bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Uruguay—Getting Rid of Critics
Authors: Torrents Nissa
Published: October 2007

Until the 1960s, Uruguay enjoyed a unique reputation in Latin America. In a continent renowned for its political instability, extremes of wealth and poverty and endemic violence, Uruguay was for many years an island of parliamentary democracy, with respect for civil liberties and human rights, advanced social welfare legislation and a high per capita income. In this atmosphere, intellectual and cultural life flourished, Uruguay was a haven for persecuted intellectuals from the rest of the continent, educational standards were high and the country boasted the lowest illiteracy rates in the continent. The weekly Marcha was widely regarded as the best of its kind in Latin America.

This picture began to change in the sixties. Economic stagnation, a rising rate of inflation and rapidly declining living standards led to intensified social conflict and political tensions. Uruguay's traditional liberal values were gradually undermined as the state became increasingly more authoritarian. Under the government of Pacheco Areco (1968–71), press censorship was introduced, emergency powers came into almost continuous use, and cases of police brutality against students and striking workers became more and more frequent. The emergence of an urban guerrilla organisation, the Tupamaros, in the late 1960s increased this climate of repression. The civil/military coup of 1973 was thus a culmination of a long process. That year saw the closing of parliament, the banning of political parties and trade unions and military intervention in the university. The persecution of the opposition, whether liberal, democratic, conservative or socialist, has since involved the imprisonment, torture and forced exile of vast numbers of intellectuals, a process which has been described as ‘cultural genocide’.

The following article briefly outlines what has taken place since the coup. It is accompanied by some short stories, written by Eduardo Galeano, who now lives in exile in Spain.
Introducing ‘Zapis’
Authors: Barańczak Stanislaw
Published: October 2007

In March this year a group of leading Polish writers launched a new literary venture to circumvent the censorship in their country which, though less oppressive than in most other East European states, still prevents them from freely expressing their ideas.

Seventeen novelists, poets and essayists contributed to Zapis, a collection of banned writings which is to be followed, at irregular intervals, by further volumes. Including such famous authors as Jerzy Andrzejewski, Kazimierz Brandys, and the late doyen of Polish letters, Antoni Slonimski, the group asked Index on Censorship to publish the book for them. Zapis I thus came out, in Polish, at the end of May and will in the near future also appear in German, French and English. A press conference was held in London on 26 May to announce this new development in the struggle of Polish writers to free themselves from the fetters of official censorship.

Below, we publish Stanislaw Baranczak's introductory article to Zapis I, in which he explains the reasons behind its compilation, as well as the various meanings of the title.
Censorship?
Authors: Hampshire Stuart , Blom-Cooper Louis
Published: October 2007

What is censorship? Who is qualified to act as a censor and what right has he to prevent his fellow-citizens from receiving information, reading certain books or seeing certain films? What is wrong with the Official Secrets Act, and what are the limits of justified government secrecy? On the other hand, has the public a right to be protected against' offensive' matter which might otherwise be thrust upon it; and if so, should it be the private citizen who has to take legal action, as opposed to official intervention? The problems of privacy and confidentiality … the rights of the citizen in a democratic society … what are the rights of citizens in Third World countries with grave problems of poverty, political instability, racial conflict, and corruption … These and similar questions on a highly controversial subject are dealt with here by two members of our Editorial Board. Asked by Index to discuss censorship and to put their often divergent views, Stuart Hampshire, philosopher, critic, and Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, and the distinguished lawyer, Louis Blom-Cooper, QC, well known for his involvement in civil rights cases and his interest in South Africa, met in the peaceful atmosphere of the College to record a discussion, of which this is an edited version which we hope will provide food for thought and argument.
Written off in Cuba
Authors: Cammack Paul
Published: October 2007

Persona Non Grata by Jorge Edwards Bodley Head £6.95
A new press law for Greece
Authors: McDonald Robert
Published: October 2007

It is three years now since democracy was restored in Greece and with it freedom of the press. The Karamanlis government has abolished the colonels restrictive press legislation and promised a comprehensive new law. But despite a draft having been ready for nearly two years the bill has still not been presented in Parliament. Robert McDonald who is preparing a study of the Greek press under the colonels and after for the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust has acquired a copy of the draft law and in this article presents a summary, together with the background to the delay in its presentation.
Spirit Which Refuses to Die
Authors: Sepamla Sipho
Published: October 2007

One of the most interesting of South African poets, Sipho Sepamla recently published his third collection of verse, The Soweto I Love (Rex Collings, London and David Philip, Cape Town). A teacher by training, he now works for an East Rand company; apart from poetry he also writes short stories and edits two literary magazines.

In an interview with the novelist Stephen Gray, broadcast last June by the African Service of the BBC, Sepamla discussed the problems of presentday Black writers in South Africa, showing why poets have now become the chief spokesmen for Black consciousness, represented in earlier years by writers of fiction.
Before the Carnage
Authors: Hope Christopher
Published: October 2007

Memoirs by Pablo Neruda, translated by Hardie St Martin Souvenir Press 370pp £6.50 (£3.95 paperback)
Staying in Touch
Authors: Jones William Treharne
Published: October 2007

Poems and Ballads by Wolf Biermann, translated by Steve Gooch Pluto Press 104pp £5 (£1.50 paperback)
My philosophers
Authors: Vaculík Ludvík
Published: October 2007

Karel Kosík, a young Marxist philosopher, played an important role in the intellectual ferment which led to the abortive attempt to liberalise the Czechoslovak political system in 1968. Since the invasion in August that year he has been prevented from working in his field and from publishing his work. June 1967 Kosík celebrated his 50th birthday. His friend, Ludvík Vaculík, marked the occasion by writing a feuilleton which was included in ‘Padlock Publications’, a typescript literary collection circulated among proscribed intellectuals.

Though no doubt unpopular with the authorities, Padlock has so far been tolerated by them, with the result that while people found copying these texts might get into trouble, the authors themselves have remained unscathed, though subject to frequent harassment, house searches and police interrogation. The arrest of the poet Jiři Gruša in June (see entry in Index/Index, p. 65) is an ominous sign that after five years of relatively untroubled existence, Padlock may be facing a more difficult future.
Red Pencil
Authors: Brumberg Abraham
Published: October 2007

A. Decade of Euphoria — Western Literature in Post-Stalin Russia, 1954–64 by Maurice Friedberg Indiana University Press
Solentiname—the End
Authors: Cardenal Ernesto
Published: October 2007

Ernesto Cardenal is Nicaragua's leading poet as well as being a priest committed to social change. Until October 1977 he lived on the island of Mancarron in the Solentiname archipelago in the Lake of Nicaragua, where he had organised a community among the local peasants. In that month he was accused by the authorities of instigating an uprising in neighbouring San Carlos, in which members of the Sandinista Liberation Front and government troops clashed. A warrant for Cardenal's arrest was issued in November 1977, and he went into exile in Costa Rica. The Nicaraguan National Guard meanwhile occupied the island, transforming the small local church into a prison. They destroyed all the handicraft workshops of the community as well as Cardenal's library and home. The members of the Solentiname community, like Cardenal himself, who used to be a pacifist, have now dedicated themselves to the revolutionary struggle in Nicaragua.
Second Time
Authors: Cortàzar Julio , Caistor Nick
Published: October 2007

One of Argentina's leading writers, Julio Cortàzar has lived in Paris since 1951. Both ‘Apocalypse at Solentiname’ (Index 1/1979) and the following story are banned in Argentina. This is their first publication in English.
Poet of Paradoxes Andrè Brink & Christopher Hope
Authors: Brink Andrè , Hope Christopher
Published: October 2007

In Africa Even the Flies Are Happy by Breyten Breytenbach, translated by Denis Hirson John Calder 148pp £4.95

and death white as words by Breyten Breytenbach, edited by A. J. Coetzee Rex Collings 180pp £5
Prison poems
Authors: Polari Alex
Published: October 2007

During the worst years of repression (1970–3) the number of political prisoners in Brazil reached an estimated 1,400. While this is not high in comparison with other countries of the Southern Cone, it must be remembered that many thousands more have passed through the hands of the security forces and been subjected to Brazil's sophisticated torture techniques. And 321 other people have ‘disappeared’. Right-wing death squads continue to act with impunity, kidnapping and killing suspected leftist sympathisers and blowing up the offices of ‘suspect organisations’.

Alex Polari's prison poems were published in Brazil in 1978 by the Comité Brasileiro Pela Anistia. They have also appeared in Sweden, France, Italy, and Portugal. This is their first publication in English.
Oh! How I miss the termite
Authors: Marcos Plínio
Published: October 2007

In April 1979 the Brazilian government announced it was lifting all censorship of the theatre. This reflects the new regime's more pragmatic approach to the question of censorship. After all, theatre is a rather special form, as José Leite Otati (a former head of the Public Entertainments Censorship Service in Rio de Janeiro) pointed out: Its audience is already restricted by entrance regulations about age groups, by levels of education, the travel factor, and the price, which puts theatre tickets out of the reach of many.

Nevertheless, for the past ten years theatre has been – relative to other cultural activities in Brazil – amongst the worst hit by censorship. This can partly be explained by developments in the period 1964–8. In those years there emerged a number of experimental theatre groups interested in socio/political themes and the problems of the country, unlike the highbrow productions of most professional companies of the time. Three of the most important groups were Oficina, established by José Celso Martinez Correia, which presented productions such as Gracias Señor in the northeast of Brazil (the poorest area of the country), Grupo Opinião, and Teatro Arena, founded by Augusto Boal and Guarnieri. Censorship during this period was fairly arbitrary; occasionally it was replaced by acts of violence. In 1968, for example, Roda Viva by Chico Buarque was attacked on its first night by the CCC (Comando de Caça aos Comunistas, ‘ Commando to Hunt Communists’), a right-wing terror squad.

After 1968, as theatre came increasingly to reflect political commitment and resistance, and as social protest grew, censorship became more systematic. Every play had to be submitted to the censor in Brasilia before it was staged, and a complete rehearsal had to take place in the presence of a censor of the town in which the play was being performed. After a private viewing before the censor, and the day before it was due to open, Calabar by Chico Buarque and Ruy Guerra was banned, causing considerable economic problems to the producers.

The experimental groups had difficulty surviving in the new repressive climate. Augusto Boal was imprisoned in 1971, then forced into exile; and Teatro Arena finally found it could no longer function.

Among the many censored playwrights, Plínio Marcos – still one of the best known in Brazil's theatre – is notorious for having 18 of his works suppressed without performance. However, those which were allowed a few performances before being banned were enormously successful. They include Navalha na carne (‘Knife on Flesh’) and Jornada de um imbecil ate o entendimento (‘ An Imbecile's Journey to Understanding’).

Having suffered censorship to this extent in the past, Plinío Marcos wrote the following short play to be read only. It was first published in Movimento in December 1978.
The Fifth Modernisation: Democracy
Authors: Jingsheng Wei
Published: October 2007

The following text is an extract from a long essay called ‘The Fifth Modernisation’, by Jin Sheng (real name Wei Jingsheng). The text was first made public in the form of wall-posters at Democracy Wall at the centre of Peking in December 1978. It was later published in Tansuo (‘Explorations’), an unofficial journal, in January 1979. The publisher and editor of Tansuo was Wei Jingsheng himself.
Heroes Old and New
Authors: Škvorecký Josef
Published: October 2007

In the more ‘liberal’ sixties, Josef Škvorecký; became one of Czechoslovakia's top novelists and short story writers, having made his name with his first novel, The Cowards, which was banned shortly after publication in 1956. Now a leading emigrè publisher in Canada, he reflects here on the quality of some of the officially sanctioned prose that gets published in Prague while the works of Milan Kundera, Vàclav Havel, Ludvìk Vaculìk, Škvorecký; himself, and indeed most of the country's finest authors, are banned.
The Questionnaire
Authors: Gruša Jiři , Theiner George
Published: October 2007

The novel from which this extract is taken appeared as Padlock Publication no. 64. Last year, its author was arrested, held for three months, and then released, pending trial. Two ‘literary experts’ were asked to give their opinion on the novel's qualities (see p37). The first-person narrative is in the form of an extended questionnaire which the author is submitting to the Personnel Manager, Mr Pavlenda, to whom he repeatedly addresses explanatory remarks. Olin is the hero's cousin, a former RAF pilot who spent years as a political prisoner in the uranium mines of West Bohemia.
Controversy: Why Go to Jail?
Authors: Vaculìk Ludvìk , Havel Vàclav , Havel Vàclav
Published: October 2007

How are ordinary, decent people to react to the imposition of a repressive regime, how much should they risk in showing their opposition to it? These questions were raised by Ludvìk Vaculìk in a feuilleton he wrote last December, which brought an indignant reply from Vàclav Havel, as well as a dozen other dissidents. The controversy has now been given a poignant twist by the arrest of Vàvel, together with nine other Chartists. Earlier, he had for several months been under virtual house arrest (see p41).
Now Listen Socrates
Authors: Hutka Jaroslav , Theiner George
Published: October 2007

One of the most popular Czech folk singers, Jaroslav Hutka became increasingly unpopular with the regime for protest songs such as the one printed below. In October 1978 he emigrated to Holland.
Worldly News
Authors: Texier Jean-C.
Published: October 2007

Le Monde de Beuve-Mèry by Jean-Noel Jeanneney and Jacques Julliard Editions du Seuil Paris 380pp

Le Monde, un journal dans l'histoire by Jacques Thibau Jean-Claude Simoen Paris 470pp
Hungary (2): Samizdat sackings
Authors: Rab Balazs
Published: October 2007

Hungarians have a marvellous talent for turning serious matters into operetta. (Count Michael Karolyi, Faith without Illusions, Budapest, 1976.)
The Making of a Rebel
Authors: Thiong'o Ngugi wa
Published: October 2007

The internationally-known Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o was detained without trial for a year in 1977–8, after he wrote for his local community centre a Gikuyu-language play which, like his much acclaimed English-language novels, was critical of Kenyan politics and society ( see Index on Censorship 3/1978, pp. 7–10). The writer, who at the time of his arrest was chairman of the Literature Department at the University of Nairobi, has still not been reinstated in his teaching post. This account of Ngugi's education and the development of his ideas on literature was extracted from an interview with him made shortly after his release. The interviewer was Amooti wa Irumba.
The Prisoner
Authors: Dogbé Yves-Emmanuel
Published: October 2007

Yves-Emmanuel Dogbé was imprisoned without trial for five months at the Camp de la Gendarmerie in Lomé, Togo, after he wrote a paper on education to be delivered at the 1977 Festival of African Arts and Culture ( FESTAC). He was released from prison in an amnesty of November 1977. L'Incarcéré ( ‘The Prisoner’), from which we publish an extract here, is a novel based on the author's personal experience. Other chapters in the book describe the appalling conditions in the prison where he was held, and the fate of long-term prisoners. Nothing significant in the procedures and conditions Dogbé describes has since changed. L'Incarcéré will be published in Paris by Editions Akpagnon. We also publish a short introduction in which A. Mactar Gueye describes the author's career.
Sculptor in Prison
Authors: Ntuli Pitika
Published: October 2007

Pitika Ntuli is a 38-year-old South African artist, sculptor and poet who has been living and working in London since his release from the maximum security death cells of the Matsapa Central Prison in Swaziland ( see Brief Report, Index on Censorship 1/1979). Ntuli, who had been living in exile in Swaziland from 1963 up to the time of his arrest on 7 April 1978, was formerly artistic chairman of the Pan-Africanist Congress of South Africa, in Nigeria. In Swaziland, he established an art workshop for musicians, poets and visual artists. His work has been exhibited at several galleries and cultural centres in New York and was shown at FESTAC in Nigeria. Last October he participated in Amnesty International's first sculpture exhibition, ‘The Freedom of the Spirit’. Two manuscripts of a novel and poems which Pitika Ntuli wrote in prison, have been confiscated by the Swazi prison authorities.

In this interview with Ahmed Rajab he talks about his imprisonment, his work, and the predicament of artists in repressive societies.
Goulash Archipelago
Authors: Frankland Mark
Published: October 2007

Le Tremblement des Hommes by Paul Goma Editions du Seuil Paris 332pp

Le Rétablissement de l'Ordre by Milan Šimečka François Maspero Paris 216pp

Opposition = 0.1% ed. by Miklós Haraszti Editions du Seuil Paris 176pp

Etre Communiste en Allemagne de l'Est by Robert Havemann Frangois Maspero Paris 168pp

Communism and East Europe ed. by František and Larisa Silnitsky and Karl Reyman Harvester Press 242pp

The Kremlin's Dilemma by Tufton Beamish and Guy Hadley Collins and Harvill 286pp £5.95
Go and tell the Sultan
Authors: Hardy Roger
Published: October 2007

More conscious of their language than any people in the world, seeing it not only as the greatest of their arts but also as their common good, most Arabs, if asked to define what they meant by ‘the Arab nation’, would begin by saying that it included all those who spoke the Arabic language. (A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Oxford University Press, 1962)
Algeria's Berber problem
Authors: Joffé George
Published: October 2007

There was widespread unrest in the Kabylia earlier this year following the Algerian government's decision, re-iterated most recently during the FLN Congress on 15 to 19 June, to introduce modern literary Arabic as the official national language. Moves have been made to reduce tension: the universities have reopened and clashes between Arab and Berber-speaking student groups have ceased. Those arrested during the April disturbances have now been released provisionally from prison until they appear before the State Security Court. The arrested musicians appear to have been released without any charges being made against them. Yet these gestures do not alter the basic confrontation between indigeneous Algerian culture and the Middle East mainstream that threatens to engulf it.
To kill a man's pride
Authors: Matshoba Mtutuzeli
Published: October 2007

This excerpt from To Kill a Man's Pride was published in the February 1980 issue of the South African literary magazine Staffrider. The publishers of Staffrider, Ravan Press, announced at that time that the full text would appear in Forced Landing, a new collection of contemporary black South African writings edited by Mothobi Mutloatse. The next issue of Staffrider ( June 1980) carried a notice that Forced Landing had been banned. All three titles in the Ravan Press ‘Staffrider Series’ of contemporary South African writings have now been banned. The other two titles ( banned in 1979) are Africa My Beginning by Ingoapele Madingoane ( reviewed in Index on Censorship 5/1980, pp 74–6) and Call Me Not a Man, a collection of stories by Mtutuzeli Matshoba ( see Index on Censorship 6/1980, pp 8–12). Forced Landing will be published in Britain by Heinemann Educational Books under the title Africa South: Contemporary Writings.
USA vs foreign intellectuals
Authors: Cortázar Julio , Covián Marcelo
Published: October 2007

Early in 1981 a report is expected from the government-appointed Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy. Even if the commission recommends changes in the present US laws, it is not known whether Congress and the Executive will press to enact them. In the meantime further evidence has come to Index on Censorship about the effect of the law on the admission of foreign intellectuals to the United States, including statements by publishers, writers and professors about their experiences ( for further information see also Index on Censorship 5/1980, pp6–11). This evidence formed part of a brief arguing for repeal of Section 212( a) (28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( the McCarran-Walter Act) prepared by Tom Bernstein for submission to the Select Commission on behalf of nine US organisations concerned with defending freedom of expression. They are the Fund for Free Expression, the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights, PEN American Center, the International Freedom to Publish Committee of the Association of American Publishers, the American Association of University Professors, the Helsinki Watch, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, and the American Library Association. We thank Mr Bernstein and the organisations he represents for making this material available to us.
On the funny side
Authors: Mikes George
Published: October 2007

Wit as a weapon, The political joke in history by Egon Larsen Frederick Muller £4.95
Whose news?
Authors: Karkouti Mustapha
Published: October 2007

The Arab Press by William A. Rugh Croom Helm (London) 205 pp £11.50
Sweet and sour milk (extract)
Authors: Farah Nuruddin
Published: October 2007

Like two tyres of a bicycle that never touch, never come together, to tell each other of a wish to retire from serving an ungrateful master – each remains isolated within its own limits of space, a system, a code of behaviour that perpetuates and makes possible the serving; each is, for a purpose, locked, tied, screwed to a bar which runs between, which makes possible the moving, gives the article an existence, offers the metallic composition a name – and a label at that.
Dirty tricks on the underground press
Authors: Rips Geoffrey
Published: October 2007

What was known in the United States as the ‘underground press’ – self-published newspapers of the youth counterculture sold at street corners and around campuses in American cities during the 1960s and early 70 s – was once a significant network estimated at over 400 publications. Their hallmark was opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War, criticism of the authorities, of uncontrolled technology and big business, advocacy of sexual freedom and artistic experimentation and, frequently, the advocacy of marijuana, LSD and other psychedelic drugs.

Few of these publications have survived the past ten years, and their disappearance has been variously attributed to the cooling of radical interest after the American withdrawal from Vietnam, as well as to the vague and shifting nature of the ‘hippie’ scene. Complaints by their publishers during the early and mid-seventies that printers refused their business, that office rents suddenly doubled, that advertising was cancelled, that papers were lost – these were seen as local accidents and were rarely reported by the established media. Claims of official or officially-sanctioned harassment were dismissed – even by fellow radicals – as paranoid.

Recent research by Geoffrey Rips of the PEN American Center has revealed the extent and variety of official pressure exerted against alternative publications during the Vietnam War period. Using evidence from government hearings like the Church Committee, which reported in 1976, actual FBI documents released to American PEN under the Freedom of Information Act, and other sources, Mr Rips argues that such harassment contributed materially to the closure of certain publications and in general terms constituted a gross infringement on the protection afforded to dissenting opinion and to a free press under the US constitution.

We publish edited extracts here from Geoffrey Rips' report which will be published in full by the PEN American Center and the City Lights Press.
Out of fear and ignorance
Authors: Phelps Guy
Published: October 2007

For each film banned, a thousand more are silently lost because they offer no profit
Down the drain: Anatoly Kuznetsov's struggle with the Soviet censors
Authors: Vronskaya Jeanne
Published: October 2007

The story of 2 films that were shelved; and a list of 51 suppressed films
Songs and villains: An irrational and erratic censorship
Authors: S Guptara Prabhu
Published: October 2007

Unacceptable philosophies are stifled by social rather than official pressures
Generals, civilians and cinema: The long Travail of serious films
Authors: Thevenet Homero Alsina
Published: October 2007

In the ‘disunited states of the south’ social commitment is a prelude to exile
Only authorised films are works of art: Idiocies of the censor noted by the press
Authors: Prensa La
Published: October 2007

Some of the idiocies of the censor noted by the Argentinian press
Cameras are dangerous: Bolivian cinema returns to exile
Authors: Gumucio Dagron Alfonso
Published: October 2007

Filmwork stopped after the coup of July 1980 — except in exile or in secret
Why my film was banned: Squatter camp documentary found ‘undesirable’
Authors: Wilson Lindy
Published: October 2007

Extracts from the official report pronouncing Crossroads ‘undesirable’
The theocrats take over: Education has been reduced to an instrument of the Islamic Revolutionary Council
Authors: Bahar Jalil
Published: October 2007

Soon after its beginning Islam gave birth to a cultural tradition of intellectual analysis and curiosity unrivalled among contemporary cultures. By this tradition, scholars adhering to other faiths were held in high esteem and given refuge and hospitality in Islamic societies. Consequently, an atmosphere of tolerance and freedom prevailed in most Islamic countries, including Iran, where education was free from domination by theologians. But towards the end of the 16th Century AD the clergy began to extend their control over academic life; and by the middle of the 19th Century the country's educational institutions, like the judiciary, had been turned into a realm of the clergy.
Freedom and the Artist 1930-1981
Authors: Spender Stephen
Published: October 2007

A brief history of my attitude to the freedom of the individual
A kind of despair
Authors: Miller Arthur
Published: October 2007

A kind of Despair
My Ten Uncensorable Years
Authors: Barańczak Stanislaw
Published: October 2007

Or how liver-sausage lost its political implications
Vasily Grossman's ‘Life and Fate’
Authors: Chandler Robert
Published: October 2007

‘Arrested’ twenty years ago, an epic Russian novel is smuggled to the West
Interview with Jorge Amado
Authors: Coad Malcolm
Published: October 2007

Novelist Jorge Amado finds hope in the experience of Brazilian artists under dictatorship
Turkey's battered democracy
Authors: Ersan Tosum
Published: October 2007

In the post-war period, Turkey has fluctuated between unstable but democratic civilian rule, and repressive military regimes. The combination of circumstances which brought to power the present regime in September 1980, however, indicates a significant change in the chances of a return to democracy in Turkey. Changes now taking place seem to indicate that rights previously enjoyed by the Turks are disappearing in such a way that it is unlikely that they can easily be regained, even under a return to civilian rule.
Ancestral voices of Iran
Authors: Hyman Anthony
Published: October 2007

In Iran today, when confusion, disillusionment, disorders and near-civil war have succeeded the euphoria of the revolution, there is a clear trend towards extreme attitudes and fanaticism — in morals as well as in politics. It is not only brothels, bars and ostentatious restaurants which have been closed down, but also many swimming pools. Mixed bathing, on the shores of the Caspian as well as in the hotel pools in the cities, is now considered shocking, and roving bands of licensed zealots enforce the new puritan morality wherever they can. Many Iranians find this extremism repugnant, and criticise the dominant Islamic Republican Party's rule as being neither truly Islamic, nor even essentially Iranian in character.
Culture, detention and exile
Authors: Musto Jorge
Published: October 2007

Among the exodus of Uruguayan artists and intellectuals described by Hortensia Campanella (p 29) is Jorge Musto. whose short story ‘Pale Browns and Yellows’ we published in Index on Censorship 2/1981. As actor, theatre director and journalist, Jorge Musto was associated with the two best-known standard bearers of the rich cultural movement which blossomed in Uruguay before the 1973 military coup: the El Galpón theatre company (Index on Censorship 2/1977 and 2/1979) and the weekly magazine Marcha (4/1974 and 2/1979). He has published several novels and short stories, and now works as a translator in Paris, having fallen victim in 1972 to the repression which paved the way for the final military takeover. It was in Paris that the following interview was carried out in February 1981 by Index on Censorship's Latin America researcher. Our apologies for having held it over for so long, for reasons entirely of space. The interview is translated from Spanish.
Antonio Larreta in exile
Authors: Campanella Hortensia
Published: October 2007

The destructive effect of dictatorships on culture extends beyond what is apparent at first sight. The immediate consequence of persecution, censorship, and prohibitions is cultural impoverishment and a break in the natural communication between a people and its interpreters. For those writers and artists who are expelled — and they are frequently the country's best — exile creates, even if only for a short period, a gap in production as a result of being cut off from the environment which has hitherto nourished their work. At best all such people will need is a spiritual adjustment to their new surroundings; at worst material difficulties or emotional stress will cause the suspension of the creative work begun in their native country.
Volavérunt
Authors: Larreta Antonio , Coad Malcolm
Published: October 2007

‘Impossible not to think of Russian dolls,’ writes Antonio Larreta in the prologue to this novel The book juxtaposes different kinds of testimony to cast varying lights on historical events. The novel turns on the death in July 1802 of Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Alvarez de Toledo, the 13th Duchess of Alba and the subject of several paintings by Francisco Goya, notably the famous pair of pictures, La Maja Vestida ('La Maja clothed) and La Maja Desnuda (‘La Maja nude’), the second of which caused a major scandal in Spanish society when it was exhibited The novel is constructed around two apocryphal testimonies regarding her death, one supposedly by Goya himself, and the other by Don Manuel Godoy, Duke of Alcudia, a friend but political enemy of the Duchess. The first of these is recounted by Godoy as part of his own statement written in 1848. Both testimonies, plus a police report about the death and a letter sent to Godoy by another participant in the events, are purportedly found by the author in 1980 among papers in a house in Paris belonging to his Uruguayan mother's third husband, Lorenzo de Pita y Evora, Marquess of Peñadolida. There are notes added throughout the text written notionally by Pita y Evora in 1939 and by Larreta himself.

The issue throughout is whether the Duchess died naturally, was poisoned or committed suicide. The novel is concerned with the corruption of a luxurious and decadent aristocratic culture, preoccupied with political intrigue and artistic show. The figure of the Duchess, a brilliant schemer, hostess and cocaine addict, is central to this world; her death throws it into crisis, setting up reverberations which echo down the ensuing 150 years. The extract of Volavérunt which follows is from Goya's description of the soiree after which the Duchess is found dying. The paragraph in parentheses is comment by Godoy, and the notes are by Larreta drawing from Pita y Evora (notionally, of course). Goya, it should be pointed out, was substantially deaf by the time of the events he describes.
Jose Luandino Vieira
Authors: Wolfers Michael
Published: October 2007

Luandino Vieira, a master of modem prose fiction in the Portuguese-speaking world, embodies the non-racial character of Angola's African culture. Born in Portugal in 1935, and named Jose Vieira Mateus da Graça, he was taken by his father, a shoemaker, and his mother to Angola as an infant; he adopted the name Luandino from Luanda, the capital, where he grew up with poor whites, mestiços (people of mixed race) and blacks. This early experience made him a passionate opponent of racialism and colonialism, and provided most of the material he has poured into his stories and novels. In his twenties he clashed with the Portuguese colonial authorities who tried to suppress his work, but in the prison cells and camp he continued to write. When his work could not be published openly it was circulated clandestinely, and after the overthrow of fascism in Portugal in 1974 the writings of years of imprisonment could be brought without hindrance to an eager audience.
Obituary/Letters
Authors: Crankshaw Edward
Published: October 2007

Lord Boyle of Handsworth, who died in October far too young (he was fifty-eight), was one of the original patrons of WSET: his name was a guarantee of the integrity and seriousness of any cause to which he lent it. His death will be felt by many such causes and over a remarkably wide field of endeavour. A large, untidy figure with a warm heart, a formidable mind, and pockets crammed with papers dealing with a multitude of interests, he could hold his own with specialists on most subjects under the sun and in some matters — for example, important areas of musical scholarship and the performances of cricketers past and present — could confound them.
Finland: How much self-censorship remains?: Freedom of expression is limited, but not very much so
Authors: Fields Donald
Published: October 2007

Though remarkably free in many respects, Finland still exercises a considerable degree of self-censorship, especially in broadcasting
Self-censorship threatens US press freedom: Fear of costly legal actions is inhibiting the media
Authors: Picard Robert G.
Published: October 2007

‘American publishers and broadcasters are increasingly exercising self-censorship to avoid costly litigation’ says the editor of Freedom of Information Digest, giving a pessimistic assessment of the situation

Despite a strong tradition of press freedom and (especially since Watergate) increasingly aggressive investigative journalism in the USA, the country's libel laws can inhibit journalists and lead to self-censorship. The authors of the two articles that follow examine the effect of libel legislation on the US press — one from a journalist's, the other a lawyer's point of view.
Education and the Generals: A step by step account of the destruction of academic freedom
Authors: Faraone Roque
Published: October 2007

The destruction of Uruguay's educational system since the coup of 1973 which changed this once enlightened Latin American state into ‘one of the most repressive countries in the region’
The Horses: Extract from a play by one of Uruguay's most brilliant writers who has been detained since 1972
Authors: Rosencof Mauricio
Published: October 2007

Extract from the best-known work of a writer who has been detained without trial since 1972
New Turkish education law
Authors: Hale William
Published: October 2007

The Higher Education Law introduced at the end of last year severely restricts university autonomy and strengthens state control
Chinese chorus
Authors: Tan Lek Hor
Published: October 2007

Chinese chorus Lek Hor Tan reviews Jonathan D. Spence's new book on the Chinese revolution 1895-1980
Looking for colour
Authors: Aksyonov Vasily
Published: October 2007

Two exiled writers here give highly individual views of censorship in their respective countries: Vasily Aksyonov, son of the writer Eugenia Ginzburg, got into trouble through his participation in Metropol, a collection of censored work by young Soviet authors, which was refused publication in 1980; he now resides in the USA. Jiri Grusa, one of the best-known dissident writers in Czechoslovakia, was briefly imprisoned in 1978 after his novel The Questionnaire was published in the West. He left his country two years ago and now lives in West Germany. Both texts were presented at the 1981 Toronto conference on ‘The Writer and Human Rights’ and will appear in a book to be published by Lester & Orpen Dennys in Canada.
The price of being a writer
Authors: Sepamla Sipho
Published: October 2007

Sipho Sepamla was in a subdued state of mind. Before coming to the USA he had received news that his novel, A Ride on the Whirlwind, had been sucked into the great ‘black hole’ of South African censorship. The book was published in June; in September it was banned. Sepamla had not even been informed officially. His novel simply ceased to exist. His publishers had ‘just picked up the news in the papers’.
Poland's lesson in freedom
Authors: Michnik Adam
Published: October 2007

It was not preceded by a declaration of war. In the course of that December night functionaries of so-called Security rammed at the doors of our houses, broke them down and, distributing blows left and right, blinding us with tear gas, handcuffed us and took us into prisons as internees. We were the first prisoners of war — a war of the Communist establishment against its own people. That night was the first victorious battle of the General who, following in a rather curious way the directive of the Ninth Congress of the Communist Party forbidding anybody to hold more than one post, was at the same time Minister of Defence, Prime Minister, First Secretary of the Party, and now in addition had made himself Chairman of the CROW (WRON, the acronym of the Military Council of National Salvation, in Polish happens to mean ‘a crow’). And so his name is now for ever associated with that ugly and stupid bird, the caricature of the national emblem, the eagle.
Some things you don't talk about on Israeli TV
Authors: Fried Rivka
Published: October 2007

Last autumn three plays dealing with the problems and occasional brutalities of life in the Israeli army were staged in Israeli theatres. One depicted soldiers on occupation duty in the Gaza Strip attacking an Arab with sticks and harassing a young girl; in another a Palestinian terrorist is taunted at knife-point while soldiers debate his fate during an army raid into Lebanon. The third is set in the War of Attrition with Egypt.
Education under occupation
Authors: Pallis Elfi
Published: October 2007

While Arab higher education in the Jordan appears to be expanding, Palestinians studying in the West Bank are facing problems grave enough to put their entire educational future in jeopardy. The West Bank, conquered by Israel in the 1967 war and today inhabited by 850,000 Palestinians and about 20,000 Israeli settlers, has four academic institutions: Najah University in Nablus, Bir Zeit University near Ramallah, the Polytechnic of Hebron and the College des Frères in Bethlehem. The first two derive their university status from their membership of the Association of Arab Universities and are financed by donations from the Arab world; Hebron provides an intermediate curriculum tailored to local requirements and paid for by student fees; and Bethlehem, which has applied to join the AAU, is financed by the Catholic community in the United States.
Morocco at the crossroads
Authors: Henderson George
Published: October 2007

Morocco's fragile experiment in democracy has been passing through a very rough patch over the past year. Its leaders have had to steer a tortuous path between the Charybdis of royal absolutism and the Scylla of popular frustration with harsh living conditions and the consequences of the worst drought this century. In June 1981 widespread anger at sudden increases in the price of food staples exploded in violent riots which swept through the economic capital, Casablanca, and which were accompanied by demonstrations in many other cities. This, together with King Hassan's distaste for argumentative politicians, led to extensive arrests amongst the major left-wing political party, the Union socialiste des forces populates (USFP) and the trade union linked to it, the Confederation démocratique de travail (CDT). Long prison sentences followed, and it seemed as if Moroccan democracy was about to slowly suffocate under the weight of bureaucratic repression.
Islamic fundamentalists suppressed
Authors: Joffé George
Published: October 2007

Most Tunisians like to claim that they live in the most politically mature state in North Africa. It is, after all, a country noted for its moderate and modernising policies in foreign and domestic affairs, and has enjoyed a continuity of leadership under President Bourguiba ever since the colonial period ended in 1956. The Tunisian press has benefited from a tradition of tolerance and can voice various political currents. There are, of course, limits to what is discussed. To a third world country such as Tunisia, with manifold developmental problems to face, national unity, the government feels, must come first. It follows that unity must never be threatened by excessive freedom of expression and journalists and writers must be aware of this necessary limitation and respect it for the national good. Until recently there has been only one authorised political party, the Destourian Socialist Party (DSP), successor to the nationalist movement of the colonial era, the neo-Destour. The DSP has prided itself on being a focus of political discussion and consensus, thus obviating the need for political plurality while tolerating a variety of views. But last November Tunisia held elections in which, for the first time, political pluralism was permitted and several different political groupings put up candidates.
East German writers and the state
Authors: Sax Boria
Published: October 2007

Lutz Rathenow has the dubious distinction of being the first East German writer to have been arrested for the crime of publishing a book abroad. His brief imprisonment in December 1980, under the laws enacted that same year, was based on his publishing a group of stories, Mit dem Schlimmsten wurde schon gerechnet (‘Prepared for the Worst’) with the West German publishing house Ullstein Verlag. The case established a potentially important precedent for the use of the 1980 laws on relations with foreigners, and more generally showed the lengths to which the government would go to harass a single, somewhat troublesome, citizen. In recent years, East European regimes have tended to replace exile and long-term imprisonment with subtler forms of punishment that are more difficult to document or protest against. Dissidents are likely to be imprisoned repeatedly for brief periods, deprived of work, interrogated and followed by government agents. The intent is to gradually wear down resistance by creating a feeling of insecurity, while at the same time avoiding direct confrontations. Although life is made difficult for him, an individual is, so far as possible, deprived of the opportunity to make symbolically meaningful gestures of protest.
West Germany's way with ‘enemies of the state’
Authors: Johnson Peter
Published: October 2007

West Germany's controversial methods for dealing with those civil servants who are considered subversive have again been making headlines. In a test case the Federal Administrative Court has effectively extended the law by ruling that civil servants should be dismissed if they have been active — beyond mere membership — in a political party deemed subversive by the Federal Constitutional Court, the country's highest court.
His master's voice: Radio and TV in Africa
Authors: Bredin Andrew
Published: October 2007

Broadcasting is mostly subservient to the interests of the ruling elites
How broadcasting operates in the ASEAN countries: Development, cooperation and control
Authors: Lent John A.
Published: October 2007

Radio and television in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines
How free is British broadcasting?
Authors: Garnham Nicholas
Published: October 2007

‘If broadcasting were to become truly independent it would require its own source of political legitimacy in the form of a truly democratic structure of accountability’
Writers and newsmen
Authors: Benedictus David
Published: October 2007

A look at two books which present ‘an indictment of a television system generally regarded as the best in the world’
Grenada: no room for dissent?: State control of the media is essential to the national interest
Authors: Taylor Jeremy
Published: October 2007

An account of the Grenada People's Revolutionary Government's increasing control of the media
Saeed Soltanpour: On this shore of fear
Authors: Costantini Humberto
Published: October 2007

Saeed Soltampour, an Iranian poet and playwright, was executed on 26 July 1981 by the authorities of the Islamic Republic. He was imprisoned many times under the Shah's regime mostly for his writings. His books of poems included Ketab-e Avazha-ye Band (‘Book of Ballads from Jail’). A founding member of Iran's Theatre Society in 1968, his plays were often banned. His last play was called Koshtargah (‘Slaughter House’). He was elected to the Executive Committee of the Writers Association of Iran in 1980. After his arrest in July 1981. the Soltanpour Committee was set up in Paris to campaign for his release.

The following is one of the poems he recited in front of a huge crowd during a public event called ‘Ten Nights of Poetry’ in November 1977 held at the Goethe Institute and organised by the Writers Association of Iran.