After consolidating his power over the Soviet Union in 1929, Josef Stalin implemented strict and comprehensive censorship. Not only people but also books could be deported to the GULag, where they were housed in so-called “Spetskhrans” (special depots). In total, around 100,000 books were banned in the USSR, and millions of copies were destroyed. The…
Image by ASphotofamily on Freepik The South Asian country of Bangladesh (with a population of 171 million) is a democracy with strong autocratic features. Reporters Without Borders ranks the country low in terms of press freedom, at 163rd out of 180. Bangladesh has a history of censorship of the media, books, films and the press.…
Not only bad people end up in hell, but also bad books. At least, that was the case in France for a long time: „Enfer“, hell, is the name of a remota collection of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, BNF), i.e. a collection of books that are not accessible to the public.…
In the course of the Russian war against Ukraine, censorship in Russia has already been reported here. In addition to this, censorship of “extremist content” is taking place in Russia. Such contents are collected in a list by the Russian Ministry of Justice (“Федеральный список экстремистских материалов”), based on court decisions. In total, it includes over 4000 titles:…
Last year the whole world looked at Qatar, although not so long ago – before the World Cup (which took place in November/December 2022) – the country was not known to everyone and did not attract so much attention.You have probably heard about the restrictions on importing certain books and about possible problems at the…
From July 2021 to June 2022 alone, approximately 2500 books were banned from school libraries and classrooms in 138 school districts in the United States. Examples of literary works banned from U.S. school libraries and classrooms include “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, and “WeirDo Series” by Anh…
These are dark times. Censorship is on the rise in many places around the world. Autocracies and dictatorships are suppressing freedom of speech with harsh repression. But liberal constitutional states are also eroding – global democratization is experiencing a backlash from powerful populist movements. At the same time, we are witnessing courageous protests against repression…
How quickly a liberal and politically neutral country such as Norway can be deprived of its freedom (e.g. of expression) is illustrated by the censorship imposed by the Nazi regime. Shortly after the occupation of Norway in World War II, the press department of the Reich Commissariat controlled the entire public media. The sale, purchase…
A New Addition to Die Kasseler Liste Banned in Australia – a project of AustLit: https://www.austlit.edu.au/banned. After the passage of the Customs Act in 1901, Customs grew up a civic bureaucracy whose business it was to know a dirty book when it appeared, and to keep it from the rest of the country. And it…
Die Zensur ist das Fundament des Krieges. [English Version Follows Below] So einfach ist das. Wir erleben es aktuell jeden Tag aufs Neue. Der Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine darf in russischen Medien nicht so benannt werden. Wörter der Wahl sind „militärische Spezialoperation“, „Sondereinsatz“ oder „Entmilitarisierung“ durch „Friedenstruppen“. Die Zensur des Wortes „Krieg“ ist Teil einer…
