Description of Incident: In 1958 Franco's first experience with censorship occurred when his song "Mukoko", about freedom, was withdrawn from sale by Belgian colonial officials. In 1965, five years after Zaire won independence, the repressive Colonel Mobutu ordered the public execution of five dissident intellectuals. Franco's song "Luvumbu the Sorcerer" was a commentary on these executions. The song was banned as soon as it was released and copies not only in Zaire, but also in Europe, were hunted down. Franco walked a thin line in Zaire, not many dissidents could escape the persecution of Colonel Mobutu. His popularity helped keep him out of prison. However when "Helene" and "Jacky" were released Franco was ordered to explain himself to the attorney general. Franco said he did not think the songs were obscene and his mother was called in to make the judgment. Predictably Franco's mother was shocked and the songs were banned and Franco along with the other 10 members of his band OK Jazz were sentenced to two months in prison. In addition Franco had to return his medal for the Ordre National de Leopard, Zaire's top honor.

Results of Incident: "Helene" and "Jacky" remain banned on moral grounds.

Description of Incident: In 1967 the communist party did not like to ban films without public support. So, the part worked to generate public support against the film. A public screening was done in the village where the movie was shot, but the villagers ended up liking it. President Novotny then convinced the Union of Fire Fighters to come out against the film and then it was banned. It was released in 1968 and nominated for an Oscar and then banned again the following year. In 1973 it was listed as being banned "forever".

Results of Incident: "The Firemen's Ball" was released again in 1989, just before the "Velvet Revolution" and the collapse of the Soviet system.

Description of Incident: The censoring of "Feliz Ano Novo" is unusual. Although the book was written during a time in which Brazil was under an oppressive military dictatorship the incident took place during a period of "opening" in which the government was loosening its controls on the media. The government also usually targeted leftists. Fonseca was not a leftist but an attorney who was a member of the board of directors of one of Brazil's largest utility companies. The book had already become a bestseller and was on its third printing. Only five of the fifteen stories in the book were banned. Although almost every kind of book was censored under Brazil's military dictatorship books that contained explicit sexuality were especially under attack. The military censors considered pornography a weapon the socialists used to decay the moral fibre of the country. The major objection of the judges with regards to "Feliz Ano Novo" is that, after the criminals in the story commit atrocities, they pay no price. The judges also felt the book might lead the average Brazilian astray. Numerous writers filed petitions against the censorship of the book and Fonseca hired a lawyer to fight the ban in court. He also solicited Brazilian Academy of Letters who appointed one of Brazil's most famous critics to give their opinion on the matter. The opinion highly favored the book over the censors, an opinion which the court, of course, ignored.

Results of Incident: In 1978 the Institutional Acts, military decrees which gave legitimacy to censorship, were revoked. This legalized all the publications which had been censored and brought an end to the raids on newspaper offices. However since Fonseca was fighting the censorship in court "Feliz Ano Novo" remained the only work still censored in Brazil until 1989.

Description of Incident: The editors of the "Revue de Paris", where Madame Bovary was first published, censored the work because they feared that it would be censored by authorities. The editors cut out 69 passages, including one in which Emma and a man she is having an affair with stay shuttered inside a coach for many hours. The editors claimed that many of the changes were made for aesthetic reasons, but Flaubert felt it was due to the editor's lack of style. Flaubert insisted on putting a note in with the work saying that it had been censored. This, along with an article Flaubert published containing many excerpts he had written that had been censored, attracted the authorities attention. In 1857 Flaubert was brought to trial under a law that had been passed in 1819 saying that the sale or distribution of any written work that offended public or religious decency was to be suppressed. The prosecutor in the case argued not only was the work offensive because of the sexuality, but also because you could not tell "what is going on in the author's conscience".

Results of Incident: The judge acquitted Flaubert while at the same time agreeing with many of the prosecutors statements.

Description of Incident: Before "Sapho" got to New York it toured in many other cities across the country. Newspapers in some of the cities where the play had appeared called "Sapho" offensive. It turns out that a press agent for the play actually paid a clergyman to call "Sapho" the "most immoral play of modern times" in order to get the play in the papers. This is what got the play so much attention when it arrived in New York. The New York City police chief made it public before the play even arrived that the show would be investigated. On February 5, 1900 the play opened on Broadway. After two weeks, Robert Mackay, a yellow journalist for the paper "World" filed an affidavit with the police saying that the play violated public decency. The city's district attorney then filed an official complaint with a magistrate who issued arrest warrants for Olga Nethersole, her co-star, her manager, and the owner of the theater. They were all charged with offending public decency and therefore being a public nuisance. Most people who saw the play, however, found very little indecent about it. Even the critic for the "World" said that the production was harmless. Yet, it was these sensationalist newspapers that led the crusade to shut the play down. The papers launched the crusade in an effort to generate sales by uncovering a scandal with a popular star such as Nethersole. The politicians did their part in trying to shut down the play because they didn't want to look ineffective. The Tammany Hall political machine which controlled the city at the time was known for letting brothels and prostitutes conduct business. They were corrupt and would pretend to do "sweeps" and arrest brothel owners and prostitutes and then a few days later would let them go back to business. The papers were catching on however and the city made a big deal out of "Sapho" in order to try to regain the confidence of the people and the papers. Despite this there was no doubt that Nethersole was going to win her case. She was actually so confident that she told her lawyers to rest the case before calling any witnesses or making any arguments. The jury deliberated for only twelve minutes and on April 6 they were all acquitted.

Results of Incident: The play reopened the day after the trial and had an extended run. The theater printed souvenirs saying that Nathersole had won "freedom for art and literature". Newspaper cartoons mocked the politicians for going after a harmless play like "Sapho" while they made their money off prostitution. The play was also very successful in London, where the theater censors found no problem with it.

Description of Incident: Jeffrey Ma's screen prints were exhibited along with about thirty other pieces honoring the Chinese New Year. The exhibit was shown in the lobby of the Alhambra City Hall. City Hall received a couple of complaints from people offended by the juxtaposition of Washington and Mao. The City Clerk who coordinates city art exhibits says the piece was taken down on the recommendation of the exhibit organizer Pinki Chen. Chen, however, says the city staff made the decision to remove the piece. The artists in the show asked the city to put the piece back up but after receiving no commitment they completely dismantled the exhibit in protest.

Results of Incident: First Amendment organizations have come to the defense of the artists and the exhibit organizer and some city officials have said removing the piece because of a couple of complaints is not correct procedure. There are, however, no plans to re-hang the exhibit.

Description of Incident: Mahmoud Madbouli, who runs a publishing house in Cairo, recalled copies of Saadawi's book "God Resigns in the Summit Meeting" "once we learnt it offends religion". Madbouli has published dozens of Saadawi's books in the past, but banned this one because he felt it offended reader's sensitivities. The book was also not circulated at the Cairo Book Fair. Saadawi has been controversial in the Arab world and is accustomed to having her work censored. She is the founder of the first independent feminist organization in Egypt, the Arab Women's Solidarity Association.

Results of Incident: No progress yet made on case.

Description of Incident: When the movie premiered in August of 1959 there were twenty minutes of applause at the end. When it was shown in Milan, however, there were protests during the movie and one of the audience members spit on Fellini as he left the theater. In the 24 hours after that Fellini got 400 telegrams accusing him of atheism, communism, and treason. At first some people in the Catholic Church actually supported the film. The Church hierarchy did not approve of the film and Cardinal Giuseppe Siri refused to give the film his seal of approval and classified it as unsuitable for all. This classification meant watching the film was a sin, and any clergy that spoke out in favor of the film was threatened with demotion. Many members of the Catholic Church wrote articles saying the movie lacked Christian values and one person even titled the film "The Disgusting Life". At the Chamber of Deputies the far right forced a debate on the movie. They called for the film to be withdrawn from all national circuits but the government refused, saying they did not have the power of censorship.

Results of Incident: The film was still wildly successful despite the opposition. The film was also an international success and won two Oscars. In some countries the movie was only shown after years of suppression. In Madrid it did not premiere until 1981 and was banned in the Soviet Union.

Description of Incident: In 1975 Fassbinder planned to premiere "The Garbage, the City, and Death" at a theater in Frankfurt where he had formerly been the director. The play attracted hardly any public attention until the city authorities said they were not willing to risk a scandal and Fassbinder dismissed the cast before rehearsals were finished. In 1976 the major controversy erupted when Suhrkamp Press released review copies of the play. The press attacked it as anti-Semitic and fascist, they denounced the sexual and racist language, were offended by the stereotypes, and the unnamed "Rich Jew". Fassbinder denied the charges of anti-Semitism and proclaimed his right as an artist to depict reality. Two years after Fassbinder's death, in 1984, Ulrich Schwab, general manager of the Old Opera in Frankfurt tried to stage the play. The head of the city administration's cultural department said the Old Opera could not stage non-musical plays. Schwab cried censorship and was dismissed from his post. The next year Gunther Ruhle, director of the Schauspielhaus again tried to stage the play as a gesture of the normalization of relations between Germans and Jews. The Jewish community spoke out against the play and the dominant party in the Frankfurt city administration, the Christian Democratic Union, passed a resolution protesting the play. Members of the Jewish community took over the stage on opening night. A performance of the play was given to theater critics and representatives of the Jewish community with the public excluded, but after further talks the play was abandoned. The director of the Maxim Gorki theater in Berlin made a fourth attempt at staging the play by announcing his intention to include it in the program for the following theater season. Members of the Jewish community in Berlin reacted with protests and the senator of the cultural department of Berlin initiated a round table talk between the conflicting parties. No agreement was reached, however, and the play was taken off the program.

Results of Incident: "The Garbage, the City, and Death" was never officially banned, but the play has not yet reached a German audience. The 1976 film by Daniel Schmid "Shadows of Angels" was co-written by Fassbinder and closely based on the play. In the movie Fassbinder plays the pimp. The movie has aroused far less controversy. There were protests when it was screened at Cannes and Paris but the screenings went on. It was eventually shown in Germany as well.

Description of Incident: The Catholic Church regularly condemned the dance as being lewd and morally dangerous. It was also thought to be potentially subversive. In Spain there was an economic collapse from 1709-1711 and grumblings of discontent grew stronger. The government feared large gatherings of people and in 1717 an intense campaign began against regional folk cultures. A ban was put on the fandango, which was condemned as offensive to the nobility. The playing of castanets in public was also forbidden because they suggested disorder and rebellion. In 1776 a crown minister described the dance as reprehensible and in the same year the viceroy of Rio de la Plata banned the dance.

Results of Incident: Eventually fandango could no longer be suppressed became acceptable again.

Description of Incident: Both "Strike" and "Battleship Potemkin" received critical praise in the Soviet Union, but faced censorship abroad. The arrival of "Battleship Potemkin" in Britain coincided with the General Strike of 1926 and was widely seen as being seditious. It was banned there by the home secretary. French authorities burned every copy of the film upon arrival and film censors in Pennsylvania banned it as well. In Russia, the censorship of Eisenstein's films began with "October" (1927) which was commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. The film was only allowed a limited public screening and a campaign against it was launched because the film did not glorify Stalin and contained repeated mentions of Stalin's rival Trotsky. After this, objection to Eisentein's cinematic methods by Stalin (who believed movies were good only if they were "intelligible to the masses") prevented Eisenstein from being able to complete a film for a while. "The Old and the New" and "Bezhin Meadow" were two movies Eisenstein could not complete because of these objections. In the 1930s after growing frustrated with these problems Eisenstein went to Europe and the United States to study the use of sound in the film industry there. While in Britain he tried to get the ban on "The Battleship Potemkin" lifted but could not. In the United States the director got a contract with Paramount Pictures. His decision to use Theodore Dreiser's book "An American Tragedy" as source material for his film raised objections with the studio and he left the United States without completing a film. In 1937 at the Cinema Workers' Conference Eisenstein was forced to make a public apology for his "political and artistic errors". In 1938 Eisenstein came back into favor with his film "Alexander Nevsky", for which he won the Order of Lenin. After the Nazi-Soviet pact in August of that year the film was banned because of its anti-German tone. During the war Stalin commissioned Eisenstein to make "Ivan the Terrible", the first part of which was very popular and awarded a Stalin Prize. The second part was banned after Stalin found the film to be "unsuccessful" and "erroneous".

Results of Incident: In 1948 Eisenstein died from a heart attack after the creative frustration and personal attacks became too much for him to bear. The ban on "The Battleship Potemkin" was finally withdrawn in Britain in 1954.

Description of Incident: "The Gross Clinic" was considered "too bold". The painting was refused admission into the American section of the Centennial Exhibition. Later it was admitted to the medical section, where it was received unfavorably. Eakins' passion for realism also got him fired from many teaching jobs. In 1886 Eakins was a professor of painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. During one of the classes Eakins removed the loincloth from one of the male models during a lecture that included female students. Although the school gave life drawing classes with nude models for women, this was a co-ed class, where it was not permitted. The school said that he must be more respectful of modesty or resign. Eakins resigned, feeling that women should not be shielded from the male anatomy. Some of Eakins' other practices--such as encouraging students to model nude for each other in private classes and requiring the students to take part in dissections could have also led to him being pushed out of the Philadelphia art world. Eakins had also taught at the Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Academy Art Club, both of which he was also soon expelled from.

Results of Incident: Eakins stopped painting during the year of 1886 and did not resume again until the summer of 1887. He limited his painting to portraits. His teaching career was over by the time he was fifty.

The second major case deals with artist Katarzyna Kozyra's photo-piece called "Blood Ties". It was intended to be exhibited publicly on billboards. "Blood Ties" consists of four square photographs. Each of the photos is of a naked woman, the artist herself or her sister who has an amputated leg. The backdrop is of a red cross or crescent. On the bottom two panels the cross and crescent are surrounded by either cabbages or cauliflowers. The billboards were meant to bring attention to the suffering women went through during the Kosovo War, especially during religious clashes. The cross and crescent symbolize the religious clashes as well as the relief organizations who provide aid to war victims. The women are posed to appear as casualties.

The third, and most severe case of censorship dealt with the work of Dorota Nieznalska. Her installation piece "Passion" was exhibited in 2001. The installation consists of a mute video in slow motion of a man lifting weights and a pendant cross hung nearby covered with a photograph of male genitals. Unlike the other two artists Nieznalska deals with masculinity and the masochistic male suffering in order to gain strength.

Description of Incident: When the first piece, Zebrowska's "Orginal Sin", was exhibited in 1993 there was an outcry of opposition. In 1993 a concordat between the Vatican and the Polish government helped to further weaken the separation between church and state. In addition, a very restrictive anti-abortion bill was passed that year. Because of the political climate at the time Zebrowska's piece was not shown in any state-owned art institutions.

In 1999 Katarzyna Kozyra's piece "Blood Ties" was scheduled to be shown on billboards in Poland. The media soon became aware of what was about to be exhibited and began contacting Catholic organizations and municipal governments to see if they would object to the piece. This became a call to arms and the artist was forced to blue-pencil the nude women so that the cross and the crescent became indecipherable. Only the panels with the cabbages and cauliflower were allowed to be shown. The objection to the piece was that the photographs made unholy use of religious images--that the nude women profaned the cross and crescent.

With Dorota Nieznalska's piece "Passion", the media again helped ignite controversy. Snippets of the piece were shown on television and members of the right-wing League of Polish Families saw the clip, lodged a complaint on religious grounds and mounted a campaign against the piece. Activists raided the gallery where her work was being shown and the All-Polish Youth, the League of Polish Families' skinhead militia, threatened to shave Nieznalska's head (as was done with women who were believed to have had relations with Nazis). The League of Polish Families then sued the artist, asserting the article 196 of the Criminal Code was violated. This article said that offending religious feelings through public misrepresentation of an object or place of worship is liable to a fine or a maximum two year prison sentence. In 2003 the court found her guilty and ordered her to a 6 month "restriction of freedom", ordered her to do community service work, and to pay all trial expenses. The artist is now appealing to have the sentence overturned on free speech grounds.

Results of Incident: Many believe that the censorship of these women's art shows the need for Poland to open up and progress. In 2004 Poland joined the European Union, and many felt that perhaps this would lead to progress. However, Poland continues to cling to its religious patriarchy.

Description of Incident: In 1986 the Communist Party of Vietnam started a program called doi moi, which was meant to take a look at the negative aspects of Vietnamese life and to revitalize and democratize society. In October 1987 Duong Thu Huong and other artists and writers met with the secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party and spoke of their dissatisfaction. Shortly afterwards Resolution # 5 was passed that encouraged writers to "carry out enquiring activities"--therefore guaranteeing freedom of expression. In the 1990s, however, the political climate changed and and the leadership grew intolerant of direct attacks on them. Guong Thu Huong was one of the first writers to fall victim to this change in attitude and in July of 1990 she was expelled from the communist party for indiscipline and arrested on fabricated charges of sending abroad state secrets (which was in fact merely the manuscript for her new novel "Novel Without a Name"). She was sent to prison for seven months, and only released after international pressure. "Novel Without a Name" provided a harsh description of the war and the disillusionment faced by Vietnamese soldiers.

Results of Incident: In 1994 Duong was permitted to travel to France to accept a medal for her writing. Her books are no longer on sale in Vietnam but her earlier works appear occasionally in anthologies and collections.

Description of Incident: In 1978 a copy of the maunscript of "The Total City" was confiscated from a tourist at the Romanian-Yugoslav border and Dumitrescu was arrested and interrogated by the Securitate, Romania's secret police. Another manuscript had been smuggled into the West and after several publishers rejected it Romanian-born philosopher E.M. Cioran was able to get the book published in France. "The Total City" was critically acclaimed in France and Radio Free Europe's Romanian-language service serialized it from September 1980 to February 1981. In 1982 the leading Romanian publisher in exile, Jon Dumitru Verlag, published a complete and revised Romanian edition in Munich. Dumitrescu and his wife were arrested by the Securitate and exiled to Frankfurt.

Results of Incident: Dumitrescu settled permanently in Germany and has published only one more book in Romanian.