In China, Winnie the Pooh is a dangerous work, in the USA censorship is often related to sexuality – we are looking for a number of banned books from around the world

Author Salman Rushdie the stabbing at the speaking event has once again raised the issue of freedom of expression and prohibited texts.

Books have been banned for centuries, but restrictions are still a reality today.

Strangulation of freedom of speech is not only a phenomenon of Islamic or communist states, but it happens everywhere, says the executive director of Amnesty Finland Frank Johansson.

– It’s about power. There will always be censorship from those in power, because restricting freedom of speech always benefits them.

For this article, we collected examples of banned books and actions restricting freedom of expression in four countries: Iran, the United States, China and Hungary.

In these countries, censorship is caused by religion, the demand for decency or criticism of those in power.

Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses caused an uproar in Iran after its publication. The country’s supreme religious leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa related to Rushdie in 1989.

He called on Muslims to kill Rushdie because he considered his novel to have insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila The University of Edinburgh does not believe that a similar reaction would be possible again in the 2020s.

According to Hämeen-Anttila, the timing of the book’s publication was “extremely bad”. The years-long war between Iraq and Iran had ended just moments earlier in 1988.

– Of course, we have examples of caricature scandals and others, yes, these scandals have also been created later. But the end of the 80s was a volatile time, says Hämeen-Anttila.

Nonfiction writer specializing in the Arabic language and Islamic studies Andrei Sergeyev assesses that today those in power in the Islamic world who seek to silence dissidents no longer bother to legitimize decisions with religion, but use easier secular means of oppression.

– Now you don’t need to slap fatwas anymore, you can murder, put in prisons and torture there, he says.

According to Hämeen-Anttila, both in Iran and in the wider Middle East, the government has a self-censorship approach. Books are not banned, but remain unpublished.

In addition to the Prophet Muhammad, particularly sensitive topics in Iran are an openly atheistic text and direct criticism of those in power, Hämeen-Anttila lists.

In Sergeeff’s opinion, you can also say and write a lot in the Islamic world, if it is correct.

According to Hämeen-Anttila, the fluctuation between a more liberal and a more conservative regime is accentuated in Iran. Now we are entering a more conservative period, when freedoms are more restricted.

Satanic verses are still banned in Iran. So is, for example, a Brazilian Paulo Coelho the novel Zahir.

Although the work was published in Iran with the permission of the regime in 2005, the editions were immediately confiscated. No official explanation was given. The word “zahir” in Arabic means “visible, present and unable to be missed”.

In recent years, the control of those in power has acquired new dimensions, especially in China. We are no longer talking only about books, but about material that spreads online.

Amnesty’s Frank Johansson describes how texts are censored in China that, from the point of view of the current administration, are critical of the Communist Party.

– If you want to write history in a different way than it is officially written in China, the work will be censored. However, books are often published abroad and they are returned as secret copies, as was the case in the Soviet Union.

According to Frank Johansson, China is a good example of contemporary political censorship.

The purpose is to remove books that are illegal, inappropriate, against the party’s doctrines, or contain religious elements. China’s military is not to be mocked.

For example, Winnie the Pooh movies or books are not allowed in China because the character has been used in social media as the president Xi Jinping as a metaphor.

Ethnic factors can also be the reason for censorship by those in power. According to Johansson, China’s way of oppressing the Muslim minority Uighurs in the western province of Xinjiang is one of the world’s worst human rights disasters.

In connection with that, in April 2021, a Uighur writer was sentenced by a Chinese court Sattar Sawut to death. Sawut was accused of inciting violent acts.

Also Ma Jian’s all seven novels have been banned in China. He is now a British citizen. China Dream follows a corrupt government official whose mission is to replace people’s dreams with government propaganda using brain implants.

The issue of freedom of expression is topical also in the EU area. In Hungary, censorship is connected to the rise of value conservatism.

Last year, Hungary passed a law pushed by the conservative ruling party Fidesz, which prohibits telling young people about homosexuality. The ban primarily affects teaching in schools, but also limits the distribution of books.

The authorities demand that books dealing with rainbow families must be marked with “different” content. Last summer, Hungary imposed fines on a bookstore chain that sold the children’s picture book Micsoda család! discussed rainbow families. According to the authorities, the book lacked sufficient labeling of the contents.

There have been reports of new book bans in various parts of the United States recently. An organization that defends freedom of speech Pen America reviews (you’re moving to another service) in the spring, that the pace of banning books has accelerated significantly.

Amnesty Finland’s Executive Director Frank Johansson emphasizes that censorship is not always at government level. In the US, censorship works precisely in the regions. Schools and school boards, various groups remove books they deem inappropriate from reading lists all the time.

– They are related to gender and sexuality, racial discrimination, children’s morals. Pornography is indeed the biggest of all reasons for prohibition.

The dividing lines of society, such as the ideological confrontation between value conservatives and value liberals, are clearly visible.

Which books are banned from schools and libraries varies by state and even school district. For example, in January, the Tennessee school board banned the use of the Maus cartoon about the horrors of the Holocaust in teaching.

Finally, Amnesty Finland’s executive director Frank Johansson wants to raise one more example, a Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’on, who lived in exile in the United States for decades. The writer was allowed to criticize his government harshly in English, but when he switched to the Kikuyu language of ordinary people, he was arrested.

– The problem of freedom of speech is very multifaceted. There is always a reason for those in power.