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Friday, December 23, 2011
08:44 Beirut
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Lebanon is losing the war on cultural freedom
Angie Nassar, December 20, 2011 share
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t is disconcerting, to say the least, when an official representing the head of General Security attends a conference about cultural freedom in Lebanon, but declines to join its panel of experts to debate, among other things, the country’s dramatic rise in censorship, an issue regulated by his own agency.
Lieutenant Colonel Elias Abou Rjaili instead chose to sit among the audience at the second-annual SKeyes Center (Samir Kassir Eyes) conference in Beirut last Friday. He brought with him one condition: that any questions posed to General Security had to be submitted to the department, in writing, prior to the beginning of the event. None of the attendees met this requirement.
The desire to spare hurt feelings is symptomatic of a culture plagued by hyper-sensitivity and intimidation. Individuals in positions of power will curb unwanted speech under the guise of religious sensibilities, socially acceptable behavior and systems of belief, and the effect has proven devastating: Lebanon is losing the war on cultural freedom. A wave of restrictions on unfettered speech and creative expression has swept the country with dramatic persistence this past year.
Radio stations were reportedly banned from airing American pop star Lady Gaga’s single, “Judas,” in April. Lebanese director Degaulle Eid’s “Chou Sar” (What Happened) and the Iranian film “Green Days” were both prevented from screening at the Forbidden Film Festival in June. Both movies had also been banned from showing at the Beirut International Film Festival (BIFF) in 2010. The Austrian film “Michael” was not allowed to show at this year’s BIFF, according to festival officials. And censors did not outright ban, but deleted an entire scene from the film, “Rue Huvelin,” in November.
Most recently, Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s feature film, Beirut Hotel, was banned by authorities amid concerns its “depiction of the political situation would endanger Lebanon’s security.” The movie contained scenes addressing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
“The concept of pre-censorship is an outdated concept that we need to get rid of,” SKeyes Executive Director Ayman Mhanna told NOW Lebanon.
Exercised in secret and applied without adequate legal justification, the state’s criterion for censorship reeks with subjectivity, political bias and favoritism, according to the results of an upcoming study by human rights lawyer Nizar Saghieh.
Legally, for instance, General Security does not have the exclusive authority to exercise censorship on any film planned for public screening. According to a law passed in 1947, the security apparatus only has the initial authority to assess whether a film’s content should be considered for censorship. When the department finds cause to suspect a film’s content, it is supposed to be transferred to a special administrative committee consisting of various representatives from different state ministries. Only through a majority vote can the members of this committee decide whether a film should be edited or banned in its entirety. Furthermore, the final decision can only be issued by the Interior Ministry based on the recommendations of the special committee.
As a matter of routine, General Security will send creative works it thinks might upset religious sensibilities to their respective governing bodies (usually the Catholic Information Center or the Dar al-Fatwa, which is Lebanon’s highest Sunni Muslim authority). According to Saghieh’s study, General Security will also take the opinions of leading figures from various political parties into consideration.
“These policies have reached the point that it seems General Security’s primary role and first responsibility is to tend to the needs of influential institutions, authorities and figureheads,” Saghieh writes.
“The people in charge of censorship are not the people who are supposed to even deal with arts and culture,” Mhanna said, adding that “it needs to move out of their hands, once and for all.”
Back at the SKeyes conference on Cultural Freedom, Father Abdo Abou Kasm, president of the Catholic Media Center, expressed a position arguably more dangerous than state censorship. He asserted that young people should learn how to practice self-censorship. “We need to raise our children to know how to safely use the Internet, books and television so that children will learn for themselves what to censor.”
Cultural expression is democratic by virtue. It is the channeling of desire as one sees fit. It is a space for imagination and emotional fervor; a site for social comment and criticism. But it is not a gift, neither in Lebanon or the region, it is part of a collective struggle that must be conceived, created and defended by the people.
The revolutions that swept the Arab World this year were an incredible exercise in the power to openly stigmatize and call into question the official reality of the ruling elite; to shed the fear and humiliation that had at one time forced them into silence, and regain the dignity of “voice” and resistance to ideological domination.
“Given the political change that’s happened in the [Arab] region, we don’t think there can be a complete shift toward democracy if art and culture are still suppressed,” Mhanna said.
To read more: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=344274#ixzz1hL0Dtb2E
Only 25% of a given NOW Lebanon article can be republished. For information on republishing rights from NOW Lebanon: http://www.nowlebanon.com/Sub.aspx?ID=125478
show all
Friday, December 23, 2011
08:44 Beirut
Subscribe to NOW Lebanon RSS feeds
NOW Extra
Lebanon is losing the war on cultural freedom
Angie Nassar, December 20, 2011 share
Read more by this author
Save as PDF
t is disconcerting, to say the least, when an official representing the head of General Security attends a conference about cultural freedom in Lebanon, but declines to join its panel of experts to debate, among other things, the country’s dramatic rise in censorship, an issue regulated by his own agency.
Lieutenant Colonel Elias Abou Rjaili instead chose to sit among the audience at the second-annual SKeyes Center (Samir Kassir Eyes) conference in Beirut last Friday. He brought with him one condition: that any questions posed to General Security had to be submitted to the department, in writing, prior to the beginning of the event. None of the attendees met this requirement.
The desire to spare hurt feelings is symptomatic of a culture plagued by hyper-sensitivity and intimidation. Individuals in positions of power will curb unwanted speech under the guise of religious sensibilities, socially acceptable behavior and systems of belief, and the effect has proven devastating: Lebanon is losing the war on cultural freedom. A wave of restrictions on unfettered speech and creative expression has swept the country with dramatic persistence this past year.
Radio stations were reportedly banned from airing American pop star Lady Gaga’s single, “Judas,” in April. Lebanese director Degaulle Eid’s “Chou Sar” (What Happened) and the Iranian film “Green Days” were both prevented from screening at the Forbidden Film Festival in June. Both movies had also been banned from showing at the Beirut International Film Festival (BIFF) in 2010. The Austrian film “Michael” was not allowed to show at this year’s BIFF, according to festival officials. And censors did not outright ban, but deleted an entire scene from the film, “Rue Huvelin,” in November.
Most recently, Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s feature film, Beirut Hotel, was banned by authorities amid concerns its “depiction of the political situation would endanger Lebanon’s security.” The movie contained scenes addressing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
“The concept of pre-censorship is an outdated concept that we need to get rid of,” SKeyes Executive Director Ayman Mhanna told NOW Lebanon.
Exercised in secret and applied without adequate legal justification, the state’s criterion for censorship reeks with subjectivity, political bias and favoritism, according to the results of an upcoming study by human rights lawyer Nizar Saghieh.
Legally, for instance, General Security does not have the exclusive authority to exercise censorship on any film planned for public screening. According to a law passed in 1947, the security apparatus only has the initial authority to assess whether a film’s content should be considered for censorship. When the department finds cause to suspect a film’s content, it is supposed to be transferred to a special administrative committee consisting of various representatives from different state ministries. Only through a majority vote can the members of this committee decide whether a film should be edited or banned in its entirety. Furthermore, the final decision can only be issued by the Interior Ministry based on the recommendations of the special committee.
As a matter of routine, General Security will send creative works it thinks might upset religious sensibilities to their respective governing bodies (usually the Catholic Information Center or the Dar al-Fatwa, which is Lebanon’s highest Sunni Muslim authority). According to Saghieh’s study, General Security will also take the opinions of leading figures from various political parties into consideration.
“These policies have reached the point that it seems General Security’s primary role and first responsibility is to tend to the needs of influential institutions, authorities and figureheads,” Saghieh writes.
“The people in charge of censorship are not the people who are supposed to even deal with arts and culture,” Mhanna said, adding that “it needs to move out of their hands, once and for all.”
Back at the SKeyes conference on Cultural Freedom, Father Abdo Abou Kasm, president of the Catholic Media Center, expressed a position arguably more dangerous than state censorship. He asserted that young people should learn how to practice self-censorship. “We need to raise our children to know how to safely use the Internet, books and television so that children will learn for themselves what to censor.”
Cultural expression is democratic by virtue. It is the channeling of desire as one sees fit. It is a space for imagination and emotional fervor; a site for social comment and criticism. But it is not a gift, neither in Lebanon or the region, it is part of a collective struggle that must be conceived, created and defended by the people.
The revolutions that swept the Arab World this year were an incredible exercise in the power to openly stigmatize and call into question the official reality of the ruling elite; to shed the fear and humiliation that had at one time forced them into silence, and regain the dignity of “voice” and resistance to ideological domination.
“Given the political change that’s happened in the [Arab] region, we don’t think there can be a complete shift toward democracy if art and culture are still suppressed,” Mhanna said.
To read more: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=344274#ixzz1hL0Dtb2E
Only 25% of a given NOW Lebanon article can be republished. For information on republishing rights from NOW Lebanon: http://www.nowlebanon.com/Sub.aspx?ID=125478
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