Government officials in Azerbaijan have admitted that the President Ilham Aliyev had a hand in censoring the country’s entries to the Venice Biennale festival. The artwork of Aidan Salakhova included a replica of the Black Stone, a sacred Muslim relic, surrounded by a vagina-shaped marble frame. Aliyev, reportedly asked for several of Salakhov’s pieces to be covered by a black veil because he felt they might be considered “offensive to Islam”. Curators had previously claimed that Salakhov’s pieces were not on display because they had been damaged in transit.
In the old days (pre-1984) this would have been a simple question of whether that film, or bits of it were “obscene” according to the Obscene Publications Act 1959. There are problems with that, though. Items are obscene (and therefore not to be published or distributed) if they “tend to deprave or corrupt”. (more…)
UK authorities have announced an outright ban on The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). But how do censors make these decisions? Murray Perkins is a film examiner who classifies hardcore porn. He spoke to Index on Censorship about what it takes to make the grade (more…)
A Canadian twelfth grade student has been suspended for posting satirical videos on his own private YouTube account.
The animations, criticising aspects of the American government and the behaviour of large corporations and were considered by the Donald A. Wilson Secondary School to be “detrimental to the positive moral tone of the school”. Jack Christie is currently being investigated by police who were called by the school when the videos started appearing.
Christie has responded to the school board in his latest video (WARNING: SOME STROBE LIGHTING)
