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Shane Farrell

“The Adventures of Tintin in the land of censorship”

“--------------- and Peter Jackson present The Adventures of Tintin.” The sentence reads almost like a quiz, but this is how movie-goers saw the promotional poster for the film at Cinema City in City Mall last weekend. The co-director of Tintin, of course, is the critically acclaimed moviemaker Steven Spielberg; the man behind Jaws, E.T., Jurassic Park and many other box-office hits. The reason Spielberg’s name was covered by strips of black tape is likely due to him being on a government blacklist, but who took the decision to do so is not absolutely clear.
 
The blacklist goes back to 2006, when the Arab League’s Central Boycott Office banned Spielberg’s films after the director made a $1 million donation to Israel during the July War.
 
The Arab League list of boycotts, according to British newspaper The Guardian, is “inconsistently enforced across the member states, with individual states often going their own way.”  Only Lebanon and Syria, according to the paper, “adhere to it stringently.” But some of Spielberg’s films, including those produced by his company Dreamworks —such as Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Puss in Boots (2011)—have made it to cinema screens in Lebanon.

Outside of the Arab League boycott list, Lebanon has a history of curtailing freedom of expression through the arts. In 2009, for example, the government ordered International College in Beirut to rip the pages featuring The Diary of Anne Frank from a textbook used by the school following a campaign by Hezbollah claiming the work promoted Zionism. In the same year, Moroccan-French comedian Gad Elmaleh, who is Jewish, pulled out of the Beiteddine Festival due to accusations by the same party of supporting Israel. 
 
More recently, this summer the Iranian film Green Days was not screened in Lebanon due to the intervention of the Iranian ambassador. The film deals with the protests against the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The latest incident of censorship has raised suspicions of external meddling. Samir Kassir Eyes (SKEyes), an NGO that monitors and promotes freedom of the press, contacted one of the people responsible for administration at Cinema City, Mohammad Mroueh, who stressed that the decision came from General Security.

Ayman Mhanna, executive director at SKEyes, told NOW Lebanon that the incident was an act of “19th-century censorship” and advocated an entire review of the issue in Lebanon, including taking censorship decisions out of the hands of General Security. 

However, Bassam Eid, coordinator for Empire Theatres in Lebanon, said that General Security had nothing to do with the incident. Instead, he contends that the act of censorship was the work of a “stupid employee” who thought that covering Spielberg’s name was procedure and was acting alone. When asked whether NOW Lebanon could speak with the offending employee, Eid refused, saying, “I don’t want to make it a big issue. I prefer no.”

Eid stressed, though, that Cinema City was the only theater affected by the temporary censorship and argued that had it been government policy, the film would not have made it to cinemas in the first place. As of Sunday evening, the strips of tape were removed, and Spielberg’s name was visible on film posters.

Regardless, others are not convinced this was an innocent mistake.

Georges Melhem, a founding member of Moukawimoun, a civil pressure and awareness group that is also behind the Facebook group STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon, believes that the manner in which the censorship was imposed might have been tactical. Since Spielberg is officially on the blacklist, Melhem said in a phone interview, the authorities could have legally banned the film. But in order to prevent poor media coverage, General Security might have gone through different channels—such as a phone call to a cinema employee—to impose their decision.

Claudette Naufal, director of the Beirut International Film Festival, says that if it is a case of censorship, then the blame is misdirected. “It [would have been] a political decision, not General Security’s decision,” Naufal told NOW Lebanon. “General Security, in our experience, has been very lenient with us. Every time we have had problems with censorship, it’s not their decision. They always give us the permits, and then something happens like it did in June, when the Iranian ambassador intervened and had [the film Green Days] stopped.”

However, she stressed that “If a minister interferes and says they should block it, they can do nothing about it. This is what we should worry about.”

  • wilypagan

    Let's pray that the US and Israel go into Iran soon and blast those reprobate clerics back to the stone age (oh, I forgot, they are already in the stone age). Get ready Lebanese. The time is coming when you can unite and throw the traitors loyal to Iran out of hour country.

    November 17, 2011

  • Geo M

    Some fail to understand that 2011 is way past the (even then theoretical) 1984. Free spirits are 'springing' everywhere on earth, contrasting with a crescendo (in virulence and tempo - stupidity too) of attempts at our freedom of expression here in Lebanon. We will not stand idle. "They" will not muzzle, blindfold, or deafen us. The freedom of expression is the one basic human right to protect ALL the others. That supersedes all else in "divinity"... Thanks Mr. Farrel for covering this critical issue, which is often sidelined by more 'pressing' daily BS.

    November 11, 2011