the film. "Princess" has been removed from the festival completely due to the organizers having a policy of showing only uncut films.
Source: news.scotsman.com
Date Input: Monday, July 9, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Banning of Yan Lianke's novels in China
[ Edit ]
Date: 1995 - 2005
Location: Asia
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Literature
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Artist: Yan Lianke
Confronting Bodies: Chinese government officials, Central Propaganda Department
Date of Action: 2004/2005 (incidents involving the same author happened multiple times since 1994)
Specific Location: China
Description of Artwork: Fictional novels criticizing life under the Communist Party.
Description of Incident: Yan Lianke has had several of his novels banned in China since his first in 1994. The most notorious incident came in 2005 when his novella "Serve the People" was published in a literary magazine. The story focuses on an army officer's wife who finds that destroying her husband's Mao icons enhances her sexual desire for a man she is having an affair with. When the Central Propaganda Department discovered that this story was the reason the magazine was selling so well, they recalled 30,000 copies and banned further distribution.
More recently, his book "The Dream of Ding Village" has had a publishing ban placed on it. In this fictional novel, the peasants of Ding Village are encouraged to give so much blood that the government builds a pipeline for it. The banning of the book comes in its dealing with AIDS, which is "a very sensitive topic" in China. A donation from the publishing firm to the village behind the story was in his contract, but Yan had to assume responsibility for this himself when the company refused to pay due to suffering huge losses.
Results of Incident: Yan Lianke plans to write two versions of his next novel. One will be a watered down version for China while the other uncensored version will be published abroad. He also has taken efforts to make the story clearly fantasy to escape the censor's veto.
Source: Washington Post
Date Input: Monday, July 9, 2007
Date Edited: Monday, July 9, 2007
Name: Sexual sculpture removed from Indian gallery
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: Asia
Subject: Explicit Sexuality
Medium: Sculpture
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Artist: G L Narayan
Confronting Bodies: Art Gallery, due to fear of police involvement.
Date of Action: July 2007
Specific Location: Mumbai, India
Description of Artwork: A marble sculpture of a couple embracing.
Description of Incident: Narayan was asked to withdraw his sculpture due to the gallery having fears that police may object due to its explicitness. Narayan agreed to this because he did not want to start controversy. He had other nudes on display at this exhibit, but only the couple was pulled.
Results of Incident: The sculpture was pulled from the exhibit.
Source: The Times of India
Date Input: Monday, July 9, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: TERTULIA
[ Edit ]
Date: 1995 - 2005
Location: South America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Public art
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Artist: nicolas varchausky and eduardo molinari
Confronting Bodies: recoleta neighbours
Date of Action: september 2005
Specific Location: recoleta cemetery, buenos aires
Description of Artwork: sound and image intervention at the recoleta cemetery in buenos aires, using sound files (voices, music and sounds) and hitoric visual documents of argentine history
Description of Incident: the installation was part of the 5 international festival of buenos aires-neighbours presented an habeas corpus-judge suspended show
Results of Incident: buenos aires city government appeal the decision and installation could finally take place the night of september 24th,2005
Source: nicolas varchausky
Submitted By: nicolas varchausky
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Date Input: Saturday, June 30, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Censorship of Peruvian Cartoonist's Work by Government
[ Edit ]
Date: 2006-present
Location: South America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Painting
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Artist: Piero Quijano
Confronting Bodies: officials at a government-funded gallery
Date of Action: June 2007
Specific Location: Peru
Description of Artwork: Three drawings were removed, including a drawing that criticized the military for massacres of highland peasants and depicts four soldiers planting a rifle with a bayonet into the back of a peasant - an image mimicking the iconic World War II photograph of US Marines raising the American flag over Iwo Jima.
The other two drawings removed poked fun at the wave of privatizations that swept Latin America in the 1990s, as well as Garcia and his predecessor, Alejandro Toledo.
Description of Incident: Officials at a government-funded gallery removed three of Quijano's works, including the drawing described above. Quijano told the Associated Press that he felt like officials from the National Institute of Culture "went over my head" and that this was a "clear" violation of freedom of expression.
The cartoon which was also featured on a large banner in the museum before that too was removed, was originally published in the newspaper Peru21 in 2003, ahead of a truth commission report on 20 years of violence during a rebellion by Maoist Shining Path rebels. Government security forces were blamed for some of the worst massacres of the insurgency, including the August 1985 killing of nearly 70 peasants in the rural village of Accomarca.
Peru21 reported that Quijano's work was removed after the gallery received a letter of complaint from the military, which it has admitted to sending.
Results of Incident: In protest, Quijano removed his entire 90-piece show Monday June 25, 2007 from the gallery where it was to run for a month. The gallery's director resigned in solidarity.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
Date Input: Thursday, June 28, 2007
Date Edited: Friday, June 29, 2007
Name: Desaparicion de Oesterheld y sus hijas 1978
[ Edit ]
Date: 1976 - 1984
,1976 - 1984
Location: South America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Literature
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Artist: Hector German Oesterheld
Confronting Bodies: Ejercito Argentino contra la prensa, intelectuales, escritores y medios de difusion
Date of Action: 1978
Specific Location: Hector desaparece en la ciudad de la Plata.
Description of Artwork: H. G. Oesterheld era guionista de historietas -comics- con gran interes en la cultura popular, sus historias y personajes tenian un profundo arraigo humanista, con el tiempo Hector comienza a militar en montoneros junto con sus cuatro hijas.
Description of Incident: Varias de las obras de Oesterheld son prohibidas por la dictadura.
Results of Incident: En un año son secuestrados y desaparecidos el y sus cuatro hijas junto con sus parejas, dos de las hijas estaban embarazadas en el momento del secuestro.
Source: Dominio publico.
Submitted By: Martin Mórtola-Oesterheld
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Date Input: Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Date Edited:
Name: Desaparicion de Oesterheld y sus hijas 1978
[ Edit ]
Date: 1976 - 1984
,1976 - 1984
Location: South America
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion
Medium: Literature
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Artist: Hector German Oesterheld
Confronting Bodies: Ejercito Argentino contra la prensa, intelectuales, escritores y medios de difusion
Date of Action: 1978
Specific Location: Hector desaparece en la ciudad de la Plata.
Description of Artwork: H. G. Oesterheld era guionista de historietas -comics- con gran interes en la cultura popular, sus historias y personajes tenian un profundo arraigo humanista, con el tiempo Hector comienza a militar en montoneros junto con sus cuatro hijas.
Description of Incident: Varias de las obras de Oesterheld son prohibidas por la dictadura.
Results of Incident: En un año son secuestrados y desaparecidos el y sus cuatro hijas junto con sus parejas, dos de las hijas estaban embarazadas en el momento del secuestro.
Source: Dominio publico.
Submitted By: Martin Mórtola-Oesterheld
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Date Input: Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Date Edited:
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