A Brief chronological Compendium of a Few Banned or Challenged Works, and Censorship and Anti-Censorship Efforts 20th century -- tenth decade

What I tell kids is: 'Don't get mad, get even.' Run, don't walk, to the first library you can find and read what they're trying to keep out of your eyes. Read what they're trying to keep out of your brains. Because that's exactly what you need to know. --Stephen King

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1991, September: Impressions reading series

By David Booth et al. This series was violently challenged in Manning, Alberta on the first school day of '91. Thirty parents basically invaded the school and forced the removal of the series through intimidation. This was the culmination of the local censorship movement that had seen confrontations between parents and teachers and generated schoolyard fights between children whose parents were in opposite camps. The media backlash it generated galvanized an anti-censorship movement throughout Canada.

By Rodger Abrahms. School administrators in Dallas, Texas challenged this book because of references to male genitalia and bodily functions.

By Patricia McKissack. This book was challenged at a Florida elementary school because it contains text written in a black dialect.

By Madeleine C. L'Engle. The book was challenged at the Hubbard Library in Ohio. The basis for the challenge was that it alters the story of Noah's Ark. That made the story secular and posed the risk of confusing children.

By Ismail Besikei. I do not have any information on how the publication was treated, but Mr. Besikei was immediately imprisoned for writing it. The book includes material on Turkish terror in the Kurdish areas. Mr. Besikei had already served fifteen years in prison for reporting the facts on the Turkish repression of the Kurds, who have been miserably repressed for decades.

By Maurice Sendak. It was challenged at the Elk River, Minnesota, schools because reading the book "could lay the foundation for future use of pornography." Child pornography, no doubt, as the child in the story had no pyjamas bottoms and his bare bum was showing.
(See 1977)

By Rebecca Chalker and Carole Downer. This work was viciously attacked by Andrea Dworkin, one of the U.S.'s two most vociferous and fanatic political censors, because she disagreed with a single point made in two paragraphs. The book is a guide to safe abortion practices for those situations where a legal abortion is not available. The passage at issue deals with the historicity of abortion and practice of filing fake rape complaints in order to procure a legal abortion (prior to Roe vs: Wade). The authors included a commentary and suggestions by a former rape counselor on how to make a false report in light of current heightened awareness. Dworkin interpreted this story as bolstering the widespread tendency to discount rape victim's complaints. Dworkin launched a national campaign against the book and finally forced the publisher to acquiesce to her demands in the face of an immense boycott. After the publisher made the demanded changes, Dworkin then stopped advocating against it, but did nothing to stop the boycott. At no time did she attempt to contact or to respond to the authors.
(see Feb 1992)

By Pat Conroy. On two separate occasions.

Its use in schools in Cobb County, Georgia, was challenged for profanity and descriptions of sadomasochistic acts.

It was also removed from an elective English course by the Westonka School Board in Minnesota due to parental complaints about the language and sex in the book.
(see 25 Nov 2002)

By John Steinbeck. In Ohio, after a pressure group in one town forced the removal of the book from the local school's optional reading list. Basing their complaint on allegations they had counted 108 profanities, 12 racial slurs, and 45 uses of God's name in vain. Some 150 protesting parents, teachers, and students attended a review committee meeting at which they extolled the book's virtues. The book was reinstated on the reading list.

By Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 had been expurgated for years, without Bradbury's knowledge or permission. When he found out about this censorship, Bradbury invoked copyright protection and demanded that the publisher reissue the book as he had written it. In 1992 the unexpurgated version was introduced to a middle school in Irvine, California. School officials immediately ordered teachers to black out "obscenities" such as hell and damn before distributing the books to their students. A group of parents, angered by this move, forced the school to rescind its censorship.

by Jean Auel. Banned from the Cascade Middle School library at Eugene, Oregon, in 1992 for containing "hardcore graphic sexual content".

Rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada it favoured an anti-porn law based largely on the Dworkin-MacKinnon model law. It was softened only in that it allows for the artistic, literary, political, or scientific merit of a work whereas the MacDworkin anti-porn movement demands the censoring of an entire work for a single offensive passage. As was the case with A Woman's Book Of Choices. The Butler decision is proof that censorship laws are highly discriminatory in effect, due to the law being used by Customs Canada and law enforcement agencies to selectively target feminist works, homoerotica, and homosexually slanted bookstores, while heteroerotica and mainstream bookstores selling the same kind of homoerotic material are passed over.
(see 1956; 26 Feb 1989; 1993; 1993; 15 Dec 2000; 04 Mar 2002; 23 Mar 2004)

By Professor Saburo Ienaga. Dr. Ienega's textbook was originally commissioned by the Ministry of Education. On review of the completed manuscript in 1965, however, the ministry demanded that he delete all sections on wartime atrocities. He refused and filed suit, claiming that the ministry's review procedure violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression and denied students freedom of education. As the case made its way through Japan's Byzantine court system over the next twenty-eight years, the central question evolved from whether it is proper to to teach Japanese children about what happened during WWII or whether the Education Ministry can legally censor textbooks. On this day, Japan's Supreme Court ruled to uphold the censorial decision, further ruling that: "the government has the right to decide educational content." Since Japanese high-schools all use the same textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education, the Supreme Court's ruling insures that the "official censored version is the only one students will study in school."

By gunners of the Serb-led Yugoslav army. Artillery, which was bombarding the Bosnian capital, deliberately targeted and shelled the Oriental Institute in Sarajevo (Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu). The library subsequently caught fire. The desecration destroyed six hundred years worth of records of Bosnian history and intellectual life. The fire consumed the Institute's entire collection, including:

• 5,263 manuscript codices dating back to medieval times,
• more than 300,000 archival documents,
• the Oriental Institute's research library and catalogues.

(see 31 May 1981; 26 Aug 1993; 14 Feb 2003; 15 Apr 2005)

By ethnic-cleansers. The library came under fire by a barrage of incidiary, artillery rounds. The collection of works in the library catalogued the history of Sarajevo and Yugoslavia in the Persian, Croatian, and Arabic languages. Launched into the air by the exploding shells and the resulting fire, scorched pages fluttered down around the city. People referred to these pieces of fallout as "black butterflies". Over the course of three days Serb forces destroyed nearly 1.5 million books, including rare manuscripts, state archives, and all Bosnian periodical literature published since the mid-1800s.
(see 31 May 1981; 17 May 1992; 14 Feb 2003; 15 Apr 2005)

An N.Y. based small press and distributor, it is the largest distributor of homoerotica in the United States. Seventy-three percent of their exports to Canada were detained by Customs. In one of its biggest detentions in history, Canada Customs detained a shipment of hundreds of titles bound for thirty-six stores, including university bookstores, literary bookshops, and even a religious bookstore. The material detained that year included the September issue of The Nation -- a political publication other than those targetted specifically for the gay and lesbian audience -- because it was a part of such a shipment.
(see 1956; 26 Feb 1989; Feb 1992; 1993; 15 Dec 2000; 04 Mar 2002; 23 Mar 2004)

The 60th congress of International PEN, with 12,000 members in 120 centres or groups worldwide, called on the government of Canada to dismantle the prohibited-importations unit of Canada Customs.
(see 1956; 26 Feb 1989; Feb 1992; 1993; 15 Dec 2000; 04 Mar 2002; 23 Mar 2004)

The American version is titled Where's Waldo? It was removed from the Springs Public School Library, East Hampton, New York, because in the scene by the seashore there is a topless woman lying on the beach. One of her breasts is in view. The size of the breast is approximately the size of this letter: e.

[Hell, and I can't even find Waldo never mind an errant breast. --MN]

[Addendum 24 Jul 2002: I found it. The errant breast, that is; I still haven't found Waldo. On the right-hand leaf, in the upper right quadrant. The woman is lying on her stomach with her bikini top untied. A prankster is throwing a cup of cold water on her back, causing her to arch her back in shock and thereby exposing a breast. The breast and nipple are seen in profile. --MN]
(see 1989)

By Robyn Bellospirito. An exhibit of his work slated for a library in Manhasset, New York, was cancelled because the library had a "No Nudes" policy. In the subsequent lawsuit, federal district court judge Thomas Platt ruled that the library had created a display area which constituted a "limited public forum".
(see 21 Mar 2002)

By Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was banned from a Sturgis, South Dakota, elementary school for comments about Native Americans that were considered derogatory.

By Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Challenged in Duval County, Florida, public schools because it was considered racist toward whites.
(see 1994)

By Aldous Huxley. It was challenged in a California school district because of its dystopian (i.e.: negative) viewpoint.
(see 1966; 1979; 1980; 1988)

Removed from classrooms in Sparks, Nevada, because a teacher objected to the "obscene words" the book contained.

By God. In a challenge in Fairbanks, Alaska, the Bible was branded "obscene and pornographic," and a Pennsylvania challenge cited "more than 300 examples of obscenities" and "language and stories that are inappropriate for children of any age."

By pedophiles. The Canadian kiddie-porn bill known as C-128 was passed into law. It criminalized the writing down of fantasies and paintings or drawings of nude children for which no child had posed.

By Eli Langer, a Toronto artist, and Mercer Union gallery director Sharon Brooks. This exhibit had opened in Nov 1993 and had gone unremarked until art critic Kate Taylor wrote a scathing column about it. The paintings were mostly depictions of child abuse -- described by Zachary Margulis as "harrowing" and which, "mostly show children who appear afraid of adults, playing with each other sexually, or peeing happily". The police showed up some days later in an armed raid to confiscate five paintings and thirty-five drawings.

The two principals in the case were charged for possession of child pornography and exposing obscene material to public view and were facing sentences of more than ten years in prison, each. The charges were finally dropped, however. Despite that, the pictures remained proscribed and the police would not release them. Langer sued but the case was still pending as of Sep 1996.

[Margulis wrote of the Globe and Mail review:

The review went beyond criticizing the work; in calling the paintings "horrible" and denying that Langer was an artist, Taylor unintentionally prompted complaints from readers and handed police a rationale for the seizure.

Obviously a very clear and present abuse of authority. Poor, naive Ms. Taylor would later publicly regret the police action. Langer was quoted as saying, "What's incredible about this, is that it occurred over imagined images. They had the power as though they were real events". In an example of the chilling effect, Langer was reported to be so fed up with the incident and the furor that he he did not want to show his work again. --MN]

By Faith Ringgold. This book's presence in Spokane, Washington, elementary school libraries was challenged because it stereotypes African Americans as eating fried chicken and watermelon and drinking beer. Despite the book having won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its portrayal of minorities in 1992. The book is based on memories of rooftop picnics by the author's family in 1930s Harlem.

By Mark Twain. It was challenged in English classes at Taylor County High School in Butler, Georgia, because of racial slurs, bad grammar, and because it did not reject slavery.
(see 1885; 1905; 1957; 1984; 1995)

By Alice Walker. These two short stories were slated to be on the California 10th grade, statewide tests for that year when they were abruptly removed. The reasons given were that Am I Blue? was "anti-meat-eating" and Roselily was "anti-religious". The decision to remove them came from the state Board of Education. The outrage resulted in the statewide test system being extensively overhauled and revised.
(see my examination of this incident)

By Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Challenged in Jacksonville, Florida, public schools because it was considered racist toward whites.
(see 1993)

by Leslea Newman. It was challenged at Chandler, Arizona, Public Library in 1994 for being "a skillful presentation to the young child about lesbianism."

This work was challenged at Maldonado Elementary School by parents, in Tucson, Arizona, on the grounds the book was "pornographic," "perverted," and "morbid."

By Margaret Laurence. A group of Ottawa-area parents attempted to have the book removed from high schools. The classic Canadian novel has faced similar challenges since at least 1976.
(see 1976; 1978)

By John Steinbeck. During Canada's Freedom to Read Week, (which would have been Feb 27-Mar 05 that year) Alberta MLA Victor Doerksen called for the removal of this book from Alberta schools.

This Bangladeshi writer and journalist was reportedly condemned to death by a militant Muslim group on this day. The reason behind the threat was said to be her numerous novels which criticised Muslim fundamentalism and male chauvinism. The book which caused particular outcry in the militant Muslim community was "Laija" (The Shame) which had been published to critical acclaim in Feb 1994. Released during Bangladesh's biggest bookfair, it became a best selling novel within a week of its publicati on, supposedly having sold over 50,000 copies in six months. It was banned by the Bangladeshi government in July on grounds that it had "created misunderstanding among communities". The banning order was publicly condemned by leading Bangladeshi intellectuals, writers, and human rights activisits. Bangladesh authorities provided police protection for Ms. Nasrin, but refused pleas from the international and national communities to lift the ban on her book and to publicly condemn all calls for attacks against her. Police protection was reportedly withdrawn a few days before an arrest warrant was issued on 04 Jun. Ms. Nasreen is also known for her strong feminist views and has written a number of books and articles on women's rights, which have led to further calls for punishment on charges of blasphemy. She has lived in exile since 1994. She has eighteen books published in thirty different languages and has received: Feminist of the Year, USA (1994), the Human Rights Award from the Government of France, the International Humanist award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and has been named Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

By Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders. Doctor Elders had made the mistake of answering a question about sexual health honestly and saying that masturbation was an appropriate topic for classroom discussion. On this day, Republican members of the House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding she be asked to resign (essentially fired) for it.

Still befuddled a year later, Elders wrote of the incident, "What other word, merely voiced, can provide justification to fire a surgeon general -- or anybody?"

[And yet when Slick Willy got sucked off in the oval office he got away with it. --MN]

They printed a critique of the London, Ontario Porn Ring case, claiming that the anti-kiddie porn raids were a grand inquisition.

By "counterrevolutionaries". Five Cuban men were convicted to ten years each for rebellion. In the sentencing document, the judges characterized the actions of the opposition group members as nonviolent, but found that the defendants had prepared and distributed "counterrevolutionary propaganda". This material consisting of flyers marked "Wake up, Cuban!" and "exhorted changes in the country's social, political, and economic systems, supported by three declarations from the Universal Charter [sic] of Human Rights that the [accused] said were being violated in Cuba." Other elements of offending propaganda included pieces of notebook paper printed with the messages "Down with Fidel" and "Annul your ballot like this," and pamphlets asking "Have you thought about what it means to vote in the elections?" and answering "It means renouncing your rights: allowing this dictatorship to last longer." The court characterized the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and denunciations of Cuban human rights violations as counterrevolutionary propaganda.

• Defendant Pedro Francisco Sanchez Villareal: 43 at the time of the trial, died in prison 26 Feb 1995;
• Nelson Facundo Muja­ca Perez: released Feb 1998;
• Dionisio Rolando Miranda Iglesias, Juan Miguel Perez Ruis Sa­nchez, and Jose Enri­que Gonzalez Gonzalez, granted conditional releases, 1998.

The Justice Committee of the House of Commons, which has spent months investigating the marginal existence of "killer" trading cards in Canada, comes up with draft legislation that would change the legal definition of obscenity to include "undue exploitation or glorification of horror, cruelty, or violence." In addition to cards and games, the report specifies "music, videos, comics, posters, and computer bulletin boards" as forms of communication that need to be controlled by the government. Communication that falls within this expanded definition and has "no redeeming cultural or social value" would be banned.

Electronic Frontier Canada vociferously protested these proposals. The games that sparked the furor are so rare in Canada that the Justice Committee had to actively import a foreign board game into Canada, no sufficiently objectionable ones being available domestically.

By ultra-conservative mothers. A front page article in the Vancouver Sun, by Douglas Todd, the paper's religion reporter, covered a censorship incident that took place while a small group of parents unpacked library books for Surrey's new Traditional school. A group of unelected mothers kept a lookout for books that offended their religious prejudices, and ended up culling more than seventeen books. The questionable books were among the standard package sent to every public elementary school in BC. What made them "offensive" is that they touched on Halloween, wiccan, or native-Indian spirituality. Some of the books had been returned to the shelves since Sep, after consultation with the principal and teacher-librarian. At least three books for grades 5 through 7 were withheld from the students, however:

• No Place for Me: Barthe DeClements; about a teenager with an alcoholic parent who receives help from an aunt who turns out to be a practitioner of wicca.
• The Random House Book of Humour: which contains a humourous chapter by Roald Dahl about a witch who hates kids.
• Keepers of the Earth: Joseph Bruchac; a children's book about sacred native traditions and the environment.

Heather Stilwell, past-president of the Christian Heritage party, had taken a key role at the Traditional school in trying to weed out books on witches, Inuit legends, and West Coast native spirituality; she was quoted: "We should error [sic] on the side of caution because you don't want children reading books that challenge your family's ideas." Ms. Stilwell reportedly pulled her children out of Catholic schools a few years previous to this incident because those schools were not orthodox enough.

By Mark Twain. Reginald Mayo, Superintendent of Schools in New Haven, Connecticutt, pulled the book from the eighth-grade curriculum at West Hills Middle School. African-American parents and students had complained that it promoted racism.
(see 1885; 1905; 1957; 1984; 1994)

Sponsor: Rep. Wall. Prohibits online transmission of fighting words, obscene or vulgar speech to minors, and information related to terrorist acts and certain dangerous weapons.

And pays fines amounting to 1.7 million dollars. This due to what amounted to outright extortion by the Federal Communications Commission. It marked the end of almost ten years of censorship efforts against the Howard Stern Show. Infinity finally gave in and payed the accumulated fines, the largest ever at sixty-eight times larger than any previous fines, because the FCC had at one point held hostage the $170 million purchase of three radio stations, and Infinity now wanted to buy more in light of relaxed ownership regulations. Howard Kurtz wrote of the incident in Hot Air:

Whatever one thinks of Howard Stern, it was truly disturbing to see the full weight of the federal government brought to bear against one person for off-color material that would barely raise an eyebrow on daytime television. It had the look and feel of a vendetta, an attempt at official intimidation. [...] The FCC's moral crusade had the paradoxical affect of making Stern a martyr in the eyes of his fans.

Stern called it, "the biggest shakedown in history".
(see 1986)

By NTV, Moscow. This political satire is based on puppets caricaturizing major political figures and acting out issues in the most outrageous of settings and metaphors. In this incident, the show came under attack for skewering the Russian government's new $10-a-month minimum wage. In this particular skit, former President Boris N. Yeltsin and his prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, were cast as drunken street bums who had to sift through garbage to survive. Boris Yeltsin's chief prosecutor began a criminal inquiry into the show, citing a law disallowing the insulting portrayal of senior government officials. The charges were eventually dropped.

[It was also reported that Yeltsin fired the prosecutor, but the article I saw didn't say if the man was fired because of his attempt to censor the program or his failure to do so. --MN]
(see 13 Jun 2001; 27 Jul 2001)

Executed for evironmental activism. Mr. Saro-wiwa had led protests against a Shell corporation installation on the Niger River delta.

During this human rights organization's agitating against Ken Saro-Wiwa's imminent execution, the Houston Chronicle refused to sell space to Amnesty International to advertise the issue. By odd coincidence, Shell U.S.A's corporate headquarters is in that city.

After 130 years the state finally recognized the illegality of slavery. It now holds the dubious distinction of being the last state to do so, but at least all states now do recognize it.

By William Shakespeare. Merrimak, New Hampshire schools banned Twelfth Night, after the school board passed a "prohibition of alternative lifestyle instruction" act. To what did they object? A woman dressing up as a boy.

[A wonder they didn't go after The Merchant Of Venice again for the same reason. {Note to self: must see Shakespeare In Love.} --MN]
(see 1998)

By Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was removed from but later reinstated in third-grade classrooms at the Lincoln Unified School District, Stockton, Calif. Complainants also wanted the book removed from the library on the grounds that it "promotes racial epithets and is fueling the fire of racism."

By Paul Kim. Who seems to have engaged in a testosterone charged burst of sophomoric stupidity. His school officials punished him for dissing his school, and them, on his web site. As usual, they handled the situation in the worst possible way.

Sponsor: Rep. Don Parsons. Criminalized the use of pseudonyms on the Net, and prohibits unauthorized links to web sites with trade names or logos. Overturned; in ACLU v. Miller.

By Arnold Adoff. Challenged at a Florida library because of violence and references to abortion.

By April Sinclair. Removed from the curriculum in Chicago, Illinois, schools because of offensive language.

By Jeff B. Copeland. He reported on findings by People For the American Way that said the 1995-96 academic year saw three hundred censorship challenges to books and movies in public schools. Forty one percent of these efforts were successful in having the works removed or restricted. The report also said that censorship efforts were down and less successful than the previous year's, when 388 censorship drives had a 50 percent success rate.

By Jeff B. Copeland. He reported that a movement was underway in Dallas, Oregon, to ban films with a greater than G rating (PG, PG-13, for instance). This movement was reportedly started after Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List was shown to children.

[The article did not say if those were elementary school children or high school children. --MN]

For purveying pornography. James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, and Randall Terry, formerly of Operation Rescue, started a movement to prosecute mainstream booksellers for making certain books available. The target? -- Barnes & Noble. After a spate of initial indictments, various state prosecutors eventually refused to lay more charges despite the calls by Dobson and Terry.

A brief list of states where prosecutors would not lay charges:

• Georgia, Cobb County,
• Texas,
• Maryland,
• Pennsylvania,
• Kansas, and;
• Wisconsin

By various authors. The ACLU reported that 55 books were banned by Texas schools during this school year ('97-'98). The data from their study comes from schools with which the ACLU filed open-records requests on book challenges; 917 out of 1,059 replied to the requests. All told, there were 141 formal challenges. Judy Blume got the worst of it with 5 challenges; two of which were successful.

[At fifty-five successful challenges, the incidence of censorship was 39 percent for the challenged works. It is difficult, however, to get a feel for how prevalent censorship is in Texas because we don't know how many books are allowed in the schools. Although, if we compare the number of formal challenges against the national figures, averaging the numbers for 1999 and 2001 (ignoring the challenges to Harry Potter in 2000), then Texas generated 141 out of approximately 460 challenges; a staggering 30 percent. All things being equal, for this number to be proportionate it would require that Texas contain 30 percent of the population of the U.S. --MN]

By Mildred Taylor. Challenged in a Maryland school system on the grounds it has "no redeeming value."

By Alice Walker. It was removed from a West Virginia school library.

By R.L. Stine. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, an investigation was started into whether or not the Goosebumps series should be banned from school libraries because the books are too scary for children. It was triggered by a parent's concerns.

By Sir Thomas Malory. A book about the King Arthur legend, it was challenged as required reading at the Pulaski County High School in Somerset, Kentucky, on the grounds that it is "junk." Possibly because it was translated from Medieval French texts into Middle English.

By Janice Anderson. Placed on restricted access at the Pennsylvania, Pulaski Elementary School Library because of nude paintings in the book.

By chinese poet Ma Zhe et al. Ma Zhe was among a group of writers who formed a "cultural revival movement" urging freedom of speech and publication and protection of human rights. The group posted a journal, China Culture Revival Bulletin, on Chinese and overseas online sites. Ma was sentenced to five years in prison for advocating for free speech and the relaxing of communist restrictions on literature.

[Ma Zhe was released in late July or early August 2001 after serving three years; the sentence having been shortened by chinese authorities. --MN]

By the United States Congress and defended by Janet Reno. Shot down by the Supreme Court of the United States in a rousing endorsement for Free Speech on the internet.

By Anita Roddick and The Body Shop; Ms. Roddick's corporate creation. Ruby is a Barbiesque doll albeit along rubinesque proportions. The viewer can call up an ad photo of the nude doll. Mattel challenged the use of Ruby by The Body Shop by sending a cease and desist order -- not because Ruby violated some kind of copyright or patent according to Ms. Roddick, but because, "she was insulting to the real Barbie." For more about suppressive movements against The Body Shop advertising campaigns, see Ms. Roddick's column for 23 May 2002.

[At some other point complaints were lodged against the ad photograph because of Ruby's nudity. Her sexlessness, of course, was totally irrelevant. --MN]
(see 07 Nov 2002; 27 Jan 2003; 29 Dec 2003; 29 Jun 2004)

By Fidel Castro and the people of Cuba, respectively. At a speech at an international book fair in Havana, Castro stated that, "there are no banned books in Cuba, just no money to buy them." He was commenting on the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. People on the island, however, immediately took advantage of his statement and opened some 70 independent libraries. Most of these are based on privately owned collections, some of which have been supplemented by donations by foreign embassies and visitors. These libraries face government harassment nonetheless.

In December 2001, Berta Mexidor Vazquez and her husband, Ramon Humberto Colas, co-founders of the independent library movement, lost their jobs, their home, and saw their daughter removed from her school. After which they emmigrated to Miami, Florida.

Toronto's Wellesley Central Hospital was taken over by the Catholic hospital St. Michael’s. The new management promptly banned abortions and vasectomies, and restricted other birth control procedures at Wellesley. This was part of a trend in both Canada and the U.S. in which church controlled health care systems engage in prejudicial medicine.

By Steve Wilson and Jane Akre of Fox News. Fox killed the story, knuckling under to threats from Monsanto.

Directed by Adrian Lyne. This film came under a fair bit of fire because of the pedophilac content of the story.

By various authors. The Author's Guild commented in its Fall '09 Bulletin that half of the 100 greatest books, as determined by the Modern Library, had been subjected to challenges at one time or another.

Promotional copies of the men's lifestyle magazine were pulped at Leeds University under the excuse that its pictures of sexy girls were an example of the "objectification" of men and women. The University students' union has always adopted a strong line on this issue, having banned the Sun newspaper in 1996. Since that ban was overturned, however, the executive has been sensitive about restricting free speech according to its own prejudices. So while the shop continued to sell GQ, 2000 promotional copies, which had been sitting downstairs covered up by the women's society banner, were pulped.

Why? Because one person, a twenty-something graduate, former women's officer, and students' union life member, claimed that the concealed filth made her feel "harassed".

By William Shakespeare. The Christian Science Monitor reported a challenge based on the grounds the play encourages homosexuality.
(see 1996)

By Education Secretary Richard W. Riley. In a letter to Senator Joe Liebermann, Secretary Riley rejected a request for arbitrary cuts to Closed Captioning funding for the Jerry Springer Show.
(see 08 Feb 2004)

By Eolake Stobblehouse. Mr. Stobblehouse received an e-mail complaining about his web site generating the message: "Forbidden - access denied". When he checked, he found out that his site was indeed inaccessible; it had been removed by the ISP. Here is what Mr. Stobblehouse wrote about the incident:

Here's a little background: I changed my ISP a couple of months ago, because what with the rapidly rising popularity of DOMAI, the price of traffic had escalated steeply with the service I had. The new one I found was perfect, a very large and reliable provider, and much cheaper for a site with as much traffic as mine. Of course I read their policy page carefully. It said that they did not want web sites with, and I quote, "sexually explicit adult content". So I carefully checked my whole site, and of course I could not find as much as a single bare sexual organ or even an abstract drawing of sexual activity.

But knowing how America has a problem with nudity, I checked with somebody anyway. And after I had actually gotten them to look at their own rules, they said that it was OK.

And so now the chick I had on the phone explained to me, that really what was the measuring stick of material was whether a big American office could comfortably hang a given picture on its walls.

What a difference! I would like to see the American bigwig who would put up for instance a David Hamilton nude on his wall. And I would also like to see the person who would still define a Hamilton nude as "sexually explicit"! So, I had followed a policy that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. I had been given permission, and that permission was not respected. I was given no warning when my page was removed. And, hell, I was not even given any information about my page being removed! It was four days before I even was informed of the reason! (And only because I had hounded them for days.) (This is the only thing they ever admitted to being wrong about this whole thing.)

The reason it took so long to make contact with a representative is that this was the Fourth of July weekend. His web site, DOMAI.com, is dedicated to artistic photography of female nudes, and to exploring issues of nudity in a context of sensuality vs: sexuality. His site states that all models are legal adults.

[See the source article for more background. Be advised that DOMAI contains pictures of magnificently beautiful women which will be considered sick, perverted, disgusting, vile, and reprehensible by knee-jerk reactionaries who are obsessed with sex. If you are such a person, you are forbidden to click on the links above by your own "morality". Not that you're going to let that stop you, will you? If you are a physically and mentally healthy person with an appreciation for beauty and nudity, feel free. Even if you are an underaged male with runaway hormones, you should view this site. The women depicted are all one hundred percent natural beauties. Not a single implanted boob among them and no air-brush fakery. This is what women really look like au naturel. --MN]

By William Shakespeare. The Savannah Morning News reported that a teacher required permission slips from his students before he would allow them to be exposed to the sex, violence, and adult language in pulp fiction such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The plays had been removed from reading lists by the school board.

[It is beyond this editor's capacity to fathom how the works of Shakespeare could possibly be equated with pulp fiction. --MN]

By high school students as an expression of protest.

In April, school officials in Allen, Texas, suspended Jennifer Boccia and several other students for wearing black armbands to school. The armbands were to mourn the victims of the Columbine school shooting, but also to protest what they viewed as the overly authoritarian school rules that were passed after the incident. Boccia sued in federal court, contending that the suspension violated her First Amendment rights. Ms. Boccia, then a high school junior, sued Allen Independent School District in July, contending school officials violated free-expression rights; the American Civil Liberties Union filed on her behalf. The school district opted to settle out of court.

In December, in Fisher v. Bossier Parish School District, Louisiana, a federal district court judge ruled that Tinker was the "controlling" standard in a suit brought by a high school honor-roll student named Jennifer Roe. Officials had refused to allow her to wear a black armband to protest the school’s mandatory uniform policy. When her parents informed the school principal about the Tinker case, the principal reportedly said that the board did not care about that precedent.

By Adolf Hitler. The copyright of all editions of Mein Kampf except the English and the Dutch, is owned by the state of Bavaria. The government of Bavaria, in agreement with the Federal Government of Germany, does not allow any copying or printing of the book in Germany, and opposes it also in other countries, albeit less successfully. Owning and buying the book is legal. Trading in old copies is legal as well, unless it is done in such a fashion as to promote hatred or war, which is generally illegal. Most German libraries carry heavily commented and excerpted versions of the book, and in the Netherlands, selling the book, even in the case of an old copy, is illegal as promoting hatred, although possession and lending is not. In 1997 the government explained to the parliament that selling a scientifically annotated version might escape prosecution. In 1999, the Simon Wiesenthal Center documented that major internet booksellers like amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com sell Mein Kampf to Germany. After a public outcry, both companies agreed to stop those sales.
(see 1976; 01 Dec 2000; 25 Feb 2002)

By Miami International Airport. The airport banned an issue of the magazine that contained a story deemed too flattering to Fidel Castro. The ban was lifted after civil liberties advocates accused officials of the same kind of free-speech violations for which Castro is vilified; in Miami.

1999, March: Report on so-called filtering software is released.

Tests of Internet filtering software used by the Utah Education Network indicate that such software is clumsy, indiscriminating, and error prone, with error rates from 25 to 82 percent.
(see 15 Dec 2000)

Censorware Project

[The above site is no longer active, but has an e-mail contact address.
For much better results, check the PeaceFire site. --MN]

PeaceFire

1999, March 27: A dying man's last request

By Michael Aris. Husband to Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Soo Chee). She is the daughter of martyred General Aung San, who led his country's fight for independence from Great Britain in the 1940s. He was killed for his beliefs in 1947. Since then, she has become a powerful force for political and human rights activism in the Union of Myanmar, formerly Burma. In her mid-teens, she went to India with her mother who became the Myanmar ambassador there. Later, she moved to England and met and married Michael Aris, a Tibetan scholar. In 1988, she received a call that her mother was dying, and so returned to Myanmar, leaving her husband and two children behind in England, and then stayed in Myanmar to oppose what has been described as "one of the most insensitive and brutal military dictatorships in the world." In 1999, the governemnt refused to allow the dying Michael Aris to visit his wife in Myanmar, and Ms. Suu Kyi, who had spent some seven and a half years under two sentences of house arrest, would not leave Myanmar for fear that she would not be allowed back in. The reason the government gave for refusing Mr. Aris entry was that it did not have the facilities to care for a dying man.

Michael Aris died on this day, on his fifty-third birthday. One thousand of Ms. Kyi's friends and supporters, including high-ranking diplomats from Europe and the United States, went to her home for a memorial service. Police agents took their names and addresses.

[You can read more about Ms. Kyi and how the Myanmar regime has oppressed her in this background report at CBC (the source article); in this report about her release from her first house arrest on 06 May 2002.
(see 18 Sep 1988; 1990; 05 Jun 2003; 14 Apr 2004; 27 May 2006)

By bars and restaurants. Students at the University of Pittsburgh are suing the government because of a Pennsylvanian law banning any mention of alcohol in campus newpaper advertisements. This ban was implemented despite the fact that recreational alcohol is perfectly legal and approximately sixty-six percent of the students at the university are legal adults. The specious argument put forth by the government is that many students are not legally allowed to drink alcohol.

[The age of majority in Pennsylvania is 21, and somehow the legislators assumed that reading such advertisements will cause underage drinking and therefore those adults who are allowed to drink must not see such advertising. How's that again? --MN]
(see 19 Feb 2003)

By Rehmat Shah Afridi. It was reported that as editor of these Punjab Province daily papers, he frequently exposed corruption, drug trafficking, and illegal arms sales by the government of Pakistan. On this date, he was arrested by the country's U.S. funded Anti-Narcotics Force for possession and trafficking of drugs. On 21 Jun 2001 he was sentenced to death.
(See 26 Sep 2003)

In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A restaurant that caters primarily to homosexuals was ordered to remove the rainbow coloured flags it had flying, and the owner, Linda Robertson, spoke before the the Myrtle Beach City Council on this day. The city council refused to amend the law; which law Robertson maintains is unconstitutional. The bylaw is a matter of zoning, the bistro being in a district where corporate flags are prohibited. The only exception is amusement parks of five acres or more. The ordinance allows for the flying of national, state, local government, and church flags. Ms. Roberstson found a loophole in the ordinance however; she painted rainbow coloured triangles on the windows and on a dormer.

[I'd say that this law is unconstitutional myself. The flags Robertson had up were not commercial flags as much as they were political speech. The rainbow colors represent pride, heritage, and history for homosexuals. By allowing government flags but not those representative of political speech, the council violated the First Amendment. Another oblique issue that could be made is that by allowing flags representing churches as well, they also violate the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, as of Jan 2002 there was no follow up on this report. --MN]

By Robert Kent. The association is: "an independent, non-partisan, non-profit support group for the independent library movement in Cuba. We oppose censorship and all other violations of intellectual freedom, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of whatever administration may be in office in Cuba. We are funded entirely by our members and do not seek or accept contributions from other sources."

PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- A fourth-grade student was reading a magazine when his teacher, Wanda Nelson, grabbed it, called it "pornography," ripped up the offending pages and threw them in a trash can.

The magazine was National Geographic, and the pornography was an article on evolution that included drawings of naked humans.

The Cherry Street Elementary School teacher received a written reprimand on June 15 for "inappropriate action."

But the school superintendent said he did not believe censorship was an issue.

Bay County School Superintendent Larry Bolinger said he supported the teacher's right to stop what she considered a disruption, but said she crossed the line when she damaged the magazine.

Sebastian Allen, 10, had taken his older brother's magazine, a rare collector's issue, to school after Nelson had encouraged students to bring reading material from home in case they completed a state assessment test before time ran out.

[Amusing, n'est ce pas, how the teacher blamed the student for a disruption she created and how the official sided with the teacher? --MN]

[Stupidly hoping, as all appeasers do, that it will eat them last. --MN]

Shortly after the U.S. Senate passed a bill severely curtailing the Second Amendment rights of minors, Slick Willy Clinton pressured the National Association of Theatre Owners to aggressively check the identifications of customers to R rated films. As it is, the rating system is voluntary, and theatres can allow anyone at all in to see R and PG-13 films.

This action is based on the unwarranted assumption that because there is a correlation between media violence and aggression, it is necessarily a causal link.

[Silly me. . . . And here I thought the ratings system wasn't so the theatres could tell you what you weren't allowed to watch; I thought it was so your parents could decide what you weren't allowed to watch. --MN]

The Australian Government voted to censor the Internet in Australia from any material it considers offensive. Censorship in Australia is now a reality.

[That law went into affect on 01 Jan 2000; when it did, the whole domain of prairie-dog.net was shut down, not just the sex show part, but the political activism part as well. Of course, since this material was critical of the Australian government, the government had a vested intertest in blocking the entire domain. --MN]

By Cyberpatrol. In a classic example of slippery slope erosion of civil liberties, Cyberpatrol, a censorware company, had blocked access to the entire web site of a bookstore because the store's internet-available list of titles contained a photograph of the book cover for Eat Me. Ms. Jaivin examined the dangers of collateral damage by censorware filtering in this open letter.

Grace Fellowship Church attacked Pokemon toys as a symbol of evil. One Wednesday night, the message to 85 children seated in pint-sized chairs was that a wildly popular Japanese-bred toy figure known as Pokemon is not fun and games, but instead a veiled symbol of the occult.

To drive the point home, the children, ages 6 to 12, were given a display that included: the burning of collectible Pokemon trading cards with a blowtorch; the children's pastor swinging a sword with a 30-inch blade to strike a plastic Pokemon action figure laid on a table; that pastor's 9-year-old son tearing the limbs and head off his own Pokemon doll.

Those details were confirmed by Mark Juvera, the children's pastor, and Mark Cowart, the senior pastor, in interviews with a local newspaper. The children reacted enthusiastically and, according to one account, chanted, "Burn it! Burn it!" and "Chop it up! Chop it up!"

[Personally, I do not think they reacted thusly out of enthusiasm for religion so much as out of enthusiasm for destruction. --MN]
(see 06 Dec 2000, 31 Mar 2001, 03 Apr 2001)

By heathen sinners who like to blaspheme against God and Heaven by kicking up their heels and having a good time, on account of dancing leads to drunkenness, adultery, fornication, and straight to Hell from there. This time, however, the dancing returned; to Pound, Virginia, after a ban of 18 years. A U.S. District judge struck down the ban as an unconstitutional violation of free expression.

A number of towns, it seems, have recently passed anti-dancing ordinances in an effort to control teenager activities such as raves. This ruling should go a long way to upholding their right to party the night away.

By Dan Flynn. At Berkeley. His monograph about the murderer of a cop was burned by students on the grounds that the monograph is racist because the killer is a muslim, and it advocates that the sentence of capital punishment should be carried out.
(see 18 Sep 2001; 10 Oct 2001; 24 Oct 2001)

By homosexuals. School officials at Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, Michigan, dismantled two bulletin boards commemorating Gay and Lesbian History Month and which gave facts about homosexuality.

Interim Superintendant Kenneth Walcott removed a display by Mike Chiumento at the West Middle School and one from the classroom of Tom Salbenblatt at the Plymouth-Salem High School. The specious argument in this case? -- that some parents might find the material objectionable.

[NB: Not that any had, but that some might. A commonly used rationale upon which I harp in chronology part IV: 2001. --MN]
(see 05 Dec 2001)

By Lois Lowry; it had a ban against it lifted on this date. The book was removed from Union County middle schools by Superintendent Eugene Dukes. In a meeting held to address the issue, the school board decided that he had acted prematurely. It was immediately returned to the curriculum of Union County's seventh-grade English classes. However, this was due to proper procedure not having been followed. The challenge should have gone before a review committee, not directly to the superintendent. While a committee had met to review the challenge, its finding had not yet been transmitted to the offended parent, and so the issue could not be further addressed at the time of the meeting.

By J.H. Hatfield. An entire print run of 70,000 copies was burned at the insistence of the Bush family. The news-print medium said this was a good thing.

[I wonder how much they would have howled if the Bushes had attacked a newspaper instead. Hypocrites.

This one is a close call between an anti-libel move and censorship. If the book was slander then St. Martin's Press probably had no choice but to burn a book that should not have been printed, but, then, why was it printed in the first place? A publishing house should certainly have known better.

Also, as the linked op-ed piece indicates, this action was part of a consistent pattern of behavior to suppress anything that might embarrass the Bushes at all. --MN]

By Dav Pilkey. The materials review committee at Orfordville Elementary School, Wisconsin, voted unanimously to leave this book on the library shelves. The committee reviewed the work after complaints by Tom and Lauren Hartung; local parents. They had objected to the book because it encouraged disrespect for authority and outrageous behaviour. In an interview in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for 10 November, Mr. Hartung was quoted as complaining that the committee, "had an answer for everything-from the First Amendment to 'Children realize that if they do something wrong there are consequences.'"

[Sheesh! Talk about fermenting grapes. Of course, he didn't want due process, he just wanted the book off the shelves. How silly of anyone to think otherwise. Another report of another challenge to a later volume in the series alleged that the complaint of this challege was also in part that the book contained violence and inappropriate language; which charges were not included in the article I saw about this incident. --MN]
(see 09 Feb 2000; 11 Mar 2002;

The mother of an 8-year-old girl in Oberlin, Ohio, was prosecuted for "child pornography," along with an investigation into charges of child abuse, because she took pictures of her nude daughter in the bath.

The newspaper reporting the case wrote: To the best of our knowledge, there is no basis, other than the nude pictures (which a photography lab worker reported to the authorities) for either charge. The pictures are said to be quite innocuous. (The Nation, 12/13/99)

[The mother did not have the resources to fight the ensuing legal battle so had for opt for a guilty plea and subsequent sentencing; which mandated the destruction of the photographs and counselling. --MN]
(see 20 Jun 2001)

By William Golding

Censorship goes on!

This happened in a small town near Rochester (haven for the underground railway, women's suffrage, and privacy screens around PC's at the public library).

A group of parents petitioned the Bloomfield middle-school to ban Golding's "Lord of the Flies" from the reading list and the school library. Reason: It is too violent!

THAT'S WHAT THE FRICK'N BOOK IS ABOUT!!! i.e. how prejudice and factionalism (implicitly religious fanaticism) can bring out the worst in human nature and lead to violence.

Fortunately upwards of 100 literate citizens attended the special meeting and voted the cretins down.
--Jerry Budinski, 24 Dec 1999 (reported in a public cyberspace forum)

By Friends of Cuban Libraries. The report was about the fate of a large consigment of books that had been donated to Cuba by the government of Spain as part of a cultural assistance program. The entire shipment was confiscated by two State Security officers under the command of a Major Sanchez, and shipped to a warehouse in Cerro, where some of the books were burned, some were buried in the parking lot of the Podar Popular party which forms the Cerro municipal government, and the rest were trucked to garbage dumps just outside Havana. Even the children's literature. The report was based on a report by Maria Elena Rodriguez of the independent Cuba Verdad Press Agency, who interviewed eyewitnesses, although no cause for the action was uncovered.

On 21 Jan 2000, Siglo XXI, the journal of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, printed an article corroborating that report. This article was based on an interview of one of the municipal workers, Jose Luis Mesa, who helped to burn the books, and who spoke of the incident after having defected to Canada where he was visiting after receiving permission to travel. During inspection in the Port of Havana, it was discovered that the shipment contained 8,000 pamphlets on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Speculation is that the entire shipment was destroyed to ensure that no pamphlets that might have been slipped i nto the pages of other books survived to be dissemi nated.

This incident marked the first documented destruction of officially-donated library books in Cuba.

By Mildred D. Taylor and Marvin Redpost, respectively. It was reported that James Dawson of the Huntsville, Alabama city school board wants to ban two books he says are not suitable for elementary school students. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a story about American Blacks and contains the word nigger. Is He A Girl? is about a young boy who wears dresses. Mr. Dawson said that both books were "trashy trash", and stated: "All those kinds of books must come off the Huntsville City Schools' shelves. I want to see it out of every school."

By Ann Alma. This Nelson, British Columbia, writer was forbidden to read from this work while on a tour of Prince Edward Island. The order was issued less than thirty minutes before her first scheduled presentation by the tour coordinator, who was also head of the province's children's library services.

Apparently this was not the first such incident during Children's Book Week. Individual hosts have cancelled readings at the last minute, and others have asked authors not to mention certain of their books. This was, however, the first time an entire province has engaged in opprobrium.

The ban of Something To Tell was made because the book tells the story of a girl who has been subjected to sexual touching by the headmistress of her school, and it turned out that a child had made an accusation of sexual touching in one of the schools Ms. Alma was to visit. After agreeing to the ban for the first day of her week-long tour, Ms. Alma decided to ignore the prohibition. Teachers in the other schools she visited thanked her for including the book in her presentations.

By Toni Morrison. Challenged in a High School in Maryland for sexual content and offensive language.

Embarrassed by an illustration of a vagina in a high school science textbook, school board members in Lynchburg, Virginia refused to approve the book unless the picture was covered or cut out.

Some anatomical parts, apparently, are best unseen. Participants at a home school convention in Sacramento, California recently were so embarrassed by nudity that they clothed a sculpture -- a replica of the famous bronze statue of the Greek god Poseidon, with the consent of city officials. Offended residents protested by stripping the statue and blindfolding it with its own newly-acquired necktie.

[And in 1999, someone defaced a magnificent mural on a construction site fence in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This person painted fig leafs on the naked figures of Adam and Eve and brushed out Eve's breasts. --MN]

By Wei Hui. When this Chinese novel was released the government censors greeted it harshly. And not only was this book banned and some copies were burned, but Ms. Hu's previous writings were also removed from bookstores around China.

By Dav Pilkey. It was "banished" from Maple Hill School in Naugatuck, Connecticut. Officials there claimed that fourth grade students were beginning to act out scenes from the series. The book was apparently removed from the libary unilaterally by Principal Rebecca Sciacc; apparently with the support of Superintendent Alice Carolan. She was quoted by Associated Press as saying, "The book was beginning to take on a life of its own." AP reported on this date that some parents wanted the books returned because they attracted children who were otherwise reluctant to read.

[Goodness; God forbid that children should ever exercise anything in the way of imagination. Surely there must be some games they can play that do nothing at all. And how, pray tell, do you suppose Rebecca Sciacc decides what differentiates good literature from bad? Whatever she thinks children are allowed to see is good and everything else is bad? Hmmmm? --MN]
(see 09 Nov 1999; 11 Mar 2002)

By Sharon Gernetzke and Joseph Bezotte, students at George N. Tremper Senior High School, Kenosha, Wisconsin. On this day they filed a lawsuit against the Kenosha Unified School District and Principal Chester Pulaski, alleging that in 1998 Mr. Pulaski had violated their rights by not allowing them paint a cross in mural that was done by the various school clubs. They had been allowed to paint the three other proposed symbols, but Pulaski balked at allowing the cross.

[Off the top of my head I'd say that this sounds like petulant whining that the exercise of rights they were allowed wasn't enough for them. However, I don't agree with Pulaski's rationale for not allowing the cross, either: that a satanist group might form and ask to include their club's symbol in the mural. That smacks of prior restraint in my books. --MN]
(see 14 Dec 2001)

By Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Snoop Doggy Dog, and various artists, including a Disney film sound track. Due to an inappropriate response by "law enforcement" officials. This time in New Iberia, Louisiana.

On February 22, voters in the conservative town of Holland, Michigan rejected a ballot proposal requiring public libraries to install filters on computers. The measure would have withheld funding for the library unless it blocked access to sites containing "obscene, sexually explicit or other material harmful to minors."

By various mourners and Pacifica Network correspondent Errol Maitland respectively. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! described this incident thusly in an essay posted at Alternet.org:

[W]hile he was reporting live from the funeral of Patrick Dorismond - a Haitian-American who was shot and killed by police - Errol attempted to interview New York City police who were moving in on the crowd of mourners. We listened as he tried to question police, who then threw him to the ground. Errol was beaten by New York City police officers and had to be hospitalized for weeks. When I visited him in the hospital, I found him handcuffed to his bed. All for what? For reporting while black.

The third attempt by Congress to limit what all people are permitted to access online. This law differs from the earlier two, however, in that it does not attempt to abrogate access to information directly. Instead, those libraries receiving federal funding will have that funding cut off if they do not install filters.

[Can you say "blackmail"? I knew you could. --MN]
(see 01 Oct 2001; 25 Mar 2002; 26 Mar 2002; 05 Apr 2002; 20 May 2002; 31 May 2002)

The government of Iran shut down ten pro-democracy newspapers, leaving only five moderate newspapers in the country. Pundits saw the move as an effort to weaken the position of the President.
(see 12 Feb 2001 in Rushdie Death Threat time line)

By U.S. District Judge James L. Graham, in a ruling against Columbus, Ohio. This temporary injunction was granted pending a hearing into a policy that denies people the right to name school and school board officials whom they are criticizing. The suit was brought against the school board by Jerry Doyle, after he was kicked out of a meeting on 07 March for criticizing David Dobos, the board president, and other board members by name.
(see 05 May 2000; 11 May 2001)

By Dana Thompson, with the assistance of the ACLU. In March of this year the St. Tammany Parish mother was barred from making a complaint about her son's teacher at a school board meeting. St. Tammany Parish school officials were allowing only good things to be said about teachers and officials. Complaints were being hushed up under the rationale, "The irreparable harm that can come to an employee when their name is smeared doesn't exist when they want to compliment an employee," according to Larry Samuel, attorney for the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, who also said, "Yes, there is a freedom of speech, but public bodies can regulate the time of that speech, the place of that speech and the manner of that speech." Samuel is also quoted as saying, "There's got to be a happy medium for the right of the parent to engage in dialogue and the right of the employee not to be defamed in public."

[A handy excuse for not letting parents hold their childrens' teachers accountable at meetings that are supposed to be for that purpose. Aside from which, it ain't defamation if it's true. --MN]
(see 25 Apr 2000; 11 May 2001)

By Canadian political dissendents. They were viciously attacked by Sgt. Pepper goons for the high crime of protesting a meeting of the Organization of American States. Moreover, this violation of rights seems to have been covered up by insufficient news reporting.

Russian media mogul Vladimir Gusinsky -- a top critic of the Russian government -- was arrested Tuesday, accused of embezzlement. Some say his detention is a move by Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration to silence free speech.

"I'm afraid we are on the eve of very harsh events in Russia, and this is the reason -- the press will be the first victim of the new Russian administration," said journalist Evgenya Albats.

Gusinsky's arrest came one month after investigators, supported by masked police brandishing guns, raided the offices of his holding company, Media-Most. That raid was later ruled illegal in court.

Gusinsky, 47, was under investigation for allegedly embezzling state-owned properties worth at least $10 million, according to Russian news agencies quoting the prosecutor-general's office.

Gusinsky's lawyer, Pavel Astakhov, said Gusinsky was summoned to the prosecutor-general's office for questioning related to the raids, was then arrested and was being held in a Moscow prison, according to the Interfax News Agency.

Gusinsky believes the Kremlin is persecuting him because it wants to crack down on independent news media -- and his Media-Most company, one of Russia's largest, is considered the most vocal critic of Putin's administration.

[Addendum (07 Jan 2003): While researching another censorship incident, I found out that the factor triggering this incident was highly critical depictions of Vladimir Putin by the NTV show Kukly. On 30 May 2000, Voice Of American Moscow correspondent Peter Heinlein filed a report that the tactics targetting Gusinsky were part of an effort to suppress voices in opposition; particularly by the caricaturized and viciously satirical puppetry. --MN]

The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association published its list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the previous decade.

By the legislative branch of the United States Government. A federal appeals court unanimously struck down this second attempt to criminalize speech on the internet. This case was launched by the the ACLU and sixteen other defendants.

In which anti-evolution legislation was put to the test in the heartland of the U.S. bible belt. And it failed. Despite the failure, self-righteous legislators still attempt to proclaim that evolution hasn't any place in the scheme of things, and certainly not in public schools.

MOSCOW - Charges have been dropped against Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky. Officials have said there is a lack of evidence he committed a crime, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Thursday.

Gusinsky, who is head of a holding company that includes several print and broadcast outlets that have frequently criticized the Kremlin, was accused of cheating the government in a privatization deal. The Kremlin said it was out $10 million.

Gusinsky claimed the accusations were an attempt by the Kremlin to crack down on independent-minded media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will reduce the influence of Russia's top businessmen, who had very close ties to the Boris Yeltsin government.

But independent media and many western governments agree with Gusinsky's estimate of his case as an example of an increasingly hard line toward the press on the part of the Kremlin.
(see 1995; 13 Jun 2001)

LONDON - Big Brother is alive and well in the United Kingdom -- at least according to critics of wide-sweeping legislation passed in the British House of Commons that will allow the police to intercept private e-mails.

The British government says it's necessary to combat crime. But human rights organizations, civil liberties groups and the e-commerce industry have all condemned the bill.

It's called the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill and critics say it's one of the biggest abuses of civil liberties by a Western government to date.

Caspar Bowden, the director of a foundation for Information Policy Research in Britain, explained how it would work.

"The proposal is to install black boxes into the premises of Internet service providers and these boxes would sit and watch all the traffic passing through, but be programmed with a list of targets and supposedly pluck out those pieces of information which it was then authorized to relay to a new monitoring system which is being established in the M15 centre. That's our domestic spy service."

Sending coded or encrypted e-mails won't get you off the hook. Security authorities can make people hand over their encryption codes, and they won't need a warrant from a judge to do it.

The government insists it needs the powers in order to combat what it calls 21st century criminals -- smugglers, terrorists, pedophiles -- whose lives are made easier by access to the Internet.

[I wonder if someone should point out to the dozy bastards that everyone's life is supposed to be made easier by access to the internet; that that is its purpose. The fact that pedophiles and criminals are included in the group of "everyone" is certainly no fault of ours. --MN]

Danny Goldberg, CEO and Co-Owner of Artemis Records testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. Mr. Goldberg spoke out against labels rating content. The full text of his address can be found in Appendix C.

A member of the Kuwaiti government, Waleed al-Tabtabaie, is demanding that some coverage of the 2000 Olympic games be taken off the air because it contains more sex than sport. According to local newspapers the Conservative parliament member lodged an official complaint to the country's information ministry,

Mr Tabtabaie named women's beach volleyball, diving, and synchronised swimming as the biggest offenders. In the past has also called for the banning of St Valentine's Day.

He said, "Some events, especially women's contests, have flagrant scenes which are unacceptable." He added, "They reflect Western norms that do not give a woman's body any of the respect, honour, or protection which Islam and Islamic law have granted for her."

[I'd like to see that fatuous oaf try to do a triple gainer off the 10 meter tower all dressed up in those stupid robes. Especially, I'd like to see him try swimming back up from the bottom of the pool. --MN]

By Doctor David Suzuki, Greenpeace, and The Council of Canadians. They were censored by having their viewpoints omitted from a special magazine supplement.

By . . . not anyone, apparently. A student was persecuted as a witch (not as a wiccan, but as a 17th century type witch), when one of her teachers got sick. Brandi Blackbear was accused of having cast a spell on the teacher.

[Funny thing that. If a teacher got sick I'd suspect every student. It's a wonder they didn't try to burn the girl at the stake or have her exorcised for having an evil eye. I wonder if the school's cow dried up, too. . . . --MN]

A report from the front lines of the wars over political correctness, free expression and culture:

Richard Zeller has retired from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, in protest, after 25 years in the sociology department.

His reason? The department wouldn't allow him to teach a course about political correctness with a reading list including such works as: Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police, A Nation of Victims and Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action.

It was reported that Zeller's colleagues in the department, as well as those in other departments said, "nyet." The director of the women's studies department, Kathleen Dixon, told a local newspaper, "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech."

[How's that again? --MN]

A Superior Court ruled unconstitutional an attempt by the State of Massachussetts to circumvent the First Amendment by requiring that tattooing be done by medical doctors.

[So you're here for an appendectomy, eh, Kid? You want a Bugs Bunny tattoo with that? --MN]
(see 13 Feb 2001)

By J.K. Rowling. This time in the Santa Fe Independent School District. See the Harry Potter censorship timeline.

SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. This is an especially insidious form of censorship wherein a litigant, usually a major corporation, sues an individual who is saying something critical of the company. Easy for the corporation with millions or even billions of dollars in assets. The suit invariably seeks an injunction against the private citizen so that he or she is enjoined from being openly critical of the company in question. Naturally, that citizen usually can't afford a lawyer, never mind a team of lawyers.

In this case, the plaintiff, a public official, was ruled against in her suit to ferret out the identity of a private citizen who had exercised his free speech on the internet. A telling blow against censorship, even though the ACLU was unsuccessful in getting the suit dismissed entirely.
(see 14 Dec 2000, and 26 Feb 2001 for a follow up to Melvin vs: Doe)

By Matthew Parent. In response to a class assignment this 11th grade, honors student turned in a paper about his personal feelings, and was suspended until he got a psychiatric evaluation. The teacher and school officials were apparently reacting out of kneejerk fear in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre. Entirely inappropriately and out of all proportion.
(see 05 Dec 2000; 20 Feb 2001)

By Adolf Hitler.

BERLIN -- News this week that a Munich state prosecutor was investigating allegations that Yahoo Deutschland had sold copies of Mein Kampf could help build momentum in Germany for more sweeping restrictions on such material.

[Sure, he's a raving fool with an axe to grind. More to the point, he's one of the most savage, bloody-handed butchers in the history of humanity. Plus, I stipulate that Mein Kampf {My Struggle}, contains his philosophy in life for why he did what he did; not only rationalizing it, but espousing it as the saving grace for all mankind. However, to quote Robert Anson Heinlein: Know your enemy -- the first law of war. You cannot know your enemy, those hatemongers who follow the bankrupt ideals of that self-destructive philosophy, if you destroy or hide the information by which they might be known. --MN]
(see 1976; 1999; 25 Feb 2002)

Matthew Parent, unjustly suspended by school officials, is reinstated in school.
(see 21 Nov 2000; 20 Feb 2001)

By Japanese Anime. A Turkish TV station ordered to shut down for a few days for showing Pokemon after two children were hurt acting out.

The two children, a seven year old girl and a four year old boy, jumped off a balcony after watching Pokemon. Naturally, the TV show got the blame.

[Where were these children's parents? Aside from that, what kind of confusion is going to be caused by the idea of "bad heroes" as expressed by the government of Turkey? Not to mention, how many children watched those cartoons without jumping off of balconies? {Of course, the favorite answer used by censorship advocates to that question is, "One is too many." Never mind what overwhelming proportion is not affected, we must keep this "trash" out of the minds of all children because of those few who act out what they saw on the boob tube.} --MN]
(see 1999, Aug, 31 Mar 2001, 03 Apr 2001)

A student in Stormont, Ontario is persecuted by both the school system and the Minister of inJustice for being a victim of bullies and speaking out about his feelings. He is arrested for writing about those feelings in a composition.

[If you read the compiled reports carefully, you'll notice that there is not one word about arresting or even investigating his tormentors and attackers. --MN]
(see 11 Jan 2001)

2000, December 14: SLAPPed down.

This time in Rhode Island. A recycling business tried to muzzle a couple who had raised environmental concerns. The court ruled against the company.
(see 15 Nov 2000, 26 Feb 2001)

By the government of the United States of America. The House of Representatives passed the Labor HHS Education Appropriations Bill (HR 4577), in a 292 to 60 vote. The McCain-Santorum-Istook-Pickering Internet filtering rider was attached. The Senate also passed the bill. This rider requires that libraries and schools install and maintain unreliable Internet filters, or lose key federal funding. This means that the United States federal government has seized control over families and communities, abrogating or derogating from the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit; of all parents, including those who advocate censorship for religious reasons. Under filtering software, even the Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon are offensive.

[Which, at least, makes it fair censorship. Ordinarily censorship is applied as a double-standard morality. --MN]

In conjunction with this, the Peacefire website released a utility to disable blocking software installed on home computers.
(see Mar 1999; the press release from Peacefire)

This young man was supporting the Green Bay Packers in a school that was sponsored by the Vikings. Besides the harassment of his classmates, he also had to endure being censured by the school.

This ruling was the culmination of a 14-year long fight against the Canada Customs practice of censoring homosexually slanted literary material at the border. The high court upheld the decision made in 1994 by the British Columbia Supreme Court in favor of Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium.
(see 1956; 26 Feb 1989; Feb 1992; 1993; 1993; 04 Mar 2002; 23 Mar 2004)

The ACLU announced that it would shortly launch a legal challenge against a congressional initiative (of Dec. 15) to force blocking software on public libraries and public schools. For why this initiative is a bad idea, see the Censorware Report

By homosexuals. A suit was filed against a California school district for removing books on homosexuals. The books, a ten volume series of biographies about prominent homosexuals, late and contemporary, were ordered removed from the Orangeview Junior High School library by history teacher Ron Dannum; puportedly because they were "inappropriate".

The suit was filed in federal court against the Anaheim, California school district by two students identified as Daniel Doe and Samantha Roe; in which they allege First Amendment violations.

School officials offered the specious argument that the books were too difficult for middle-school students and that students seen carrying the books were likely to be targetted for harassment.

[As if a bully needs an excuse. Drek. --MN]

Attorney Martha Matthews, of ACLU of Southern California, commented, "This is a very clear case of viewpoint-based censorship, which is unconstitutional. At its core, this kind of suppression is anti-democratic and antithetical to the mission of a school and, particularly, of a school library, which is to encourage inquiry and broaden minds. This kind of censorship is offensive, cowardly, and damaging to students."

[Hoo-rah! You go, girl! --MN]

Among the gays and lesbians profiled in the biographies are:

• The Greek poet Sappho,
• Novelists James Baldwin and Willa Cather,
• Economist John Maynard Keynes,
• Playwright Oscar Wilde,
• Writer T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"),
• Entertainers Marlene Deitrich, Liberace, and K.D. Lang.
• Tennis player Martina Navratilova.

It was reported that the Vietnam government had destroyed thousands of books and CDs during the year 2000.

WebPosted Thu Dec 28 08:59:55 2000

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM - The government of Vietnam has destroyed thousands of books and other materials this year in its ongoing effort to control the cultural activities of its citizens.

The books, magazines, newspapers, videos and compact discs were seized by police, customs officers, and cultural inspectors. Many of the items were imported from China.

The government said much of the material was pornographic. But some of it was "superstitious."

The government denies that means religious, and instead refers to books on fortune telling and horoscopes.

Books and magazines that give people a hint of the future are popular items among the Vietnamese. But if they're not produced by the state-controlled publishing industry, they are illegal and subject to seizure.

The communist government keeps a tight grip on all cultural activites, going so far as making bands audition for officials before they can perform in public.

Copyright 2001, CBC News Online
Reprinted with permission of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Appendix A: The Salman Rushdie Death Threat time line

Appendix B1: Harry Potter censorship issues

Appendix B2: Harry Potter censorship timeline

Appendix C: Danny Goldberg's testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee on the futility of music labelling

Appendix D: ACLU cases

Appendix E: Canadian Post-Columbine Hysteria