Description of Incident: The works were removed upon orders from the gallery director the day before the exhibition was supposed to open. Apparently, according to the curator Agnes de la Beaumelle, the motive was not to shock the partly Muslim population of the Whitechapel neighbourhood, as well as fear of the response of anti-pedophile groups. The gallery cited space constraints.

Results of Incident: The exhibition opened without the offending images.

Description of Incident: the ad was to be printed inside a magazine about organic food products. As the magazine was dependent on governmental fundings, the ministery of Horst Seehofer announced to withdraw all its fundings if the ad of "Save our Seeds" was taken inside

Results of Incident: The magazine was printed without the ad by "Save our Seeds"

Description of Incident: The photograph is part of "Das achte Feld" (The Eighth Square), an exhibition at the Museum Ludwig about "Gender, Life, and Desire in the Visual Arts since 1960." The museum decided to use the photograph but cover up portions of it. After a poster was made of the photograph, the city of Cologne decided not to display it publicly because of its subject matter.

Results of Incident: The photograph will be included in the exhibiton in addition to an informational brochure and an invitation.

Description of Incident: Because the Iranian government prohibits the public display of nudes, Tabibzadeh cannot exhibit her nude paintings.

Results of Incident: She sells her non nude work in galleries, but is often forced to sell them for very little because of the depressed art market. Tabibzadeh belives that her art enables her to express herself in ways that she cannot in the outside world.

Description of Incident: Ahmed Rashid al-Suwaidi, Qtel Senior Manager, said Qtel is blocking the websites in order "to maintain ethical standards and protect the culture of the society." When a user attempts to access one of the blocked webpages an error message appears stating: "The web pae you are trying to access has been blocked by Internet Qatar as it contains materials which are prohibited in the State of Qatar."

Results of Incident: Any site which mocks top political figures are inaccessiable in addition to pornographic sites, anti religious sites and sites which permit telephone calls over the Internet. Many believe that blocking the websites will only increase people's desire to access them. Further, many believe that blocking websites is a futile exercise because eventually people will figure out how to break through the firewalls. Others believe that it is unfortunate to prevent access to the websites because they might be the only forum in which people can access certain information.

Description of Incident: The police received numerous complaints about the artist exhibition and almost shut it down. Before the exhibition opened, the artists consulted others about which works to use and decided to exclude certain works due to their subject matter.

Results of Incident: Instead of having the exhibition shut down, the artists decided to cover the "offending artwork." In response to the incident, some artists say that they decided not to attend the exhibition because of its title. Others say they did not enjoy the exhibition on the basis of aesthetics. Others supported the artists and the exhibition because of their opposition to censorship.

Description of Incident: Shafak, her publisher, Semi Sokmen and her translator were charged with “Insulting Turkishness” because of the content of Shafak’s novel. However, on June 7, 2006, the Beyoglu Public Prosecutor agreed to dismiss the charges because Shafak’s novel is fictional. However, a member of the right wing legal group, “Unity of Jurists” disagreed with the dismissal and filed a complaint. Because of the complaint, the 7th High Criminal Court decided to reinstate the charges and to go on with the trial.

Other Turkish writers face similar charges of “insulting Turkishness.” This charge comes from Article 301/1 of the Turkish Penal Code stating “A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic of Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years.” At least fifteen journalists, editors and publishers will go or have gone to trial based on this section of the Turkish Penal Code. One writer, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with “insulting Turkishness” after he stated in an interview that” thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.” Others include Fatih Tas the publisher of a Noam Chomsky book, five journalists who criticized a 2005 conference on the Armenian genocide and Abdullah Yilmaz the editor in chief of the publisher of the Turkish edition of Mara Meimaridi’s novel, "The Witches of Smyrna."

Results of Incident: These actions are negatively affecting Turkey’s application to join the European Union. The "Unity of Jurists," supporters of the “insulting Turkishness” proceedings, do not want Turkey to join the European Union and thus continue encouraging the proceedings to disturb the application process.

The trials for those charged with “insulting Turkishness” are often hostile and dangerous environments. At Orhan Pamuk’s trial, supporters of the Prosecution threatened and spit on the defendants outside the courthouse. The defendants needed to be escorted out of the courthouse by the police because of the crowd’s violent behavior. A witness to the situation described it as “attempted lynching.”

Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code increases the probability that writers and journalists will face prosecution and that those convicted will face imprisonment. The current situation for writers and journalists is worse than it was in the 1990s when many writers faced imprisonment because of their work. Turkey reforemd its Penal Code after receiving criticism from Europe in conjunction with their application to the European Union.

Description of Incident: Horrified owners of the beer garden quickly whitewashed a portion of the mural, and a couple of years later the rest was also painted over. In the 1970s, the whitewash faded and the mural was visible again.

Results of Incident: In recent months conservators have removed the whitewash, but they have decided against restoring the original colors. Instead they plan to build an interpretive center where visitors will be able to see a half-size reproduction of the mural as it originally looked. It is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2004.

In the summer of 2006, the Getty Trust announced their plan to restore and conserve the mural. In addition to the restoration of the work, the Getty Trust will construct a viewing platform, visitor bridge and an interpretive center for viewers.

Description of Incident: Australia’s OFLC, however, declared late last month that Ken Park “offended the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults.” On June 6, a three-member OFLC review board rejected an appeal by film distributors and festival organizers, and upheld the previous decision. It claimed that the movie involved “child sexual abuse.”

Festival president Cathy Robinson told the media that the review panel had deliberately introduced the issue of “child sexual abuse” to confuse debate over the film. There were no grounds for banning Ken Park, she said, because the actors were not children, festival audiences were required to be over 18 years, and the issues raised by the film were serious and worthy of examination by adults.

The OFLC ruling, which affects film festivals and distribution companies throughout the country, makes it illegal to screen, hire or advertise Ken Park anywhere in Australia, with fines of A$11,000 and one year’s jail for individuals or A$250,000 for companies that defy the ban.

Past and present festival organisers have denounced the decision and called on film patrons to lobby federal parliamentarians. Appeals have also been made to the state Labor government in New South Wales to bypass the decision. Under current law, the state attorney general can give “Special Exemption” to allow a festival screening, but so far the NSW government has made no response or comment on the ban.

Results of Incident: Screening of Ken Park at the Sydney Film Festival canceled. Screening of the film American Splendor instead.

Description of Incident: A representative of the Sayville Chamber of Commerce physically removed a photography display from the street citing anonymous complaints. During the one hour in which the display was available to the public, feedback from patrons was positive. Although the photographer had given the Chamber of Commerce advance, written notice of the intended subject matter and had offered to move the display, he was still ejected.

Results of Incident: Shop owners who had witnessed the incident were upset. The photographer was sent a check to refund the entrance fee, which did not cover the expense of creating the street display nor the lost revenue. The show moved on to SoHo Photo in New York City in November of 2002 for a one month exhibition entitled Clouds.

Description of Incident: While the Egyptian Censorship Committee approved the film, 112 members of Parliament believe that several scenes of the movie should be censored because of their negative portrayal of Egypt. The Culture and Media Committee is now forming a committee to screen and comment on the film to report back to Parliament.

Results of Incident: The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights is concerned with the implications of Parliament's actions on Egyptian Freedom of Expression and Belief. The Egyptian Constitution provides both freedom of expression and freedom of art and literature.

Description of Incident: Initially, the Home Affairs Ministry approved the screening of the film in Malaysia. The Special Branch of the police also did not object to the film after screening it. However, before the opening of the film, Berita Harian, a conservative periodical, published different articles criticizing the film. Then on May 5, 2006, the Home Affairs Ministry retracted its approval of the film. The Home Minister said that the film did not accurately portray Chin Peng because of the lack of violence which could create a misconception about the former leader.

Results of Incident: Amir Muhammed wants to open a publishing house and is filming a sequel to "The Last Communist."

Description of Incident: Critics of the work called it "obscene" and "frightening to children." Perrotti stated that such criticism was "narrow-minded."

Results of Incident: The Red Cross chapter removed the sculpture after claiming the work was a potential distraction to drivers.

Description of Incident: BluegrassReport.org has apparently been blocked to state computers by the Commonwealth Office of Technology. Readers in three different cabinets have e-mailed to say they get a "blocked" message when they try to access the site.

http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2006/06/bluegrassreport.html

Results of Incident: Still blocked. National media attention being garnered.