On Censorship

Author Paul Sturges, Professor Emeritus, Loughborough University, UK (Professor Extraordinary, University of Pretoria, South Africa) focuses mainly on recent British debates on press regulation. Sturges also draws on content listed in the Beacon for Freedom of Expression database.

REGULATING THE PRESS
ENSURING RESPONSIBILITY, OR ROAD TO CENSORSHIP

INTRODUCTION

The newspaper press disgusts the reader almost as often as it delights or impresses. Newspapers are just as likely to print a sneak picture of a near-naked celebrity’s unfortunate new layers of fat as they are of Malala Yousafzai on a platform making an inspiring speech. They will print sneering accounts of ordinary people whose lives are spectacularly out of control as if this were news but we can also read well-informed reportage of inspiring events such as the successful salvaging of the Costa Concordia. Of course one can suggest that there are actually two totally different types of newspaper: the gutter press that trades in meaningless sensation and the quality press that writes informatively of important events and comments on vital issues. Well, that’s true: to an extent. The problem with it is that there is overlap between the content and tone of sectors of the press which makes it difficult to simply embrace one sector and condemn another. What is true of the printed news media also applies to broadcast and digital media: we are exposed to a mixture of content that cannot easily be segregated into acceptable and unacceptable, whatever the criteria we choose. The Americans have it right in the First Amendment to their Constitution, which directly and unequivocally prohibits Congress [the State] from abridging [limiting] the freedom of speech or of the press. The U.S. law courts extend First Amendment protection to all forms of content across the range of media, so that it protects pornography as strongly as it does photos of sunsets and kittens, or arguments for unrestricted rights to own powerful guns and enormous stockpiles of ammunition as much as it does gentle pleas for kindness and respect between human beings from the Dalai Lama.

This undiscriminating defence of media freedom is, however, not a simple position to hold. Other authoritative statements on press and media freedom make this clear. A key instance is the European Convention on Human Rights, which after setting out the essential rights to information and communication in its Article 10, says that:

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. (Council of Europe, 1950)

The distinction between what is expected in a democratic society and the actions of governments whose record is unacceptable to thinking human beings is not whether there is suppression or no suppression, but the extent and degree of suppression. The Beacon for Freedom of Expression database allows the researcher to explore media suppression and threats to press freedom from a variety of examples with a global perspective.

BEACON CASES

The following is a selection of cases taken from the Beacon for Free Expression database which can be located by searching the database by publication name or country. The articles illustrate some of the range of actions taken to suppress freedom of expression in the press. They introduce themes several of which will be further developed in the rest of this article. The most Kafkaesque example in the way irrelevant looking regulations are used to suppress a publication comes from Syria. In 2003, before the present conflict, the licence to publish of a satirical weekly Al Domari was cancelled. The grounds were that it had violated press laws by failing to publish for three months. The hiatus in publication seems to have been in response to government pressure caused by the critical content that appeared in the magazine. Resuming publication to protect the licence was rendered virtually impossible by the refusal of the state-controlled press distributor to circulate copies of the new edition, which contained criticism of stringent new press laws and the general lack of press freedom. The mixture of threats, use of state monopolies and regulations to suppress criticism of press control has a nightmarish quality.

Direct official action can be used, as in Cambodia in 2011 when two newspapers critical of the government The Water and Fire News, and The World News were simply ordered to cease publication. Reasons for such action may be explicit. For instance, in Spain the Basque newspaper Euskaldonun Egunkaria was closed down and journalists arrested in 2003 on the grounds that it was associated with the terrorist organisation ETA. The newspaper was immediately reopened under another name. In Iraq a weekly newspaper Al Hawza was closed for six months in 2004 by the representatives of the occupying coalition on the grounds that it was publishing articles intended to disturb public order and incite violence against coalition forces. The justification offered for closure may be less specific, as in the Yemen in 2007 when two websites Al Shora and Aleshteraki were temporarily closed by government action. This seems to be because they were controlled by opposition parties and reported fighting with rebel forces. The fact that closure was for fixed periods lends the action more of the appearance of the rule of law.

Action may be less direct, but equally effective. A subtle exploitation of regulatory powers comes from the Ukraine, where in 2004 the opposition newspaper Silski Visti was closed down. The ostensible cause was its publication of two advertisements in 2003 for a book that was considered anti-Semitic. This was widely regarded as a pretence to silence it. Action can also take the form of various mixtures of covert and illegal and quasi-official. For instance, in the Gambia a newspaper called The Independent consistently offended officialdom, presumably by its independence. Extra-judicial action included the setting on fire of its printing press in 2004. In 2006 its premises were sealed and the paper prevented from publication by official, but illegal action. The examples could be multiplied to bring in an almost limitless range of different countries and the coverage of methods expanded considerably. There is little limit to what governments and other interested organisations will do to suppress comment and criticism. What this article will concentrate on is an example that shows up many of the issues with less obvious but still potentially threatening implications.

THE UK PRESS SCANDALS

Recent problems in the UK, which embeds the European Convention in its laws as the Human Rights Act, 1998, illustrate the difficulties that arise when press regulation is contemplated and applied in a (comparatively) open and free democracy. In particular the problems shift the focus of the debate from one which, as in the above examples, pits a powerful state against a weak press and media. In the UK case the media are rich and powerful in a way that could scarcely have been anticipated by the drafters of the European Convention, let alone those who drew up the amendments to the American constitution. Ironically this debate occurred in the UK at almost precisely the same time as a debate on the role of investigative journalism and whistleblowing by principled government officials. The revelations orchestrated by Julian Assange (now in diplomatic protection at the Colombian Embassy in the UK) and Edward Snowden (given temporary political asylum in Russia) remind us of the vital role of the press and media in supporting whistle-blowers to preserve and expand our freedoms. The issues arising from these cases are too complex and would require too much detailed explanation to allow them to be dealt with in this short article. They do, however, provide a compelling reminder of the indispensable positive role of press freedom, at the same time as we are exploring its misuse.

The UK problems that we will discuss here surfaced when it became clear that a sector of the press had been systematically perpetrating gross abuses of personal privacy. In 2007, a journalist at the newspaper The News of the World and a private investigator were convicted of illegal interception of phone messages. Although the newspaper claimed that this did not reflect its usual practices, other cases began to emerge, mainly concerning celebrities but also concerning news stories that included one particularly emotive example. The voicemail of a missing girl (who was later discovered to have been murdered) was hacked into, causing deep distress to her family. The sheer scale of these criminal abuses led to a special police investigation, which also revealed corrupt press relationships with police officers and ambiguous relationships with politicians. In July 2011 a public enquiry was set up to examine the culture, practices and ethics of the press. The enquiry and its report are known by the name of its chair Lord Leveson. The open public hearings included the cross examination of complainants, witnesses and members of the press including reporters, editors and owners. Victims of hacking who gave evidence included the actor Hugh Grant, Chris Jeffries who the press falsely accused of a crime largely on the grounds of his eccentric appearance, and Sally Dowler, mother of the murdered girl mentioned above. Perhaps most revealing was the testimony of Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the newspaper, in which he sought to distance himself from the abuses and assert the continuity of his media holdings contribution to free expression.

At this point it is important to stress that the issue is not merely the offences committed by journalists and their editors, but the consequences of the oligopolistic ownership of the UK press. The potential impact of published and broadcast expression places an enormous responsibility in the hands of the owners and managers of media outlets of all types. The image of the brave owner/editor of a small crusading newspaper is perpetuated in numbers of American movies, but current reality is quite different. Decades ago Schiller (1989) identified the development of a corporate oligarchy controlling large swathes of the world’s media. Rupert Murdoch, with his newspaper groups that dominate the global press and his TV and other media interests (with the Fox channel in the USA as flagship) is the personal embodiment of this tendency. Not to be forgotten, also, is the ownership of media by business corporations that also have a host of non-media interests. This means that newspapers, books, broadcasts and Internet information sources are not necessarily the neutral conduits of free expression which the constitutional and other agreements protecting them might suggest. What is new about the UK case is that, in contrast to what we might regard as the usual perception, the press does not on this occasion appear as a noble but vulnerable champion of freedom. In fact it represents unprincipled use of economic and political power greater than that of most states, which seems to call for some sort of regulatory system.

Major media owners tend to have the closest of relationships with governments. In discussing the press and freedom of expression it is easy to forget that in many cases we are actually discussing the freedom of immensely powerful people whose expression is made through a host of surrogates employed by newspapers and other media outlets. With this power come proportionate responsibilities. On the one hand media owners, and the politicians themselves, believe that media support causes governments to be elected or defeated (the support of Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in the UK is widely believed to have contributed heavily to the success of Tony Blair’s Labour Party in the 1997 UK elections). On the other hand some governments feel able to demand that media groups conform to the norms of communication they set, in return for a position in the media market that they control. The Murdoch media in China seem to be in this position. Whilst it is not made totally explicit most of the time, Chinese government policy is fundamentally hostile to freedom of expression. A document representing policy at the highest level dealing with current subversive influences includes in its list ‘Western-inspired notions of media independence’. (Buckley, 2013) The close and intimate relationship between media and the centres of power compromises both media integrity and the independence of government in degrees that vary according to the political complexion of each particular state. The UK scandals seemed to reach some sort of closure with the publication of the Leveson Report, (Leveson Inquiry, 2012), which exposed what had been done with great clarity. The report also demanded a response from both government and the press. We will deal with this specific set of responses later, but first, responses to the press and freedom of expression need to be contextualised.

FORMS OF RESPONSE

If we explore the constraints to free expression normally exercised by states we find them taking some forms that at least nominally follow due process of law. At the same time we should not forget extra-legal or, to put it frankly, illegal measures taken against free expression. Most of the examples from the Beacon database discussed earlier, take this informal route. In many countries those who speak out have a real fear of beatings, confinement, torture, and violent death that has nothing to do with the formal apparatus of the state or any other organisation. Few people feel able to express themselves when they are terrified, and no one can express themselves when they are dead. Clandestine hit squads of off-duty policemen or soldiers, members of political movements or, quite simply, hired thugs attack free expression in many countries. Political dissidents, social individualists, members of marginalised groups, and the journalists who might try to reflect their views are under threat, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In Turkey during 2013’s street protests in Taksim Square hostile tweets from official sources against Selin Girit a BBC journalist clearly constituted a concealed threat. As Fatma Demirelli of Today’s Zaman put it Journalists now have a sort of split brain: on the one hand you see what the news is, but on the other you immediately try to gauge how to report it without stepping on anyone’s foot. (Letsch, 2013) The shooting of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 reminds us that intimidation does not stop at threats and menacing hints. Every year an average of 43 journalists worldwide are martyred in the service of free expression, (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2007), but every year an even greater number restrain their journalistic instincts and write what they think their political masters would prefer to read.

The two modes of legal response mentioned earlier are prior restraints on expression before it is even voiced, and those which oblige those expressing themselves to accept the possibility of legal challenges and possible penalties after the event. Prior restraint, also known as pre-censorship is the most open and damaging form of censorship. The state demands, through some system or other that material that is intended for publication or broadcast is submitted for inspection prior to its appearance. It is then formally decided by the censors whether or not the material will be approved for dissemination. Classic examples were the Book Chambers of the old Soviet Union. On the one hand they were a means of supporting and organising the publishing industry, but on the other they were the means of ensuring that only officially approved material appeared. Such an authoritarian system naturally inhibits the writer. It makes it obvious that the alternatives offered include risking rejection and all the subsequent threats to the writer’s comfort and security that implies; writing something that is predictably acceptable; or writing nothing. All-encompassing systems of prior restraint are not as common as systems that deal with some specific aspect of information, most commonly national security. Britain, for instance, has its Defence Advisory Committee, which can examine material intended for publication or broadcast that deals with sensitive defence matters. If it is considered necessary it can then order its modification or suppression by the issue of a DA Notice. Discredited and infrequently used as this system is, it reminds us that even a democratic state such as Britain offers its researchers and writers good reason to choose to avoid certain sensitive topics.

If there is to be some form of legal consequence for expression whose acceptability is successfully challenged, it is better that it is imposed as a penalty after publication or broadcast than suppression in advance. This gives the originator of the disputed communication the right to a trial in open court, during which the merits of the issue and the value of the intended communication can be properly debated. This was effectively the only recourse open to all those victims of press intrusion whose cases were examined by the Leveson Enquiry. The existing self-regulatory Press Complaints Commission was so ineffective that newspapers blithely continued in their unethical and illegal way. The difficulty for the victims of intrusion was that most of them lacked the capacity to investigate abuses that they suspected were taking place and did not have the money to take cases to court against the newspapers. There is a line of commentary arguing that fear of legal action has the potential to create what the Americans call a chilling effect on the press. This certainly did not apply in these cases. The fear of legal action can strangle a possible publication or broadcast by a small or financially vulnerable media organisation, but in contrast, the immensely rich Murdoch group can afford to ignore the chilling possibilities of legal action. Only state intervention seems to offer redress and a deterrent.

THE UK RESPONSE

What the Leveson Report proposed was that there should be a Royal Charter for the press which would provide for oversight of the self-regulation of the press. This is effectively a two layer arrangement. The press is expected to agree to creating its own self-regulatory body that will gain the approval of a supervisory board set up under the jurisdiction of the Royal Charter. The regulatory system would have sanctions available to it, including financial penalties for journalism that infringes the rights of the public, and compulsion to publish apologies that match the prominence of offending stories. An arbitration service that could order non-compliant media outlets to pay exemplary financial penalties for offences they might commit would form part of the arrangement. Despite the intention of this two layer scheme to protect press freedom by allowing it to regulate itself, under the supervision of an official board, several major press groups opposed the Charter. Perhaps the most disturbing and convincing claim made by critics of the scheme was that it could be modified at some time in the future so that it could be used to suppress freedom of expression and investigative journalism. A provision added to the Royal Charter in response to this stated that it could only be altered by a two thirds parliamentary majority. This still left some media groups alleging that freedom was under threat in the longterm.

To an independent observer it might look much more like the politicians were doing very their best to find some kind of arrangement that would restrain abuses without infringing freedom. Nevertheless, at the time of writing several newspaper groups were attempting to set up a self-regulatory body that would not be answerable to the board that had been set up under the Royal Charter. From one direction this could be seen as the continuing struggles of a powerful and arrogant press to go its own way, or from another direction a principled stand against an arrangement that could mutate into press control and suppression of freedom of speech. The new system of press regulation in the UK occupies a specific place in the spectrum of threats to freedom of expression. The threat is characterised as negligible by each of the main political parties, but described as considerable by sections of the press. At this juncture, the politicians probably have the best of the argument, but press fears cannot easily be disregarded. In their suspicion of the Charter and its complex arrangements, they can call on some arguments that have credibility. We could call these aspects of their case the potential for restriction creep.

RESTRICTION CREEP

The most disturbing argument against the measures contained in the Royal Charter is that any system of regulation lays itself open to restriction creep. By this we mean that a system set up to respond to obvious abuses can over time be used towards the application of anti-democratic press control. What is more, there are insidious arguments which are used in various parts of the world to allay the fears aroused by control. Not so long ago a Chinese colleague defended press and media control to me in a message that cited three justifications, national security, social stability and defence of the national culture. Despite my strong suspicions that he was obliged to do this by officials who had monitored our fairly innocuous email exchanges on the subject of freedom of expression, these are worth a little attention.

First, we should look at national security. As was pointed out at the very beginning of this paper, the European Convention on Human Rights recognises concerns over national security and territorial integrity as valid reasons for some curtailment of the right to freedom of expression. That having been said, the national security argument is probably the most frequently used lever to suppress broad categories of information and opinion. Patriotism has virtues, but it is arguable that the vices of patriotism, amounting at their worst to xenophobia, are much more significant. Certainly history provides ample evidence of the perils experienced by smaller nations and the tendency of larger imperial powers to impose their will on them. However, the idea that China, with its massive population and territory, guarded by enormous, heavily-armed military forces, needs more than minimal secrecy to protect it is ludicrous. By drawing citizens who quite reasonably love their country’s language, way of life, traditions and history into complicity with this farcical notion, a government effectively out-sources repression to the repressed.

Secondly there is social stability. The essential fatuity of the suggestion that people should avoid discussing social problems so as not to make them worse, means that it needs little comment. Threats to social stability are as old as society itself. They can be addressed by democratically-supported statesmanship based on the principles of justice and fairness, probably best expressed in the concept of human rights. Not talking about social problems is quite simply a formula for their perpetuation. Yet states claim that they promote social stability through national symbols, insulation of leaders from criticism and an agenda of suppressing comment on particularly problematic issues. Burning the Stars and Stripes, the UK’s Union Flag or Denmark’s Danebrog may be rather distressing to simple-hearted patriots, but who does it actually hurt? Do we really believe that criticism of Comrade Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader, Comrade Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader, or the latest pathetic representative of this quasi-royal dynasty represents an unforgivable insult to all North Koreans? Does Turkey really ensure that Armenians and Kurds are more likely to be loyal citizens by making discussion of the genocide of 1915 illegal and suppressing the use of the Kurdish language? The least that people can do is reject these false agendas and speak out against them when they can.

Finally, there is the national culture. Whilst one can quite swiftly dismiss the validity of national security and social stability as reasons for self-censorship, the idea of national culture presents rather more difficulty. Even Americans, those great exporters of cultural products and services, sometimes think that their national culture is at risk. It may be a fundamental human mode of thinking, rooted in the mutability of cultures themselves, to see culture as having had its golden age (in England probably the late sixteenth century reign of Elizabeth I) and now being under desperate threat from some external source (probably for most countries an English-speaking source, the USA for instance). Yet, is it not somehow right to protect the individuality of specific cultures, so that the rich diversity of human life on this planet is not replaced by a bland, commercialised uniformity? Phrased in that way, it is hard to disagree with the sentiment. It is not the respect and care for national culture that is wrong: it is the suppression of ideas ostensibly to protect it that is the mistake. People might not be truly convinced by arguments such as these but they can at the very least be used to give a more acceptable face to the creep towards a more controlled press and other media.

CONCLUSION

On October 30th 2013 in London two events occurred. They were too strongly connected for it to seem coincidental that they happened on the same day. The formal sealing of the Royal Charter took place at Buckingham Palace, and the trial of the various accused in the case against the press phone hackers began. Thus on one day several people accused of misuse of press power faced the consequences of their actions in a classic demonstration of the role of the courts of law after the event. On the same day a system that might be capable of encouraging prior restraints to publication was inaugurated. One could take it that a very British compromise had been struck between the different legal means to deal with press problems and that the compromise had been signalled on this particular day. Questions remain however. Is there a danger that the regulatory system put in place post-Leveson will eventually compromise the important role of the press in revealing official suppression of information, as exemplified by the investigative journalistic revelations that we earlier mentioned almost in passing? Does the UK come closer to the kind of threats to press freedom indicated in the Beacon examples given earlier? The pressure group Hacked Off, which was set up to campaign on behalf of the victims of press abuse, does not accept that the Royal Charter risks this. They claim that News publishers now have a great opportunity to join a scheme that will not only give the public better protection from press abuses, but will also uphold freedom of expression, protect investigative journalism and benefit papers financially. (Wintour, 2013) This is an important opinion, but the debate remains unresolved. All that is guaranteed is that in the continuing struggle between the advocates of free expression and the enemies of the principle the UK example will continue to be an important case to follow. The new system of press regulation might be an effective means of ensuring responsibility, or it just might be a step on a road to censorship.

References

Buckley, C. (2013). China memo reveals fears of Western influence. International Herald Tribune, Aug 21^st, pp.1,3.

Committee to Protect Journalists (2007) Journalists killed: statistics and background. Available at http://www.cpj.org/deadly/index.html [Accessed 25.10.07)

Council of Europe (1950) European Convention on Human Rights. Available at http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html [Accessed 29.10.13]

Letsch, C. (2013). Where journalists have learned to censor themselves. Guardian (UK), 28^th June. 

Leveson Inquiry, (2012). Culture, practices and ethics of the Press. Available at http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0780/0780.asp [Accessed 6.11.13]

Schiller, H. (1989) Culture Inc.: the Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. London: Oxford University Press.

Wintour, P. (2013). Press regulation royal charter given go-ahead by the Queen. Guardian (UK), 30^th Oct.

The Long History of Censorship

Mette Newth
Norway, 2010

Censorship has followed the free expressions of men and women like a shadow throughout history. In ancient societies, for example China, censorship was considered a legitimate instrument for regulating the moral and political life of the population. The origin of the term censor can be traced to the office of censor established in Rome i 443 BC. In Rome, as in the ancient Greek communities, the ideal of good governance included shaping the character of the people. Hence censorship was regarded as an honourable task. In China, the first censorship law was introduced in 300 AD.

Censorship: A Global and Historical Perspective

This is true Liberty when free born men
Having to advise the public may speak free,
Which he who can, and will, deserv’s high praise,
Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace;
What can be juster in a State then this?
Euripides

Perhaps the most famous case of censorship in ancient times is that of Socrates, sentenced to drink poison in 399 BC for his corruption of youth and his acknowledgement of unorthodox divinities. It is fair to assume that Socrates was not the first person to be severely punished for violating the moral and political code of his time. This ancient view of censorship, as a benevolent task in the best interest of the public, is still upheld in many countries, for example China. This notion was advocated by the rulers of the Soviet Union (USSR), who were responsible for the longest lasting and most extensive censorship era of the 20^th Century.

The struggle for freedom of expression is as ancient as the history of censorship. The playwright Euripides (480-406 BC) defended the true liberty of freeborn men—the right to speak freely. Nevertheless, he was careful to point out that free speak was a choice.

Free speech: A Challenge to Religious Power in Europe

Free speech, which implies the free expression of thoughts, was a challenge for pre-Christian rulers. It was no less troublesome to the guardians of Christianity, even more so as orthodoxy became established. To fend off a heretical threat to Christian doctrine church leaders introduced helpful measures, such as the Nicene Creed, promulgated in  325 AD. This profession of faith is still widely used in Christian liturgy today. As more books were written and copied and ever more widely disseminated, ideas perceived as subversive and heretical were spread beyond the control of the rulers. Consequently, censorship became more rigid, and punishment more severe.

The invention of the printing press in Europe in the mid 15^th century, only increased the need for censorship. Although printing greatly aided the Catholic Church and its mission, it also aided the Protestant Reformation and «heretics», such as Martin Luther. Thus the printed book also became a religious battleground.

In western history the very term censorship takes on a whole new meaning with the introduction of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Pope Paul IV ordered the first Index of Prohibited Books in 1559. The Index was issued again 20 times by different popes. The last Index of Prohibited Books was issued as recently as 1948, and then finally abolished in 1966. These lists of books banned for their heretical or ideologically dangerous content, were issued by the Roman Catholic Church. Zealous guardians carried out the Sacred Inquisition, banning and burning books and sometimes also the authors. The most famous of authors that the Catholic Church banned is undoubtedly Galileo (1633), and the most famous victims of the Inquisition’s trials must be Joan of Arc (1431) and Thomas More (1535).

«The Spanish authorities were not only worried about the religious situation in Europe, but also in America. The possibility that America could be invaded with ideas from protestant countries was considered a permanent threat.»

Peruvian historian Pedro Guibovich Pérez
The Lima Inquisition and Book Censorship

The Catholic Church controlled all universities, such as the famous Sorbonne, and also controlled all publications. The Church decreed in 1543 that no book could be printed or sold without permission of the church. Then in 1563, Charles IX of France decreed that nothing could be printed without the special permission of the king. Soon other secular rulers of Europe followed suit. Consequently, European rulers used systems of governmental license to print and publish to control scientific and artistic expressions that they perceived potentially threatening to the moral and political order of society.

The dual system of censorship created through the close alliance between church and state in Catholic countries was also exported to the colonised territories in the Americas. Philip II of Spain reinstated the Inquisition in 1569 and established the Peruvian Inquisition in 1570 as part of a colonial policy designed to deal with the political and ideological crisis in the Peruvian viceroyalty.

The Dresden Codex (Codex Dresdensis) is one of the surviving Maya Codices written in hieroglyphic script.

The Peruvian Inquisition system was a Spanish blueprint for controlling the import of books. The inquisitorial officers periodically examined ships and luggage in ports, and inspected libraries, bookstores and printing houses. When the Inquisition was established in Peru in 1570, the Tribunal’s district ranged from Panama to Chile and Rio de la Plata.

Without a doubt, the Inquisition’s censorship in the colonies of the Americas was oppressive and sinister. Nevertheless, it could hardly compare to the Spanish invaders’ destruction of the unique literature of the Maya people. The burning of the Maya Codices in the 16^th century remains one of the worst criminal acts committed against a people and their cultural heritage, and a terrible loss to the world heritage of literature and language.

The Authority of the Postal Service

Although the art of printing was vital to the dissemination of knowledge, the establishment of a regular postal service was also an important advancement to communication. First established in France in 1464, the postal service soon became the most widely used system of person-to-person and country-to-country communication.

Consequently, the postal service also played a crucial role as an instrument of censorship in many countries, particularly in times of war. The British Empire efficiently employed censorship of mail during the first half of the 20^th century. Even in today, the postal service remains a tool of censorship in countries where the import of prohibited literature, magazines, films and etcetera is regulated.

In Europe printing naturally also spurned the development of newsletters and newspapers. The Relation of Strasbourg published in 1609, was regarded as the first regularly printed newsletter. Soon the establishment of newspapers in other European countries followed, catering to a growing public demand for news and information. The first newspaper appeared in 1610 in Switzerland, in the Habsburg territories in Europe in 1620, in England in 1621, in France in 1631, in Denmark in 1634 and Italy in 1636, in Sweden in 1645, and in Poland in 1661. In some regions of India, however, newsletters had been circulated since the 16^th century.

The rapid growth of newspapers represented a huge improvement of information sources for the literate peoples of Europe. But it also increased the authorities’ worry that unlimited access to information would be harmful to society and public morals, particularly in times of war or internal crisis.

Thus the Licensing Act of 1662 was enforced without mercy in Britain until after the Great Plague of 1664-65. In Germany, the press was effectively inhibited during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), through censorship, trade restrictions and lack of paper for printing. Such subtle means of censorship, even today, may effectively hamper the development of the free media in many countries.

 The Age of Enlightenment and Freedom of Expression

John Milton targeted the powerful bureaucratic system of pre-censorship practiced in late Medieval Europe in his much disputed speech «Areopagitica» to the Parliament of England in 1644. Milton vigorously opposed the Licensing Act that Parliament passed in 1643. In his noble plea for freedom of the press, Milton also quoted Euripides, adding the weight of the ancient struggle for free expression to his own arguments.

Milton’s passionate and strong defence of free expression contributed to the final lapse of the Licensing Act in Britain in 1694. His «Areopagitica» also became one of the most quoted arguments for freedom of expression, and remains today a true beacon of enlightenment.

The 17^th and 18^th centuries represented a time of reason in Europe. The rights, liberty and dignity of the individual became political issues, subsequently protected by law in many countries. Sweden was the first country to abolish censorship and introduce a law guaranteeing freedom of the press in 1766, then Denmark-Norway followed suit in 1770. Today, the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States (1787) guarantees freedom of speech and the press. It is regarded as the root of the comprehensive protection of freedom of expression in western countries, along with the much quoted statement of the French National Assembly in 1789:

«The free communication of thought and opinion is one of the most precious rights of man; every citizen may therefore speak, write and print freely.»
The National Assembly of France, 1789.

Although censorship lost ground as the most frequently used legal instrument during and after the 18^th century in Europe, governments maintained laws curbing freedom of expression. Now the restrictive instruments are legislative acts on national security, criminal acts on obscenity or blasphemy, or libel laws.

In the United States, formal censorship never existed. But the libel law could sometimes serve the same purpose; thus American courts became the testing ground for free expression. This was also the case in Britain after the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1694. The courts became the new controllers in many countries that embraced the principles of freedom of expression. Libel laws were often subject to broad interpretations, allowing for continued restraint, harassment, and persecution of artists, journalists and other intellectual critics that challenged the contemporary concepts of national security, blasphemy and obscenity.

Censorship and the Establishment of Newspapers

In the 18^th century, the press in most of Europe was frequently subject to strict censorship. The 19^th century saw the emergence of an independent press, as censors gradually had to cede to demands for a free press. Yet this was also an age of strict press censorship in countries such as Japan. The first daily newspaper, the Yokohama Mainichi, appeared in 1870 a time when arrests of journalists and suppression of newspapers were all too common.

Also colonial governments, such as Russia and Britain, exercised tight control over political publications in their domains. Examples are Russia in the Baltic, and Britain in Australia, Canada, India and Africa. In Australia full censorship lasted until 1823, while in South Africa a press law was passed in 1828 to secure a modicum of publishing freedom. Later in South Africa, however, politics of racial division prevented press freedom. The total suppression during South Africa’s Apartheid era was only abandoned in the last decade of the 20^th century.

As IFEX and other organizations document, in modern times, restrictions on press freedom continue in many countries in Africa and Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

Censorship in Libraries: The Benevolent Public Concern for Morality

Although government-instituted censorship had apparently been abandoned in most western countries during the 19^th and most of the 20^th century, public concern for offensive literature did not subside. Public libraries were expected to act as the benevolent guardians of literature, particularly books for young readers. Consequently this gave teachers and librarians license to censor a wide range of books in libraries, under the pretext of protecting readers from morally destructive and offensive literature.

Surprisingly, in liberal-minded countries such as Sweden and Norway, which boasts the earliest press freedom laws, surveillance of public and school libraries remained a concern to authors and publishers even through the latter part of the century. No less surprising is the die-hard tradition of surveillance of books in schools and libraries in the United States.

Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has remained controversial in the USA because of the author’s portrayal of race relations and racial stereotypes.

One of the most stunning examples, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884 UK, 1885 US), was first banned in 1885 in the Concord Public Library (Massachusetts). According Arthur Schlesinger, the author of Censorship – 500 Years of Conflict, Twain’s book was still in jeopardy of censorship in 1984.

In spite of the Library Bill of Rights, the library profession’s interpretation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, public and school libraries in the US still face demands to remove books of «questionable content» from groups claiming to represent the interest of parents or religious moral codes. However, the libraries themselves have challenged this practice. The American Library Association (ALA), through its Office of Intellectual Freedom, maintains statistics on attempts to censor libraries in various states, and regularly publishes lists of challenged books.

Censorship of libraries is by no means a recent practice. On the contrary, libraries have been the targets of censorship since ancient times. History is littered with facts of destroyed library collections, and libraries themselves have far too often become flaming pyres. As early as 221 BC, the deliberate burning of a library was recorded in China.

Although the destruction by fire of 400,000 rolls in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in 47 BC was by all accounts accidental, the burning of the entire collection of the University of Oxford library in 1683 was on direct orders from the king.

«Where books are burned, in the end people will burn.» Heinrich Heine

Even in the 20^th century, rulers have used the burning and destruction of libraries extensively as warnings to subversives and as a method of ethnic language purging, as was the case in Sarajevo and Kosovo. In 1991 the Serbian government banned Albanian as a language of instruction at all levels of education. During the period 1990-99, all libraries in Kosovo were subjected to the burning or destruction of the Albanian–language collections, according to reports from the joint UNESCO, Council of Europe and IFLA/FAIFE Kosovo Library Mission in 2000. The Serbian government’s deliberate cultural and ethnic cleansing on the brink of a new millennium will stand as a distressful monument to the persistent tradition of destructive censorship.

Censorship in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Longest Tradition in the 20^th Century

The Russian empire had a long tradition of strict censorship and was slow to adopt the changes that central European countries had implemented a century before. Censorship reforms were started in a single decade of tolerance, from 1855 to 1865 during the reign of Tsar Alexander II. There was a transition from legislation on pre-censorship (determining arbitrarily in advance what may or may not be permitted) to a punitive system based on legal responsibility. During this decade the press enjoyed greater freedom and more radical ideas were voiced. Nevertheless censorship laws were re-imposed in 1866 practically eliminating the basic ideas of the reform. Only half a century later the law of 1905-1906 abrogated pre-censorship. Finally, all censorship was abolished in the decrees of April 27 1917 that the Temporary Government issued.

Sadly the freedom was short lived as the decrees only were in force until October 1917. This began a new, long and extensive era of strict censorship under the revolutionary rulers of the USSR lasting until the end of the 1980s. Taking into account the long history of strict censorship during tsar-regimes, the Russian people have only been without formal censorship in the last decade of this millennium.

The new order of the USSR meant drastic political and economic changes, but also culture, education and religion were subject to revision, all with the idealistic intentions of relieving the new Soviet citizen of the suppressive yokes of feudalism. Hence religion, regarded as gross and misleading superstition, was targeted only a few months after the revolution.

In the spring of 1918, a decree was issued formally separating church and state. Strict prohibitions imposed on religious bodies and nationalization of all church property followed. In 1922 the central censorship office was established, known for short as Glavlit. Its role was to purge the Soviet society of all expressions regarded as destructive to the new order and contagious to the minds of people. The Glavlit had absolute authority to subject the performing arts and all print media to preventive censorship, and to suppress political dissidence by shutting down «hostile» newspapers.

In the early 1920s during the time of Lenin and Trotsky, however, writers and artists were granted creative freedom, provided they observed the rule of not engaging in overt political dissent. This leniency may be attributed to the regime’s recognition of the importance of intellectuals for the conveyance of the new ideals. Although the majority of intellectuals were opposed to the revolution, many artists and intellectuals supported the revolution’s ideals of equality for all and freedom from slavery and poverty.

Russian artists had embraced the ideals of the European Modernist Movement, already in 1915 forming the visionary Avant Garde aesthetic movement which survived until 1932. Thus the first years of the new order saw a degree of innovation in literature and the arts, in stark contrast to the overall political rigidity of the regime. All leniencies ended with the Stalin regime, during which the censorship system became more elaborate and the methods of purging increasingly sinister. The regime authorized printing, banned publications and prevented the import of foreign books.

The USSR Exported the Glavlit System to Occupied Countries

After a time the USSR imposed its strict censorship system on all occupied countries and satellite-states, many of whom had been subject to the censorship of imperial Russia. When the USSR occupied independent Lithuania in 1940 a «bibliocide» began, lasting in effect until 1989. This period of Soviet dominance was only interrupted in 1941-1944 by the German occupation. The Nazi regime was infamous for their book pyres and deadly censorship in Germany and the German-occupied countries. Nevertheless, the systematic use of the destruction of libraries in the USSR is part of the longest and most extensive censorship in the 20^th century.

In the study Forbidden Authors and Publications, Klemensas Sinkevicius describes the strategy of the Soviet censorship that zealous local inspectors performed in occupied Lithuania on behalf of the then infamous Glavlit. «After the restoration of Lithuanian independence, we got an opportunity to study the most tragic period in the history of Lithuanian libraries», writes Sinkevicius. Sinkevicius’ study for the National Library of Lithuania is the first of its kind in Lithuania. Many of the banned works of Lithuanian writers now exist only in the list of banned and destroyed books.

WW II – Nazi Germany and Occupied Countries

Literature confiscated during WWII

«From these ashes will rise the phoenix of the new spirit», Goebbels optimistically declared as the flames devoured massive funeral pyres of some 20,000 volumes of offensive books in Germany in 1933.

Numerous book pyres were enthusiastically lit by the Hitler Jugend, the young members of the fanatical Nazi movement, growing stronger and gaining ever more power in Austria and Germany during the 1930s. In order to cleanse the minds of people and society any book written by a Jewish author, communist or humanist, was fed to the flames.

The German author Heinrich Heine, who warned that burning books would end in burning humans, was sadly right, as proved by Nazi–Germany’s gruesome mass extermination of people. The exterminations included at least 6 million Jews but also Romani, communists, dissidents, and the physically disabled—anyone that deviated from the ideal «Aryan race».

Hitler, the omnipotent Fürer of the Third Reich, also implemented the severe censorship and intolerable propaganda machine of the Nazi regime in all countries occupied during WW II (1940-45). In occupied countries national newspapers, publishing houses and radio stations were taken over at once or shut down (and radios were confiscated). In countries such as Norway strict censorship was put in place, making listening to «foreign» radio as well as producing, reading or disseminating illegal newspapers punishable by death.

Despite the threat of severe punishment, the illegal press flourished in occupied countries, such as Norway where more than 400 newsletters and papers were published by groups of activists recruited from all parts of society. In Denmark 541 illegal newsletters and papers were published. In Denmark as in Norway, members of the illegal groups were executed or died in concentration camps because of their activities. As activists were arrested or fled the country, new volunteers took on the illegal work, keeping the chain of communication unbroken until the end of the war.

The illegal and underground publishing of all suppressed nations represents the most outstanding monuments to the people’s relentless struggle for freedom of expression. Most impressive is the vigorous illegal (samizdat) press and publishing in the former Eastern Bloc countries, during the Soviet and the Nazi reign, representing both a firm stand against brainwashing and against the most devastating consequence of censorship–oblivion. Writers’ manuscripts were smuggled out of countries such as Poland and printed abroad. Moreover classical and contemporary works of foreign writers were translated into Polish and smuggled back into Poland. A similar example of resisting sustained censorship and oppression is resistance during the Apartheid era in South Africa.

Apartheid Censorship in South Africa

To uphold its cruel policy of racism, the Apartheid regime in South Africa (1950-1994) employed severe censorship, torture and killing. The aim was to strangle the South African extra-parliamentary liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), and apparently to erase public memory. In this respect, the prohibitive policies of the Apartheid regime strongly resemble that of the USSR.

Censorship affected every aspect of cultural, intellectual and educational life in South Africa. Although grimly menacing, the magnitude of the banning of ANC symbols—, buttons, T-shirts and lighters —seemed truly paranoid. Already in 1996 the South African publisherJacobsen thoroughly compiled and published detailed information about all censored items. The excellent Jacobsen’s Index of Objectionable Literature restores to memory and documents for posterity all the details of the Apartheid madness.

The tenacious struggle against the Apartheid regime has been the subject of numerous studies, notably also by the South African historian Christopher Merrett, who besides producing books such as A Culture of Censorship, also has compiled a complete list of censorship through the entire history of South-Africa. The list is included in the Beacon for Freedom of Expression database with the gracious consent of the author. Another noteworthy mention is Peter D. McDonald’s book The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences (2009) and the impressive companion website.

«Truth is the first victim in a war»

Throughout its 400-year history, the media has been the first victim in times of war, be it in external or internal conflicts. As a rule, the press has been faced with a choice between gagging and closure. Many respectable newspapers were simply taken over by a country’s new rulers, or submitted to becoming their mouthpiece.

In the years prior to the outbreak of World War II the press in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal was subject to rigid Fascist censorship, but no less strict was the censorship of the enemy the USSR. During World War II the press was held in a stranglehold by all countries involved, from Norway to Japan.

In the United States and Britain a clampdown on news coverage was expected, as strict press censorship also had also been applied during World War I. The British and American press and media, often submitting voluntarily to self-censorship, were also the targets of a steady flow of official news and propaganda issued by the British Ministry of Information and the U.S. Office of War Information.In USA, a «Code of Wartime Practices for the American Press» was also issued by the Office of Censorship.¹

The war of words is less lethal but no less dirty than the war of weapons. Demonizing the enemy and whitewashing one’s own cruel deeds while blindfolding the people through rigid censorship have been favoured strategies for many warlords and dictators throughout history. Some of the worst examples of rigid press censorship induced by military dictators in the 20^th century were those of Spain (Spanish Civil War 1936-39, the regime lasted from 1936-1975), Greece (1967 -1974), Chile (1973-1990) and Nigeria (1966-1999). Despite countless pleas from the international community, Turkey still upholds strict censorship through the Anti–Terror Act of 1991, under the pretext of ensuring national security against «the enemy within»,” the Kurdish minority.

The role of media in times of war was starkly demonstrated in the spring of 1999 when the NATO alliance started the campaign of bombing designed to secure peace and human rights, and also force the Yugoslavian government to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The Yugoslavian government which had clamped down on independent national media for almost a decade expelled all foreign media and independent observers from Kosovo. Thus the government guaranteed its unlimited license to kill, terrorize and deport hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Due to their leader’s archaic policy of censorship and propaganda, the Serbian population of Yugoslavia lost all sympathy in international public opinion.

The NATO alliance, however, also launched a war of words portraying their «war for peace» as just and clean. When in April 1999 it became indisputably evident that NATO bombs had killed Kosovo-Albanian refugees, NATO informed the international media in a manner that the international media has characterized as misleading. NATO’’s deliberate and deadly bombings of the radio and television stations in Belgrade were also strongly criticised as contradictory to the humanistic aims of the NATO operation.

«Those that live by the pen shall die by the sword»

With these words the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) declared war on the media in Algeria, instigating one of the most chilling contemporary examples of the deliberate murder of the messenger. From May 1993 until the end of 1995, 58 editors, journalists and media workers were systematically executed; nine were murdered in 1993, 19 in 1994 and 24 in 1995, with the intent of punishing and scaring journalists from acting as mouthpieces for the Algerian authorities. This slaughtering was triggered by the conflict that exploded when the Algerian army disrupted the election of the National Assembly in 1992 to prevent what seemed to be the certain victory of the fundamentalist party Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). The Algerian press, having long suffered rigorous censorship, not least during French colonial rule, was caught in the crossfire between the authorities and the opposition.

As the conflict mounted, the authorities introduced sterner press censorship under the pretext of national security, clamping down ever harder on the coverage of civilian killings and introducing in 1996 rigid pre-censorship of all «non-official» reports on the bloody conflict. With Algeria being off-limits to foreign press and independent observers, the killings could go on behind closed doors. By 1998 independent observers estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 civilians became victims of the frenzied slaughter. Only in 1998 did the Algerian government amend their press law, no doubt thanks to the incessant pressure from independent freedom of expression organizations.

Modern Day Inquisition in Iran

Even though centuries and cultures apart, there are striking resemblance between the arguments and zealousness of the Inquisition of the Catholic Church and that of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance in the modern Islamic Republic of Iran.

After a period of a liberalized climate for publishing following the Islamic revolution in 1979, the war against Iraq (1981) and the fight against opposition groups within the Islamic Republic gave the government opportunity to introduce strict censorship. When the war ended in 1988 censorship became monopolized by the traditional extremists eager to purge Iranian society of freedom-seekers and dissenters.

In the spring of 1988 the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution (SCCR) issued resolutions on limitations of publishing. With the aid of the revolutionary courts, offenders have regularly been charged with propaganda against the Islamic Republic and the desecration of public morals. Often the charges result in executions. Moreover the wrath of Iran’s rulers has impacted non-Iranians, such as the British author Salman Rushdie. In 1988 the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling on all good Muslims to kill Rushdie and his publishers. His novel The Satanic Verses (1988) caused violent reactions many places in the Muslim world. Rushdie’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in July 1991, and his Italian translator was seriously injured by stabbing the same month. His Norwegian publisher barely survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993. The Turkish translator was also targeted in July 1993 in Sivas, Turkey, and 37 people died. The fatwa was eased in 1998.

Even though the people of Iran elected a liberal president in two successive elections, for example in 2001, the Guardian Council still holds the reins of power. Furthermore the revolutionary courts continue to gag the press and punish editors and journalists.

«Not to forget and never let it happen again»

When signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948,the members of the newly established United Nations pledged to remember the millions of people murdered in Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, in full view of the media-saturated international community, history has repeated itself, for example in the Yugoslavian territories in the 1990s and in Rwanda in 1994.

Most member countries of the UN have signed the declaration. A substantial number of countries across the world have made legislative adjustments in accordance with the principles of Article 19, even in sensitive areas such as the official secrets acts. The reality of human rights in practice often contradicts theory, however.

In 1998 alone, the year of international celebrations of the 50^th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, independent human rights and freedom of expression organizations reported violations in almost 120 countries. One hundred eighteen journalists were imprisoned in 25 countries and 24 journalists were murdered. Numerous newspapers, publishers and broadcasters were banned, closed or violently attacked, for example bombed.

Currently most of the serious attacks on freedom of expression are committed in non-democratic countries, struggling democracies or new democracies, for example former East Bloc countries. Even today more than half the world’s population still lacks an independent press.Considering how crucial the press is to the process of democratization and transparency of society, and the equally important role that the written word plays for eliminating illiteracy internationally, this is indeed a tragic state of affairs.

While Western and democratic governments and human rights defenders justly criticize the abuses committed in new democracies and non-democratic countries, however, we should not forget the dark history of censorship in Europe and its colonized countries. Likewise we should not ignore the cruel suppression of indigenous cultures, languages and non-written literature for which Europeans also are responsible.

Unfortunately, Western human rights defenders often ignore our shameful past, or fail to criticize our allies for their current abuses of human rights. The lack of criticism in the UN of European censorship—for example the systematic purging of libraries in Southern France by Front National— gives perpetrating governments, such as China or Burma a welcome opportunity to accuse Western countries of one-sided criticism. Furthermore, the «blame –game» that is played in North and South, by rich and poor nations or by Muslims and Christians cannot create or improve a climate of open-minded dialogue.

The painful paradox that history’s worst crimes continue to repeat themselves cannot be resolved by creating a database such as the Beacon for Freedom of Expression, but it will provide another tool for enlightenment and action by people. Thus hopefully, Beacon will contribute to ending the violations.

Thanks to the generous contributions by numerous universities and national libraries, institutions and freedom of expression organizations around the world, this memory bank now contains guides to the accumulated documentation and knowledge of the world status on censorship and freedom of expression for more than 2000 years, as well as many thousands of books and newspapers that fell subject to banning for most of the last millennium.

Each entry of the title and author represents a minute but significant monument to memory. The entire collection of titles in the database represents but a small selection of the books and newspapers that have been censored in the history of the world. Yet the Beacon for Freedom of Expression is an electronic monument under construction. It will grow steadily through the continued joint efforts of its competent partners.

In writing this article I am indebted to a multitude of sources, all of which are documented in the database or linked to this website.

1 See History of the Office of Censorship. Volume II: Press and Broadcasting Divisions. The National Archives and Records Administration. Record group 216, box 1204.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Censored and banned literature: 1559-1948

The Index of Forbidden Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) was published on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. It should be noted that the Index only contains books that ecclesiastical authority was asked to act upon. The lists had official sanction in all Catholic countries.

The Index of Forbidden Books

Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1559)The 1948 edition of Index Librorum Prohibitorum is included in the «Beacon for Freedom of Expression» data base. The first edition of Index Librorum Prohibitorum was published in 1559, and subsequently published in 19 editions by different popes through the centuries. The last edition was published in 1948, only to be suppressed in 1966.

In addition to the Indexes, Expurgatory Catalogues were issued, containing lists of literary works not entirely forbidden, but where sentences or parts were censored. The Index and Expurgatory Catalogues did not represent the total legislation of the church regulating reading by Roman Catholics, or was it a complete catalogue of forbidden reading.

Grounds of censorship

The purpose of the «Index of Forbidden Books» was to prevent the contamination of the faith or the corruption of morals of Roman Catholics according to canon law, through the reading of theologically erroneous or immoral books.

Canon law, lasting in effect until 1966, prescribed two main types of censorship:

1. Pre publication censorship of books by Roman Catholics in regard to matters of faith and morals
2. The condemnation of published books, thus listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Censoring body: Roman Catholic Church Authority (Sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition)

Background

The censorship of books developed by the Roman Catholic Church remains an outstanding example in Christendom of long lasting and comprehensive religious censorship, at times ruthlessly acted upon by the Roman Inquisition.

In order to fend off a heretical threat to Christian doctrine, Creeds such as the Nicene Creed promulgated in AD 325, were devised. In ca. 496 AD Pope Gelasius I issued a decree containing lists of recommended as well as banned books, generally regarded as the first Roman Index. However, the church’s concern for dangerous books is evident well before 496 AD.

The papacy of Pope Pius V (1566-72) is marked as one of the most austere periods in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Known as a relentless persecutor of heretics, Pius also reformed the missal and breviary, although he left the medieval canon virtually unchanged, as it remained until 1970.

The first «Index of Forbidden Books», banned for their heretical or ideologically dangerous content, was drawn up by order of Pope Paul IV and published in 1559 by the Sacred Congregation of the Roman Inquisition. The Sacred Inquisition acting as the zealous guardians of the Faith executed their office with severity. Intellectuals were pursued vigorously for their acceptance of Protestant doctrines, or for heretic ideas. The most famous banned author is undoubtedly Galileo (1633). The objective of the lists was to protect the orthodoxy and ward of significant challenges to the teachings of the canonical texts. With the invention of the printing press in Europe in the middle of the 15th Century, the problem of control increased. As more books were written, copied and increasingly widely disseminated, subversive and heretical ideas were spread beyond control.

But also printers and booksellers faced the same dangers of persecution. In the late 16th century, a great number of Dutch printers chose to flee to Switzerland and Germany after a special Congregation of the Index was established.

The system of censorship created by the Catholic Church in Europe was also exported to the forcibly colonised countries in the Americas. When the Inquisition was established in Peru in 1569, the Tribunal’s district ranged from Panama to Chile and Rio de la Plata.

In his article The Lima Inquisition and Book Censorship («The Lima Inquisition and Book Censorship, 1570-1820» Study and Annotated Bibliography, by Pedro Guibovich, University of Columbia, USA 1999), the Peruvian historian Pedro Guibovich notes: «The Inquisition established in Peru in 1568, was part of a colonial policy by Philip II of Spain, designed to deal with the political and ideological crisis in the Peruvian viceroyalty. The Peruvian system was a blueprint of the Spanish, entailing control of the import of books, the inquisitorial officers periodically examining ships and luggage in ports, inspecting libraries, bookstores and printing houses. More detailed measures were implemented, such as (Carta acordada of 1605) ordering booksellers to present to officers of the Holy Office detailed inventories of their books.»

Guibovich further notes: «Annual readings of the Edict of Faith were encouraged by the Tribunal as an exercise in denunciation of books. Threatened with excommunication, believers had to denounce those that: » have had and have books of the sect and opinions of the said Martin Luther and his followers or the Koran and other books of the sect of Mahomet (…) or any other books banned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition.»

Excerpt translation from the Preface of Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Anno MDCCCCXL

Index of Prohibited Books

Year 1940

Note: The list now has status as a historic document.

«The Holy Church has through many centuries carried out immense persecutions, and the number of heroes who sealed the Christian faith with their blood, were multiplied. Today we face a struggle which is lead by the Devil himself; it is founded on something both insincere and destructive; Malicious publications.

No other danger is greater, it threatens the faith and exercise of custom and integrity, therefore the Holy Church will increasingly point this out to the Christians, in that way enabling them to retreat before this threat.»

«The Holy Church, which was appointed by God himself, could not proceed otherwise. It represents an infallible master who securely leads his believers. Thus, the Church is equipped with all necessary and useful means to prevent the infection of the herd of Jesus, by the erroneous and corrupt which will show itself irrespective of the mask it hides behind. Consequently The Holy Church has the duty, and hence the right, to pursue this aim.

One must not claim that the condemnation of harmful books is a violation of freedom or a war against the Light of Truth, and that the index of forbidden books is a permanent attack against the progress of science and literature.»

«Irreligious and immoral books are written in a seductive manner, often with themes which deal with fleshly passion, or themes that deceive the pride of the soul. These books are carefully written to make an impression and aim at gaining ground in both the heart and mind of the incautious reader.»

«In addition, the necessity to suppress malicious publications for the wellbeing of the public, has particularly been proven lately, when even civil governments, have used preventive censorship to protect the judicial system and public order, with a rigidity unknown to the Church. This shows us how well it corresponds with the true liberty.

No matter how much true literary and scientific values a book can possess, it cannot legitimate the distribution which opposes the religion and good custom. On the contrary, the more subtle and seductive the evil is, the more it necessitates stronger and more efficient suppression of it.»

«These prohibited books were written to make an impression, and all this have been exposed to remove any doubt occurring among the Catholic believers. This explanation is intended for the devoted, good sons, who readily listen to the words of the good Shepherd Jesus, and to his representative on earth; the Pope. In short, this is intended for those who scrupulously comply with the rules, possibly with some exceptions arising from extreme conditions, where the Church grant exemptions for those who dissociate themselves from reading or owning the books which have been prohibited by the Holy Church.»

* From Palazzo del S. Uffizio,

Festa del S. Cuore di Gesu

7th of June 1929

Cardinal MERRY DEL VAL,

Suprema S. C. Del Sant’Uffizio Secretary

Unauthorised translation by Betty Cutolo

References:

The 1948 edition of the Index of Forbidden Books

List of Indexes in the Beacon for Freedom of Expression data base

Publications in English relevant to the censorship of the Catholic Church

Norway

Mette Newth
Oslo 2002

Suppressed Literature and Illegal Newspapers: 1570-2000

As in many other European countries, Norway’s recorded history of censorship coincides with the invention of the printing press. The Norwegian history of censorship of books from the middle of the 16th until the middle of the 20th century has been thoroughly documented in «Confiscated and suppressed publications» (Original Norwegian language title: «Beslaglagte og supprimerte skrifter») by Arthur Thuesen, published in Oslo 1960. The bibliographical data on publications censored in Norway through the ages for political, religious or moral reasons, as documented by Thuesen, are available in the Beacon for freedom of expression database.

The Constitutional Right to Freedom of Expression

The records shows that early censorship in the Scandinavian countries followed the same trends as elsewhere in Europe, thus the main reasons for banning or confiscating books, or punishing authors were the bitter conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism, recorded as early as 1580(1). Furthermore, publications considered harmful to King and state authorities or deemed offensive to public morals.

In 1770, censorship was abolished in Denmark, hence also in Norway, then under Danish rule. With Norway’s independence from Denmark in 1814, the Norwegian Constitution was adopted (May 17, 1814) and freedom to print was protected in the first sentence of Article 100 of the Constitution. However, this freedom was not without limitations, thus disobedience of Norwegian law, deliberate contempt of religion or decency or the constitutional authorities, as well as defamation, were specifically prohibited. The last sentence of Article 100 stated: «Everyone shall be free to speak his mind frankly on the administration of the State and on any other subject whatsoever.»

When in 1902 the Penal Code was revised, the limits of free expression as specified in Article 100 were elaborated, and new concerns were introduced, such as the consideration of relations to foreign powers and that of national security. Also in Norway, the First World War (1914-1918) had significant negative consequences for freedom of expression on the grounds of national security. New laws were introduced prohibiting disclosure of defence secrets, and censorship of letters and telegrams were established along with trade restrictions also on printed material. After 1918, these laws conveniently aided surveillance of the growing radical political and labour movements. Among other laws introduced, significant to the extent of freedom of expression, were the 1913 law on pre-censorship of moving pictures, and the 1933 State monopoly of broadcasting, in 1960 extended to television. The State monopoly of broadcasting were abolished in 1981. Amendments to Article 100 of the Constitution was proposed in 1999 by a Commission on freedom of expression appointed by Royal Decree.

Selected Cases of Freedom of Expression vs. Blasphemy and Pornography

The most noteworthy challenge of religious tolerance occurred in 1933, when the prominent poet Arnulf Øverland held a lecture on «Christianity – the tenth plague» («Kristendommen – den tiende landeplage») in the Students Society at Oslo university. The trial against Øverland remains one of the most outstanding trials on freedom of expression in Norwegian history in peace time. Even though Øverland was acquitted, Parliament tightened the penal code on blasphemy a year later.

The public notion of decency was most notably challenged in the late 19th century by two authors; Hans Jæger («Fra Kristiania-Bohêmen» 1886) and Christian Krohg («Albertine» 1887). Both novels were confiscated, though only Jæger was sent to prison. Seventy years passed before the authorities once more took penal action against authors on behalf of public decency. In the 1950s and 60s the authors Agnar Mykle («Sangen om den røde rubin», 1957)(2), the American author Henry Miller («Sexus» (Danish edition) 1957-59 )(3) and Jens Bjørneboe («Uten en tråd», 1966)(4) were all subject to criminal prosecution and the novels confiscated. In each case the sentence of the County Court was appealed to the Supreme Court. In Mykle’s case, the majority of Supreme Court voted for acquittal and lifted the confiscation. In Miller’s case the majority of the Supreme Court sentenced the booksellers to accept confiscation of the novel, and for the first time in 70 years a novel was prohibited in Norway. From USA Miller wrote a «Defence of the Freedom to Read: a Letter to the Supreme Court of Norway», published in English and Norwegian by J.W. Cappelen Forlag. In 1995 «Sexus» was published by the Norwegian publisher Den norske Bokklubben as part of the series » Library of the Century». In the case of Bjørneboe and his publisher, the majority of the Supreme Court ruled to uphold County Court’s sentence of fines for both author and publisher and the order of confiscation. Jens Bjørneboe’s novel «Uten en tråd» thus became the second – and last – novel in the 20th century to be prohibited.

Today, these mid-20th century criminal trials against outstanding and internationally renowned novelists may seem like tales of the dark ages. At the time and long thereafter, these cases created heated public debate, thus contributing to extend public tolerance, and also helped shift the authorities and judicial system’s focus of prosecution from fictional artistic expression to the vastly more serious crimes of child pornography and speculative violent adult pornography. Bibliographic information about the above mentioned titles are available in the database.

Norway in War

The 1940-45 German occupation represented the most sinister and suppressive period of censorship in Norway’s history. Immediately after the invasion in April of 1940, the Nazi rulers clamped down on the press and broadcasting. Newspapers faced the choice of being shut down or to accept Nazi control. Strict censorship of cultural life followed, including publishing houses, bookstores and libraries. In February of 1941, the Nazi authorities issued a decree concerning the protection of Norwegian literature and introduced a comprehensive index of forbidden literature. Indexed were numerous international and Norwegian publishing houses, single works by authors and whole authorship’s. Identical lists were applied in all German occupied countries – Denmark, Norway, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Poland, Yugoslavia and Greece – as well as Germany. Thus tens of thousands of works by Jewish authors and authors considered to be communists were banned throughout Europe, or authors classified as subversive and therefore deemed harmful to the Nazi ideology. The purging of libraries throughout Norway was executed by the local police.
This index of books, authors and publishers banned in Norway during World War II was published by AL. Biblioteksentralen in 1995. (Original title: Beslaglagte bøker – Norge i krig 1940-45.) The entire index is available in the database.

In October 1942, censorship was tightened in Norway, as was the punishment. Thus the Decree issued by Reichskommissar Terboven, states:

«[…] anyone …who propagates for an enemy state, or produces, acquires or disseminates information or other matters harmful to German interests, or who listens to any other transmitters than those that are German or under German control.. will be punished by death.»

Radioes were forbidden and confiscated. Strict control and threats of severe punishment did not prevent Norwegians from keeping illegal radios and listening to the BBC Norwegian transmission from London, or read illegal news bulletins and papers. From 1940 until 1945, 444 illegal newspapers were produced throughout the country and disseminated amongst Norwegians. A few newspapers were professionally produced in illegal printing shops or secretly in legitimate print shops in relatively substantial amounts of copies, but the majority of these regular publications were humble; typewritten and duplicated before being disseminated and furthermore passed from person to person. The well organised illegal press naturally recruited professional journalists and writers, but the majority of the thousands of Norwegians who run these vital sources of uncensored war news – equally important as information channels for the Norwegian resistance movement – were ordinary men, women and young adults. An estimated 3-4000 people were arrested for these illegal activities. An estimated 212 people lost their lives, 64 of whom were executed, while another 91 perished in prison or in German concentration camps. The illegal press during the German occupation of Norway has been thoroughly recorded and annotated by Hans Luihn, himself an active participant in this vital part of the Norwegian resistance movement.

The entire publication «Den frie hemmelige pressen i Norge under okkupasjonen 1940-45» (unauthorised English translation: «The free secret press in Norway during the occupation 1940-45») is available in the database.

Selected Cases: Freedom of Expression vs. National Security

In Norway, as in many other Western countries, the Cold War represented a period when the issues of freedom of expression and freedom of the press became strongly politicised. The Norwegian post World War II measures regarding surveillance and national security, Norway’s membership in NATO (1948), the pending threat of a press censorship act and the 1950 controversial Alert Bill, authorizing Government to act on threats to national security, all became central issues in heated freedom of expression-debates in the late 1940s. No less heated was the debate on public access to documents and information held by government administration, finally leading to Parliament passing the first Bill on access in 1972. The Bill, containing numerous exceptions to the rule, did not end the debate on openness and access to information. The Bill was amended in 1982 and again in 1995.

In the Cold War clashes between freedom of the press and national security, three cases in particular caused extensive public debate on the authorities’ policy on secrecy.

In 1977 the daily newspaper Arbeiderbladet disclosed the Norwegian government’s secret cooperation with USA (1959-60) of instalments in Norway of the Long Range Navigation – electronic navigation system that was part of the US atomic submarine programme Polaris. A cooperation unknown to Parliament, and clearly in violation of the non-atomic weapons policy adopted by Parliament. The government, although much of the information on Loran-C had long since been published in USA, considered prosecution of the newspaper, then ordered an inquiry into the incident. Following the decision to keep the report of the inquiry commission secret, two members of Parliament deliberately disclosed parts of the report and were consequently also threatened with impeachment. Parliament finally decided not to impeach.

Also in 1977, the weekly leftwing newspaper Ny Tid disclosed top secret Norwegian espionage in the Soviet Union during 1953 via agents in Finland. One of the journalists responsible for the disclosure also demonstrated detailed knowledge of the Norwegian Secret Service, claiming the information was systematically compiled from open sources. This was also publicly confirmed by two army officers. The public debate ran high on open and secret sources, and illegal political surveillance, and more press disclosures followed to the great embarrassment of the government. The Chief Prosecutor ordered a police action against the newspaper, and the two officers were prosecuted according to the Military Penal Code, charged with activities harmful to national security and violation of professional secrecy. The three journalists and another person involved stood trial in the County Court (Oslo), two of them charged according to the so called «spy» articles of the Penal Code. The editor demanded to be charged on account of her responsibility as an editor, but was refused. All accused were sentenced to prison for a duration between 60 days and one year, although all four received suspended sentences.

In 1983, the magazine Non Violence (original title Ikkevold) published a critical review entitled «Bomb target Norway» (original title «Bombemål Norge») concerning the position Norway de facto held in the allied atomic strategy, as compared to the non-atomic defence policy adopted by the Norwegian Parliament. In both these cases, the Chief Prosecutor brought charges against the newspapers and editors/journalists involved of activities harmful to national security. The editorial staff of Ikkevold were found guilty by the County Court (Oslo) in 1985 and sentenced to jail. The sentence was appealed to the Supreme Court and consequently annulled. However, new charges were brought against the editorial staff, and in 1986 the County Court (Oslo) once more found them guilty as charged. Finally, all were acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1987.

In the early 90s, these three cases led eventually Parliament to appoint a commission to investigate the allegations of illegal political surveillance of Norwegian citizens. The critical report, confirming that illegal surveillance had taken place, also called for measures to secure greater openness and accountability on the part of the secret service. The so called Lund-commission’s report was simultaneously presented to Parliament and published in full. (Lund-rapporten. Rapport til Stortinget fra kommisjonen som ble nedsatt for å granske påstander om ulovlig overvåkning av norske borgere. Dokument nr. 15 (1995 -96)).

Available in the database is a comprehensive list of literature written on these important and much debated cases.

Freedom of Expression: The Indigenous Sami People of Norway

The indigenous populations – or more precisely the First Peoples – of most countries have suffered a multitude of censorship-related problems, ranging from prohibition of the use of their languages to lack of opportunities and channels of expression. This is also the case of the Sami people of Norway. The First Peoples often represent a minute part of the general population of a country, in many cases much smaller than immigrated ethnic minorities. More often than not, the problems of the First People are overlooked when national freedom of expression issues are discussed. So also in Norway, where both government white-papers and state initiated support systems until the 1980s were entirely focused on enhancing the Norwegian language, literature or the press.

The native languages of the Sami people of Norway (Sweden and Finland) suffered various forms of suppression for centuries. After World War II, Norwegian authorities started a more systematic and relentless policy of assimilation of the Sami population, the benevolent aim being to force the Sami population to become truly «Norwegian». One of the measures was to prohibit the use of Sami language in schools, the Sami non-written poetry (joik) in particular prohibited, regarded as pagan, and therefore alien to the Christian foundation of the Norwegian public educational system. The Sami language was forbidden in Norwegian schools until 1958, but the right to receive education in Sami was only granted to Sami children in the law on primary education in 1988. The establishment of the Sami Parliament (Sametinget) in 1989 boosted the Sami struggle for improved opportunities and economical conditions for Sami language press, publishing and broadcasting, thus also for education and official use of the language. In 1992 the Sami language was finally adopted as Norway’s third official language.

Seen in the context of this database – Beacon for freedom of expression -, a database aimed at documenting all censored literature and newspapers through the ages -, the enduring deliberate suppression of the First Peoples languages or prohibitive conditions for publishing books or newspapers throughout the world, remains a painful fact never to be adequately recorded in all its destructive consequence. This we can only regret.

The Norwegian Constitution: Amendments of Article 100

Throughout the 20th century, and in particular during the latter half of the century, public debate has mounted on Article 100 of the Norwegian Constitution. Basically, the concerns have been related to the constant elaboration of the Penal Code, inflicting on or curtailing freedom of expression as stated in the Constitution, thus undermining the core principle of Article 100. Conflicts between the Article 100 and the Penal Code were numerous throughout the century, as illustrated above.(5) In addition, a case of prevention of racial discrimination versus freedom of expression in the late 90s, highlighted the conflict imbedded in the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Charter on Human Rights, as well as in Norwegian and international law.(6) As Article 100 explicitly protected printed material, a long lasting concern had been the lack of specific constitutional protection of non-printed media, matching the media-technological development. Another major concern was the lack of explicit protection of the right to receive and impart information, in accordance with Article 19 of the UN Charter on Human Rights.

When in 1996, a Norwegian Governmental Commission on freedom of expression was appointed by Royal Decree; the appointment was warmly welcomed, not least by the professional artist, author and press organisations and the NGO-community. The commission presented its report, Official Norwegian Report 1999: 27 «Freedom of Expression Should Take Place» – Proposal for a new Article 100 of the Constitution, to the Minister of Justice in 1999 (Original title: NOU 1999: 27 «Ytringsfrihed bør finde Sted» Forslag til ny Grunnlov § 100).

During the work of the Commission on freedom of expression, the government presented to Parliament a Bill on enhancement of the position of human rights in Norwegian law, (Lov om styrking av menneskerettighetenes stilling i norsk rett (menneskerettsloven) 1999 nr.30), that necessitated an amendment of the Norwegian Constitution, thus Article 110c now states: «The State authorities are obliged to respect and secure human rights.» (Authors note: unauthorised translation).

The core principle (1st paragraph) of the amendments proposed by the Commission on freedom of expression reads: «There shall be freedom of expression». The amendments incorporate both European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Charter on Human Rights, thus making them into Norwegian law. The full text of the 6 paragraphs is quoted below. For the complete English summary, see Chapter 12 of NOU 1999:27 «Ytringsfrihed bør finde Sted» Forslag til ny Grunnlov § 100. Further bibliographic information may be accessed through the Beacon for freedom of expression database.

Full text of amendments proposed by the Commission on freedom of expression (NOU 1999:27 Ytringsfrihed bør finde Sted» Forslag til ny Grunnlov § 100.)

1. There shall be freedom of expression.
2. No person may be held liable in law for imparting or receiving information, ideas or messages unless such liability can be justified in relation to the reasons behind freedom of expression, i.e. the seeking of truth, the promotion of democracy and the individual’s freedom to form his or her own opinions. Such legal responsibility must be clearly prescribed by law. No person may be held liable in law for the reason that a statement is untrue if it was uttered in non-negligent good faith.
3. Everyone shall be free to speak his mind frankly on the administration of the State and on any other subject whatsoever.
4. Prior censorship and other preventive measures may only be used as far as is necessary to protect children and the youth from harmful influence of moving pictures. Censorship of letters may only be implemented in institutions and by leave of a court of law.
5. Everyone has a right of access to the documents of the State and of the municipal administration and a right to be present at sittings of the courts and of administrative bodies elected by the people. The law may only prescribe such clearly defined limitations to this right as overriding considerations show to be necessary.
6. It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling an open and enlightened public debate.

This article is based on a variety of sources, a selection of which is listed below. The main sources have been the following selected :

Selected Literature

1. Beslaglagte og supprimerte skrifter by Arthur Thuesen, published in Oslo 1960
2. Beslaglagte bøker – Norge i krig 1940-45, published by AL. Biblioteksentralen in 1995.
3. Den frie hemmelige pressen i Norge under okkupasjonen 1940-45, author Hans Luihn, published by The National Library of Norway, the W.W.II Printing Collection.
4. NOU 1999:27 Ytringsfrihed bør finde Sted» Forslag til ny Grunnlov § 100 and the annex to the report, «Ytringsfrihetens historie i Norge i det 20.århundre» (The history of freedom of expression in Norway in the 20th century), authors Hans Fredrik Dahl and Henrik G. Bastiansen and «Norges internasjonale forpliktelser på ytringsfihetens område» (The international obligations of Norway in the field of freedom of expression) author Kyrre Eggen
5. Canisius, Petrus: En liten Catechismus eller kort summe på then rette Christelighe och Catholiske troo, alle Christne på thenne tijdh storlighe aff nödhen. 1580. This Catechism was published by Antonius Possevinus, then Papal envoy to Stockholm, but confiscated in 1580 by order of king Johan III as Catholic propaganda.
6. Mykle, Agnar: Sangen om den røde rubin. 1957. («The song of the red ruby») Charges was brought against Agnar Mykle. Although he was acquitted, the Court still decided to confiscate the rest of the edition of the book.
7. Henry Miller’s novel Sexus, although not published in Norway but imported by bookstores in a Danish edition, all copies of the novel were confiscated by the order of the Court. The two booksellers were found guilty of violation of the Penal Code by the County Court, although sentence was post phoned.
8. Bjørneboe, Jens: Uten en tråd (Unauthorised translation of title: «Without a stitch») 1966. After confiscation by the Public Prosecutor, the author was faced with a comprehensive indictment. Bjørneboe was sentenced to a fine of Nkr. 100, subsidiary 2 days imprisonment, and the book was suppressed.
9. In accordance with the content of the database Beacon for freedom of expression, this article only describes cases related to blasphemy, decency and political issues such as national security. Thus the numerous cases of defamation are omitted, as are censorship related to other media’s such as film.
10. Kjuus, the leader of the radical right wing party «White Election Alliance» (Hvit valgallianse) were charged in accordance with the Penal Code Article 135a prohibiting racial discrimination for , and sentenced to 30 days prison by the County Court (Oslo). The majority of the Supreme Court upheld the sentence (1997).The case was appealed to the European Human Rights Court but turned down.

Peru

Pedro Guibovich
Columbia University

Vigilance over the dissemination of forbidden books was one of the most important tasks of the American inquisitorial tribunals. The means that the Inquisition of Lima practised in order to accomplish this task were the same as in Spain. However, their results were far from their purposes. The aim of this text is to comment on the means by which the Inquisition of Lima tried to control the circulation of forbidden books as well as to describe factors which restricted inquisitorial censorship in the Peruvian viceroyalty between 1570 and 1820.

The Lima Inquisition and Book Censorship, 1570-1820:
Study and Annotated Bibliography

The establishment of the Inquisition in Peru in 1568 was part of a colonial political design by Philip II at the end of 1560, and its purpose was to deal mainly with the political and ideological crisis in the Peruvian viceroyalty. During the decade of 1560, religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants increased in Europe. By then, Protestantism had achieved notorious advances in regions like France and Scotland, and Geneva became the main centre for the spread of Calvinist ideas. The Spanish authorities were not only worried about the religious situation in Europe, but also in America. The possibility that America could be invaded with ideas from protestant countries was considered a permanent threat. The inquisitorial documentation clearly reflects this preoccupation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In Peru, the situation was not totally under control. Guillermo Lohmann pointed out that the decade of 1560 was a period of deep criticism toward colonial policy in the Peruvian viceroyalty. By then many aspects of the colonial reality had been analysed and criticised not only by friars but also by jurists and bureaucrats. Also, during this period, Bartolome de Las Casas had, like few other writers, a great influence on colonial clergy. In Peru and Mexico Las Casas’s ideas were spread by Dominican friars and other men of letters. In Peru the Dominicans Tomas de San Martin and Domingo de Santo Tomas took on the defence of the Indians and their rights. In the middle of the sixteenth century, several writers criticised the moral situation of the regular and secular clergy in the viceroyalty. According to some ecclesiastical writers, not only was the clergy corrupted but so was colonial society.

For statesmen and ecclesiastics, the Peruvian viceroyalty not only had moral problems but also economic and political problems; the decline of the Indian labour force, the decrease of Indian tributes and mining production, the deterioration of state authority, etc. In 1568, at a meeting in Madrid, all these problems were analysed. That year, under the direction of the King and other famous statesmen, colonial problems were discussed and several agreements were taken in order to re-establish authority and control in the Peruvian territory. The agents of the new colonial policy designed by Philip II and the Junta of 1568 were Francisco de Toledo and the inquisitors. The sphere of action of Toledo was policy, economy and society; the inquisitors had as a main task the ideological and moral control of colonial society.

Controlling the diffusion of unorthodox ideas among the members of colonial society meant avoiding the diffusion of books considered forbidden or ideologically dangerous. How should this attitude toward the book be understood? The invention of the printing press was celebrated by European humanists. The new invention allowed the reproduction of books and diffusion of ideas. It was during the Protestant Reformation that the printing press acquired a very important role in the diffusion of ideas. Reformers like Luther, Calvin, and Bucer used the printing press as their main means of discussion and debate.

In Spain and other catholic monarchies, the fear of the diffusion of heresy determined the creation of mechanisms of control over books. According to some authors, the book was as dangerous as a «mute heretic.» There were two kinds of censorship of books: one under control of the State and another practised by the Inquisition. In order to establish control, the Spanish state was the only institution that gave authorisation for publishing books.

From the middle of the sixteenth century inquisitorial censorship had more importance than state censorship. The Inquisition had to control the importation of books by institutions and persons. Periodically, the Holy Office sent its officers to ports to examine ships and luggage. Also the officers’ Inquisition practised visits to libraries and bookstores, inspecting presses, and publishing edicts and catalogues. When the Inquisition was established in Peru, this system of control over books already had been in existence for more than one decade in Spain.

The oldest measure concerning control over circulation of books by the Inquisition of Lima is in the instructions given by cardinal Espinosa to inquisitors of Peru in 1569. The cardinal gave these rules to follow in order to control entry of forbidden books by ports as well as the diffusion of them among viceroyalty population:

You will be very careful in publishing the bans of the bibles and the catalogue of the censored books that you have received, and in collecting all of the ones included in it, decreeing that in the seaports the commissaries be very careful in seeing and examining the books introduced to these provinces so that none of the censored ones shall enter; ordering to the said commissaries that they often inform us regarding this matter because being this affair of the quality and substance it is, it will be imperative that in its compliance and execution there be full observance so that by this means no wrongful doctrine shall enter to those kingdoms, proceeding with severity and wariness against those found guilty.

Besides port commissaries, there was another group of persons who had as a main task doctrinally to evaluate the defendant’s propositions or those unorthodox ideas found in books or manuscript texts: these men were called calificadores (qualifiers). The opinions of these calificadores were more important because from these the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition in Madrid (or Council of the Supreme Inquisition) elaborated their own opinions and provided necessary measures to avoid the diffusion of ideas considered heretical.

During the last decades of the sixteenth century, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition in Madrid sent to the inquisitors of Peru several letters warning of the danger of the diffusion of forbidden books. By then there was a belief that the Protestants, with the aid of some Spaniards, constantly threatened the orthodoxy of the Catholic faith among the population. In order to spread their ideas, according to Spanish inquisitors, the Protestants used audacity and imagination. In 1581, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition wrote to the inquisitors of Lima that the King had received news that the Spanish inspector of foreign ships did not do his task in an appropriate way to discover heretical books on board these ships. The Council of the Supreme Inquisition recommended special attention be paid to sailors’ beds and chests where books were usually hidden.

Furthermore, denunciation of books was encouraged by the Tribunal by means of the annual reading of the Edict of Faith. In this document believers were compelled, under threat of excommunication, to denounce those that

have had and have books of the sect and opinions of the said Martin Luther and his followers or the Koran and other books of the sect of Mahomet or bibles in romance or any other books of the ones reproved by the censorship and catalogues decreed and published by the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

Another measure of control was the inspection over the purchase and distribution of books. A Carta acordada of 1605 ordered inquisitors of Lima to request from booksellers an inventory of their books. The name of author, printer, date and place of printing, and number of volumes of work had to be registered in the document. These inventories had to be examined by censors and other persons selected by the Holy Office, who could suggest collection of those books considered ideologically dangerous. In the same Letter, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition noted that when the merchants, printers, and booksellers received new books they had to add them to the inventory and show them to the Tribunal. Also, when they sold books they had to note in those inventories who the buyers were.

In 1627 by means of another Carta acordada, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition ordered the inquisitors of Lima to notify the Lima booksellers that when they were called to place values on libraries, they had to separate all forbidden books and give a list of them to inquisitors.

Private and institutional libraries were to be examined by officials of the Holy Office. In 1619 the Lima inquisitors received from the Council of the Supreme Inquisition an order for visiting libraries of the city.

Indexes of forbidden books were another means of control. They appeared in order to avoid the diffusion of Protestant literature. The first Indexes were published at the beginning of the sixteenth century by order of Roman ecclesiastical authorities. Then during the development of Protestant reform, some Catholic universities encouraged the publication of Indexes. In Spain, the publishing of Indexes was always associated with inquisitorial action. Indexes contained long lists of works considered heretical or ideologically dangerous by Catholic theologians. Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Ecolampadio, among others, were recognised like «heretical damnatus» in these kinds of texts. In addition to the Indexes, there were Catalogos Expurgatorios (Expurgatory Catalogues) that did not forbid works but rather sentences or parts within certain works.

During its first decades, the main problem of the Tribunal of Lima was lack of officials. This situation was in part a product of the requirements needed to be a member of the Holy Office. If a person wanted to be an official, he had to carry out an informaciones de limpieza de sangre in Spain in order to demonstrate that he did not have any Jews, Moors, or persons convicted by the Inquisition among his ancestors. The informaciones were long and expensive. Because of the Lima inquisitors need to have officials, they did not respect the rule and gave appointments as temporary ministers to some people.

Another problem was the lack of economic resources. During the sixteenth century the Crown economically supported, at least in part, the Tribunal of Lima. A royal decree of 1569 ordered that state officials give 10,000 pesos to the Inquisition for paying the salaries of inquisitors, prosecutors, and secretaries. The rest of the Tribunal’s expenses had to be covered by selling confiscated goods. The inquisitor Cristobal de Bustamante in a letter to the Council of the Supreme Inquisition, dated in 1572, stated that six months before by order of the inquisitors he went to the port of Callao with a familiar to inspect ships from Panama and Mexico. In this task, according to him, one had much work without help because there were not enough resources, Bustamante was a notary of confiscations and in his letter he protested that visiting ships was not his duty.

Lack of calificadores was another problem in the Peruvian Inquisition in the sixteenth century. In 1587 the inquisitors Antonio Gutierrez de UlIoa and Juan Ruiz de Prado said that in the Holy Office there were only two calificadores. Seven years later, the inquisitor Pedro Ordonez expressed the same complaints. According to him, the Tribunal of Lima had only two calificadores, the Jesuits Juan Sebastian and Esteban de Avila. But since Sebastian was always visiting the Jesuit province, it was necessary to appoint another one or two more to decide when there were different opinions. Also, the inquisitor wanted three or four calificadores to examine serious cases.

As previously stated, Indexes and Expurgators were important tools in the censorship. However, the Tribunal of Lima almost never had enough copies of Indexes and Expurgators. In 1575, the inquisitors Servando de Cerezuela and Antonio Gutierrez de UlIoa reported to the Council of the Supreme Inquisition that in order for the port commissaries to have enough Indexes and Expurgators, it was necessary to send three or four dozen of such texts. They said that to reprint them in Peru was impossible because of the high cost.

During the seventeenth century, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition published four Indexes-Expurgators (1612, 1614, 1632 and 1640). But the majority of these texts had a sparse diffusion in Peru. Regarding the Index of 1632, in 1634 the inquisitors said that they had not known about the publication of such a text until some of them appeared among Lima booksellers. According to their version, one Saturday a Jesuit told them that he had a box with Indexes for the Inquisition.

Not only did they have problems in the distribution of Indexes and Expurgators, but also some confusion about when the inquisitors had to publish them. In 1645 the inquisitors said that they had not published the Edict which authorised the Index of 1640 because they had not received any order from the Council of the Supreme Inquisition.

Interruption of publication of the Edict of Faith was another problem which hindered book censorship. Between 1646 and 1654, it was not possible to read the Edict of Faith because of ceremonial conflict between the Tribunal and the City Council. The latter wanted to have pre-eminence over the Tribunal in public ceremonies. In the second half of the seventeenth century another ceremonial conflict between the Tribunal and the Cathedral Chapter produced interruption in the promulgation of the Edict from 1669 to 1680.

Also alterations in communications between Spain and America could influence inquisitorial activity. In the colonial period the communication system was subject to many vicissitudes. Storms, pirate attacks, and shipwrecks interfered with relationships on both sides of the Atlantic, and produced administrative problems in colonial institutions. As a consequence of pirate attacks in 1624 and 1625, the inquisitorial correspondence sent from Spain never arrived in Lima. In 1673, the inquisitors requested copies of Cartas acordadas from the Council of the Supreme Inquisition because many of them had been lost. One year after, in 1674, the inquisitors requested new copies of Cartas acordadas and if necessary, they offered to pay a copyist. In 1688, the Peruvian inquisitors made a similar request because three boxes with letters had arrived totally rotted. Finally, the inquisitor Francisco Valera, in 1693, expressed his discouragement about the problems produced by the loss of correspondence as a consequence of a pirate attack. According to him, the Tribunal had not received documentation from the Council of the Supreme Inquisition since 1690.

Geography also imposed limitations on inquisitorial work. When in 1569 the Inquisition was established in Peru, the Tribunal’s district ranged from Panama to Chile and Rio de La Plata. The district under inquisitors’ authority coincided with Peruvian viceroyalty territory; this situation remained until 1610, when the Tribunal of Inquisition in Cartagena de Indies was created. In spite of the creation of the Tribunal of Cartagena of Indies at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Tribunal of Lima’s district was large. Indeed, the Council of the Supreme Inquisition did not have an exact idea about American geographical reality. In 1661 the Supreme ordered that all port commissaries had to send confiscated forbidden books and manuscripts to Lima. According to its order, the Receiver of the Inquisition had to pay for them. But in another letter written in 1662, the inquisitors Cristobal de Castilla y Zamora and Alvaro de Ibarra said that they tried to do «what was possible» since that district was large, distances were extensive, and the inquisitorial Hacienda could not pay for everything. They said commissaries who lived near Lima usually sent books to the Tribunal but others had problems doing the same since they lived far from the capital of the viceroyalty.

The Tribunal of Lima not only had economic, institutional, and administrative difficulties, but also internal personal problems. Inquisitorial documentation shows us an institution beset with many personal conflicts. Inquisitors, prosecutors, notaries, secretaries, commissaries and other ministers fought among themselves for economic and political reasons. They seemed like men interested in their own matters, which prevailed over the Tribunal’s interests.

Indeed, the factors described above influenced inquisitorial activity, in particular its censorship of books. Some evidence seems to demonstrate that control measures were not effective enough to avoid the diffusion of forbidden books and manuscripts. During the seventeenth century, Lima, «The City of the Kings», was the most important commercial center in South America. Writers like Pedro de Leon Portocarrero, the Jesuit Bernabe Cobo and the friar Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa left us testimonies on the population and the commerce in the capital of the Peruvian viceroyalty. The Viceroy, the Audiencia, the Archbishop, the Provincials of religious orders, and other civil and religious authorities lived there. This situation attracted intellectuals, artisans, merchants, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians, adventurers, printers, and booksellers. From the end of the sixteenth century, Lima was the most important market of books in South America. From Lima books were sent to Chile and Upper Peru. By the middle of the seventeenth century, almost a dozen booksellers worked in Lima. There it was possible to find many books printed in Europe. The private and convent libraries were rich and large. Because Lima was a very important market of books it was difficult to adequately censor it, the control of the diffusion of forbidden books was not always possible for the Inquisition.

In 1652, the Franciscan Juan Valero, who was one of the calificadores of the Tribunal of Lima, denounced that the district of that Inquisition had not been visited since 1626 and that forbidden books circulated in Lima. After receiving information from Valero, in 1653 the Council of the Supreme Inquisition ordered inspection of private and convent libraries in Lima and other cities of the Peruvian viceroyalty. The task was the responsibility of qualifiers, who had to confiscate forbidden books as well as those which required expurgation, and to store them at the secreto of the Tribunal. Also, qualifiers had to do an inventory of collected books with the owners’ names, in order to return them to their owners after they had «corrected» them. To expurgate books, qualifiers had to use the Expurgatory of 1640. But a year later, the inquisitors told the Council of the Supreme Inquisition that they had received its order and appointed as a visitor of libraries in Lima the Augustinian friar Fernando de Valverde, who was qualifier of the Tribunal. For inspection of convent libraries, friars of each order would be appointed. But, at the same time, they complained that they had only one copy of the Expurgator of 1640, and that they needed many copies in order to deliver them among convents and provincial commissaries.

Between 1569 and 1700, the Inquisition did not prosecute readers of forbidden books. This situation was strange, moreover, in a city where it was possible to find almost any kind of text. The lack of trials can be attributed to the weaknesses of the inquisitorial control system.

During most of the Eighteenth century, the censorial activity of the Peruvian Inquisition became a routine practice. However, in the last quarter of that century that situation changed because of the French Revolution. The new ideas from the French Enlightenment were considered dangerous for the social and religious order by the Spanish Crown. In order to avoid the spreading of the new ideas, the State commissioned particularly the Holy Office to reinforce the censorship system as well as punish the readers of forbidden books. Between 1789 and 1820, the inspection of books in commerce and sea ports was more effective, and many forbidden books were confiscated. In the same period, intellectuals like Jose Baquijano y Carrillo, Manuel Lorenzo Vidaurre, and Hipolito Unanue had to face inquisitorial proceeding for reading works written by Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu and other «French Philosophers». However, in spite of having State support, inquisitorial censorship proved not to be effective.

Like other inquisitorial tribunals in Spain, the Holy Office in Peru had among its duties control over the diffusion of forbidden books. However lack of officials and qualifiers, economic resources, and enough Indexes and Expurgators; the interruption in the publication of Edicts of the Faith; the alterations in communications between Spain and the Peruvian viceroyalty; the difficult American geography; and the internal personal conflicts in the Tribunal caused problems in the control over the diffusion of forbidden books between 1569 and 1820. In spite of the Tribunal’s efforts, unorthodox 1iterature was known among colonial society.

An Annotated Bibliography

A general study on the inquisitorial censorship of books in Colonial Peru needs to be done given the existing ideas about the role of the Inquisition. Nineteenth century Peruvian historians held that the Inquisition was the most pernicious institution of the colonial world and one that tended to make that colonial world backward and isolated from all the important currents in Western European thought. Thus Mariano Felipe Paz Soldan (1868) attributed the customs controls of the «infernal» Inquisition to the scarce circulation of Enlightenment literature in the Peruvian viceroyalty. In 1894 Javier Prado held a similar thesis about the powerful negative impact of the Holy Office. In the same line of thinking, there are two twenty century authors, Felipe Barreda y Laos (1909) and Luis Alberto Sanchez (1973), who emphasised the repressive character of the Holy Office on intellectuals.

It was only in the 1930s that one of the aspects of the Black Legend on the colonial culture, the non-existence of forbidden books, was questioned by Jose Torre Revello (1940) and Irving Leonard (1992). As historians and literary critics, both authors were interested in studying the dissemination of books in the colonial period. From their researches in American and Spanish archives, they demonstrated that, for example, many chivalry novels, explicitly a forbidden genre, crossed the Atlantic and circulated in Colonial America from an early time of Spanish colonisation.

As Torre Revello and Leonard, Jose Toribio Medina (1887, 1890, 1899, 1914) was a great researcher of colonial literature. In order to collect information to reconstruct the literary history of colonial Chile, Medina began to study the documentation of the American Inquisition. He built a history of the Holy Office from a gloss of documents. With the Chilean historian, modern historiography on the institution was born. In his work, the subject of censorship for the late eighteenth century is dealt with thoroughly. In this way, Medina responded to a particular concern of the historians of his generation, interested in demonstrating the spreading of Enlightenment literature in the sunset of the colonial regime. This literature provided the ideological and doctrinaire elements of the American revolution. In that cultural context, the flow of revolutionary texts could not be stopped by inquisitorial controls.

With his study of the inquisitorial censorship in the late colonial period, Medina inaugurated a new research trend valid until today. Indication of that perspective is seen by the number of studies dedicated to that age. For example, on the period of Bourbon Reforms we find valuable information in the works of Lea (1908) and Lewin (1967). A good work of synthesis has been written by Millar (1984), which analyses the trials of forbidden book readers. Among those readers were Jose Baquijano y CarrilIo and Manuel Lorenzo Vidaurre, whose proceedings have been studied by Marticorena (1951), Burkholder (1980), and Lohmann (1950). As there were offenders, there were also collaborators as in the case of Hipolito Unanue; the accidental relationship between the famous Peruvian intellectual and the Tribunal has been studied by Guibovich (1988).

In comparison to the bibliography of the late colonial period, the studies on the censorship during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are scarce. For the initial period of functioning of the Tribunal, there is an essay dedicated to the Augustinian censor (or calificador) Juan de Almaraz by Guibovich (1989a). Concerned with the seventeenth century, there are two essays: one dedicated to the proceeding of the Augustinian Bartolome Badillo by Guibovich (1989) and another on the prohibition of Pedro Mexia de Ovando’s La Ovandina by Rodriguez Monino (1959).

BARREDA Y LAOS, Felipe
1909 Vida intelectual de la colonia (Educacion, Filosofia y Ciencias). Ensayo Historico critico. Lima; Imprenta «La Industria».

Written as doctoral thesis for San Marcos University, this text was the first survey on the intellectual culture in colonial Peru. Its perspective of analysis is strongly influenced by the Black Legend on the colonial period, predominant trend in the Peruvian scholarly milieu at the beginning of the XX century.

BURKHOLDER, Mark
1980 Politics of a Colonial Career. Jose Baquijano and the Audiencia of Lima. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.

GUIBOVICH PEREZ, Pedro
1988 «Unanue y la Inquisicion de Lima», Historica (Lima), XII-1, July, p.49-59.

1989 «Inquisicion y control ideologico; el Sermon de fray Bartolome Badillo sobre los teologos del Peru (1624)», Revista Teologica Limense (Lima), 3, p.296-303.

1989a «Fray Juan de Almaraz, calificador de la Inquisicion de Lima (siglo XVI)», Cuadernos para la historia de 1a evangelizacion en America Latina (Cuzco), 4, p.31-44.

LEA, Henry Charles
1908 The Inquisition in the Spanish dependencies: Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, Milan, The Canarias, Mexico, Peru, New Granada. New York; The Macmillan Co.

General work on the Holy Office tribunals of the Spanish monarchy. The chapter dedicated to Lima Tribunal is really excellent. To write his work, Lea consulted Medina’s books and many sources from the Archivo Nacional, in Lima, Peru, and the Archivo General de Simancas, in Spain. The author particularly focuses on book censorship in the late colonial period.

LEONARD, Irving A.
1992 Books of the Brave: being an account of books and of men in the Spanish Conquest and the settlement of the sixteenth-century New World. Ed. by Rolela Adorno. Berkeley: University of California Press.

LEVIN, Boleslao
1967 La Inquisicion en Hispanoamerica: judios, protestantes y patriotas. Buenos Aires: Paidos.

Levin is author of different polemical essays on the activity of the Holy Office in colonial South America. In this text, the author not only studies the inquisitorial book censorship in the late colonial period but also reproduces valuable documents from Argentine archives.

LOHMANN. Guillermo
1950 «Manuel Lorenzo Vidaurre y la Inquisicion de Lima. Notas sobre la evolucion de las ideas politicas en el virreinato peruano a principios del siglo XIX», Mar del Sur (Lima), 18, July-August, p.104-113.

MATCORENA, Miguel
1951 «La proscripcion del ‘Elogio’ de Baquijano y Carrillo», Mar del Sur (Lima), 18, p.95-101.

MEDINA, Jose Toribio
1887 Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion de Lima (1569-1820). Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Gutemberg, 2v.

1890 Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion en Chile. Santiago de Chile: Imp. Ercilla, 2v.

1899 El Tribunal del Santo Oficio de 1a Inquisicion en 1as provincias del Rio de 1a Plata. Santiago de Chile: Imp Elzeviriana.

1899 Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de 1a Inquisicion de Cartagena de 1as Indias. Santiago de Chile: Imp. Elzeviriana,

1914 La Primitiva Inquisicion americana. Santiago de Chile: Imp. Elzeviriana.

MILLAR, Rene
1984 «La Inquisicion de Lima y la circulacion de libros prohibidos (1700-1820)», Revista de Indias (Madrid), 174, p.415-444.

PALMA, Ricardo
1863 Anales de 1a Inquisicion de Lima (Estudio Historico). Lima: Tip. de Aurelio Alfaro.

To write this work, Palma consulted numerous manuscripts, and prints in Lima archives and libraries. The Anales is a literary text. Palma himself considered it as another of his «tradiciones», a fictional recreation of the colonial period.

PICON SALAS, Mario
1962 A Cultural History of Spanish America from Conquest to Independence. Berkeley; University of California Press.

PRADO UGARTECHE, Javier
[1894] 1941 El estado social del Peru durante la dominacion espanola (Estudio Historico-sociologico). Lima: Imprenta Gil.

This text was the discourse pronounced by Prado in 1889 at the beginning of the academic year at San Marcos University. It is the most outstanding sample of the Black Legend on the colonial culture.

RODRIGUEZ MOÑINO, Antonio
1959 «Pedro Mexia de Ovando, cronista de linajes coloniales. Andanzas inquisitoriales de la Ovandina (1621-1626)», in Relieves de erudicion (De Amadis a Goya). Estudios literarios y bibliograficos. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, p.229-256.

Study on the famous process against Pedro Mexia de Ovando’s work. It publishes the reports («calificaciones») written by the inquisitorial qualifiers.

SANCHEZ, Luis Alberto
1973 La Literatura peruana. Derrotero para una historia cultural del Peru. Lima: P. L.Villanueva.

General survey on the development of Peruvian literature since the colonial periods. In spite of its traditional perspective of analysis and lack of documental support, it contains some interesting ideas.

TORRE REVELLO, Jose
1932 «Libros procedentes de expurgos en poder de la Inquisicion de Lima en 1813», Boletin del Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas (Buenos Aires), XV-54, October-December, p.329-351.

The author reproduces an inventory of forbidden books collected by the Holy Office in the final period of its existence. It is an excellent source to know the kind of literature read by Lima readers.

1940 La Imprenta, el libro y el periodismo en America durante 1a dominacion española. Buenos Aires.

An excellent study of the history of books and printing presses in Colonial Latin America. Valuable documents are reproduced in the Appendix.

Censored publications in Peru
Literature on censorship and freedom of expression in Peru

Republic of Lithuania

Banned literature and newspapers

Specific period: The first year of the Soviet occupation 15.6.1940-21.6.1941 of Lithuania

Censoring body: GLAVIT (The Supreme Board of Publishing and Literature, Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR)

Background

The history of censorship in Lithuania represents a mirror-reflection of this Baltic state’s long and turbulent struggle for independence, finally successful in 1991 when Lithuania attained full independence from the Soviet Union.

From 1864 to 1905 Lithuania belonged to the Russian Empire and was subject to extensive «Russification» with great consequences for national publishing and the press. The prohibitive regulations (1864-1904) imposed by the tsar administration, made printing in the Latin alphabet forbidden. All Lithuanian books were ordered to be published in Cyrillic. However, Lithuanian books using the Latin alphabet were being printed abroad during this period. Altogether 1740 titles of books in a total of 7.8 million copies were published. About half a million copies (8-10 %) were confiscated by the Russian administration. (Source: Vobra R. in «Lietuviskos spaudos draudimas, 1864-1904 metais» – Vilnius, 1996 (The prohibition of Lithuanian press 1984- 1904).

Lithuania was occupied by Germany in 1918, during which time the Lithuanians proclaimed an independent state. But in early 1919 the Soviet army occupied Lithuania’s capitol Vilnius and installed a Soviet government. Following strong Lithuanian resistance, the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with Lithuania in 1920. Lithuania’s fragile independence ended in June 1940, when the country once more was occupied by the Soviet army and now incorporated into the U.S.S.R. Strict Soviet censorship of the Lithuanian press was installed during the very first days of the occupation, and all national or foreign publications considered to be harmful to the Communist party and to the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Stalin were censored or destroyed. In 1941, the Soviet rulers began large-scale deportations, affecting some 35,000 Lithuanians.

In 1941 Nazi Germany occupied Lithuania, disbanded the Lithuanian provisional government that refused to serve as administrative agent for the occupants, and installed a German occupation regime. Lithuania was subject to the same stern censorship that Nazi Germany imposed on all occupied countries. During the German occupation (1941-44), Lithuania suffered terrible human losses, estimated at roughly 250,000 people, mostly from the Jewish community, which was almost entirely exterminated.

In 1944 Lithuania was reoccupied once more by the Soviet army, and once more subjected to strict censorship. As during the 1940 Soviet occupation, Lithuanian writers were compelled to follow the communist line. Post-war Lithuania suffered extensive repression and Russification, and the clamp down on cultural life was severe. Some 220,000 Lithuanians were deported to Siberia and Central Asia during 1947-49.

However, the organised armed resistance was resilient, lasting until the late 1950s. Remarkably strong was also the illegal publishing. Lithuania produced more illegal publications (samizdat) during the 1970s per capita than any other Soviet republic. The most prominent samizdat periodical, The Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, first published in 1972, outlasted the regime.

In 1990 Lithuania declared its independence from the U.S.S.R. Political independence and international recognition came in the aftermath of the failed coup in Moscow in August 1991. Lithuania’s constitution was adopted in 1992.

The comprehensive Soviet censorship system in occupied Lithuania

Source: Silvija Velaviciene, Head of the Department of Lithuanian Publications. National Library of Lithuania

The banning and destroying of books, serials and other publications were carried out by the Central Literature and Publishing Board for the Preservation of Military and State Secrets within the structure of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR, known as Glavlit, the abbreviation of the Russian version of the institution. The grounds of censorship were political, and censorship was carried out along four main lines; closure of all periodicals currently published in the Republic of Lithuania, suspension of printing of books due to be published, prohibition of all import of books from foreign countries except the USSR, and by scrutiny of all previously published material. If a publication was deemed harmful to the Soviet regime, the publication was placed in special collections of strictly limited access.

Special collections were only established in a few Lithuanian libraries. Otherwise publications were merely destroyed. On June 21 1941, Glavlit reported that 1,118,542 books had been withdrawn and 42,515 kg of publications were destroyed (Source: Sinkevicius J. Uzdrausti autoriai ir leidiniai: pirmieji sovietin6s okupacijos metai, 1940.06.15- 1941.06.21.-Vilnius, 1994).

During the years of 1944-1956, Glavlit had withdrawn and destroyed a staggering total of 7,343,683 copies of publications. In 1945 alone, 3,741,233 publications were withdrawn, while 3,092,568 publications were destroyed. (Source: Vilnonyte V. Knygu naikinimas Lietuvoje 1944-1956 metais = destruction in Lithuania in 1944-1956 Lietuvos biblioteka fondu istorija XX amziuje: teminis mokslo darbu rinkinys. Vilnius. p. 37-41).)

Books owned by arrested and deported people were destroyed on the spot, thus a large amount of banned books was never noted in official Glavlit reports. Sometimes the book-owners, in fear of repression, destroyed their private collections themselves. The system of destroying so called «anti-Soviet» information or confining books to collections of restricted access, continued until 1989, when the special departments of restricted access were abolished. Many works of Lithuanian writers and scientists, as well as books by T. Venclova, S.T. Kondrotas, K. Eringis, were removed from the library collections after the authors went abroad. At present the collections of Lithuanian libraries are accessible to all users.

Content of the Beacon for Freedom of Expression

The database contains the complete list of banned publication during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania 1940-41, published 1994 by the National Library of Lithuania in the series of publications on Lithuanian libraries; historical sources and historical research: «Forbidden Authors and Publications, The first years of the Soviet occupation 15.6.1940 -21.6.1941«, by Klemensas Sinkevicius. (Original title: Uzdrausti autoriai ir leidiniai: pirmieji sovietinos okupacijos metai, 1940.06.15- 1941.06.21. Klemensas Sinkevicius . Vilnius, 1994)

The author Sinkevicius notes by 28.05.1940, Glavlit agents had inspected 71 libraries and 52 bookshops. No information is available on how many libraries and shops were inspected by local organizations’ committees. The summary list is based on the reports from 29 inspected sites, of which 13 were state public libraries, 4 – school libraries, 7 – private and organizations’ libraries, 5 – bookshops. 14 of these documents are signed by Glavlit agents.

The lists of the withdrawn publications contain books in the Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, German, Hebrew and other languages. However, only the books that were published in Lithuanian are included into the summary list.

Methods used for making the summary list

Library inspection documents were usually drawn up in haste, and inspectors’ bibliographical skills were often lacking. Persons who were carrying out the inspection – library employees, members of local organizations’ committees and Glavlit agents – had no common criteria for making lists of withdrawn publications. They included the information that they considered important, often shortened book titles, confused editors with authors and made grammatical mistakes. Obviously, in order to make a summary list, the data of the documents had to be checked against some other identified bibliographical sources.

Full national bibliography of all the printed material of pre-Soviet years does not exist. Therefore, bibliographical publications of that time had to be used for the identification (bibliographical magazines «Knygos», «Bibliografijos zinios»; «Lietuvisku knygu sisteminis katalogas» by I. Kisinas etc.). Use was made of the catalogues of the largest Lithuanian libraries (National Library, Vilnius University library, library of the Academy of Sciences).

The few publications that failed identification attempts are included into the summary list for two reasons: 1) they provide some information about the character and subjects of censored literature and 2) they might be identified in future.

The summary list is made up of 2034 titles of books and periodicals which were to be withdrawn – or, actually, got withdrawn – from 29 libraries and bookshops: totally more than 4000 copies. From the statistical point of view, the number of the withdrawn publications which are identified is small in comparison to the total amount of destroyed literature. The inspection reports from various libraries indicate that a large part of the withdrawn literature is identical throughout all the places were those inspections were carried out. That allows us to draw general conclusions about what types of publications were censured, and what kinds of content and geographical area of publication the censorship was aimed at.

From the total number of 2034 entries, 1905 are the titles of books, and 129 – of periodicals; i.e. periodicals make up 6,3 per cent of the total amount.

The largest percentage of withdrawn literature had been published within Lithuanian borders (in Vilnius, Klaipeda, and Kaunas). Only 10 per cent of the entries in the summary list (200) are titles of books and periodicals that had been published abroad (Brookline, Tilsit, Riga). A bit less than 100 of the withdrawn books and periodicals (around 5 per cent) had been published before 1918, i.e. before the declaration of Lithuanian independence.

The largest part of the withdrawn literature (31 %) had religious content. Fiction and youth literature, which contained quite a large amount of religious poetry, short stories and novels, make up 29 % of the total amount. 16 % of the publications were withdrawn either because they were considered to be «hostile to Marxism and SSSR» or because they dealt with issues of Lithuanian history and politics.

The remaining 24 % are various scientific literatures. Those are works of a very wide thematic scale: education and child upbringing (first and foremost concerning scout movement), sciences of law and warfare (especially concerning the Lithuanian army, its regulations etc.), economy and cooperative system, arts, sports, and other issues that were antithetical to the idea of totalitarianism.

Notes by Klemensas Sinkevicius are translated by Ingrida Melaikatie Mytting.

References:

Publications banned in 1940-1941 in Lithuania.

Publications in English relevant to censorship and freedom of expression in Lithuania

Publications in other languages relevant to censorship and freedom of expression in Lithuania

Russia

Mette Newth
Oslo 2002

Forbidden Books and Newspapers

Specific period: 19th and 20th century

A brief summary of the history of censorship in Russia in 19th and 20th century

Censorship reforms began in Russia in a single decade of tolerance (1855-1865) during the reign of Tsar Alexander II, when transition was made from legislation on pre-censorship to the punitive system based on legal responsibility. The press then enjoyed greater freedom. But censorship laws were re-imposed in 1866, in effect reversing the reform. Only half a century later, pre-censorship was abrogated in the law of 1905 – 1906. Finally all censorship was abolished by the Temporary Government on April 1917. This freedom was however short lived, as the decrees only were in force until October 1917. Following the formal separation of church and state in 1918, a new, long and extensive era of strict censorship began, now executed by the revolutionary rulers of the USSR, lasting until the end of the 1980s.

In 1922, the central censorship office was established, known for short as Glavlit. Aiming to purge the Soviet society of all expressions regarded as destructive to the new order and contagious to the minds of people, the Glavlit had absolute authority to subject the performing arts and all publications to preventive censorship, and suppress political dissidence by shutting down «hostile» newspapers (1). The strict authority and meticulous practice of Glavlit covered not only the USSR but also all Soviet occupied countries.

The first publications documenting the history of Russian censorship appeared in the 1860s during the reform of censorship laws, primary initiated by the authorities. Thus Historical Information on Censorship in Russia, attributed to the author P. Schebalsky, was published in 1862 by order of the Minister of Public Education, based on the complete collection of laws and documents from the archives of the Censorship Department and the Ministry of Public Education, and covering the period from Peter the Great until 1862. The first government publications were printed in limited editions and subjected to restricted access, but public interest and press debate on the subject of censorship reform stimulated publication of various aspects of the history of Russian censorship, such as in the Russian Archives and Russian Antiquities. Based on these publications, A. Skabichevsky published Essays about History of Russian Censorship in 1892. The book became a great success among the progressive reading public, but its very popularity caused the censorship authorities to ban the Essays from public libraries.

In connection with the 1905 celebration of the 200-anniversary of the Russian Press, a series of books were published devoted to the history of Russian censorship, as well as a number of articles on the history of censorship in Western Europe and Russia until the 20th century. (2) In 1971 the Union Catalogue of Russian Illegal and Forbidden Publications of the 19th Century was published. A second expanded edition of the catalogue was published in 1981 – 1982, containing the indexed collections of more than 75 libraries, archives and museums. (3) The dissolution of the USSR and the new Russian Press Law of 1990 have spurred publication of new works on the history of censorship, and libraries in Moscow and St. Petersburg have organised several conferences and exhibitions devoted to the history of censorship.

Censorship in Imperial Russia: 19th and pre-revolution 20th century

The National Library of Russia, custodians of a Secret Department until 1917, today holds collections such as The Free Russian print collections (app. 15,000 items) containing banned and illegal publications printed in Russia and abroad between 1853 and 1917. Further more, the library holds the complete printed records and catalogues of publications subject to censorship during the pre-revolution period. The extensive censorship of pre-revolution Russia embraced all categories of printed material in all languages of the empire, as well as Russian emigrant publications and foreign publications. The annual lists of banned books in different foreign languages, such as French, Polish and German, contain both books initially forbidden and books legally imported to Russia then banned. The total number of listed banned books, magazines and newspapers in the period1803 – 1916 is approximately 20,000 items.

Censorship in the USSR period: 1917-1988

The Russian State Library in Moscow, the former Lenin State Library, holds the largest collection of banned publications published after 1917 in Russia. The collection was kept in the Department of Special Storage, founded at the Lenin State Library in 1922 (Decree of December 14, 1921). Simultaneously, the central censorship office, Glavlit, attached to the Council of Ministers of the USSR was established. The Department of Special Storage received publications directly from Glavlit, authorised to withdraw literature from open collections and from bookstores.

Initially, the collection was modest, containing mainly religious, anti-Bolshevist and anti-Leninist publications. The collection soon grew, following internal party conflicts of the 20s and 30s and the Stalin purges. The majority of banned books were written by persons who were purged during the reign of Stalin. Also publications deemed to contain other «defects»; such as a preface written by a purged political figure or a photograph of the same person, or quotations from his or her works. Also minute «defects» in seemingly quite innocent books could be placed in the closed storage.

After World War II, the Department of Special Storage began receiving foreign books and periodicals on a regular basis from Glavlit; foreign «Rossica-Sovietica», social-economic and military publications, and all literature by Russian emigrant authors, irrespective of subjects.
By 1988 when «perestroika» began, the Department of Special Storage was closed down. The collections then contained app. 27,000 Russian books, 250,000 foreign books, 572,000 issues of foreign magazines, app. 8,500 annual sets of foreign newspapers and 8,000 publications.

The collections of the Department of Special Storage, a secret to the general public and of restricted use, were never recorded in any other form than a manual catalogue card archive. All annual deposits by the Glavlit of banned foreign publications (books and magazines/newspapers) were listed. Glavlit also prepared an alphabetical index of banned Russian books. The relevant lists of banned foreign and Russian books are available at the Russian Émigré Literature Department, successor of the former Department of Special Storage.

Long-lasting censorship

Censorship in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics remains the longest lasting and most comprehensive censorship in the 20th century. In the 19th century Imperial Russia, censorship was also extensive. Russia’s long history of censorship has been well documented in numerous publications both by Russian and Western experts. However, the actual records of the vast number of books and newspapers that were subjected to strict censorship in Imperial Russia and the USSR are mainly still only accessible in special collections, Russian language manual catalogue card archive and printed lists deposited in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (pre-revolution period) and the Russian State Library in Moscow (the USSR period).

Since the end of the 1990s, both libraries have undergone formidable changes concerning information technology. They have been converting their data bases to on-line catalogues, their truly staggering general collections naturally being a first public service priority. Considering the pressing duties and limited resources of the libraries, they can hardly be expected to solely undertake the task of making publicly available the data of Russia’s long history of censorship.

Selected literature:

Historical Information on Censorship in Russia, attributed to the author P. Schebalsky, published in 1862

Essays about History of Russian Censorship, A. Skabichevsky, published in 1892.

Union Catalogue of Russian Illegal and Forbidden Publications of the 19th Century, published in 1971

List from the database: literature on censorship in the Russian Federation

List from the database: literature on censorship in the USSR.

1. In the early 1920s during the time of Lenin and Trotsky, writers and artists were granted creative freedom, provided they observed the rule of not engaging in overt political dissent. Thus the visionary Avant Garde aesthetic movement, formed already in 1915 by Russian artists having embraced the ideals of the European Modernist Movement, did survive until 1932.
2. Published in Brokgauz’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary, some time later publishing the article Censorial
3. Penalties by Bogucharsky, wherein the index of books censored and destroyed during the period of 1865 – 1902 for the first time was published.
4. The transcribed Union Catalogue, representing one major source on censorship in 19th century Russia, has been included in the «Beacon for Freedom of Expression» data base.

Resources on Censorship and Freedom of Expression

Many organizations campaign to end censorship and promote freedom of expression. The following organizations and sites are examples of valuable resources on censorship and freedom of expression.

Article 19 is a human rights organisation with a specific mandate and focus on the defence and promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide.

Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) The overall objective of IFLA/FAIFE is to raise awareness of the essential correlation between the library concept and the values of intellectual freedom.

International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) runs the world’s most comprehensive free expression information service through its daily Alerts, weekly IFEX Communiqué newsletter, free expression headlines Digest and website.

FREEMUSE – The World Forum on Music and Censorship is an independent international organisation which advocates freedom of expression for musicians and composers worldwide.

Network of Concerned Historians (NCH) wants to provide a bridge between international human rights organizations campaigning for censored or persecuted historians (and others concerned with the past) and the global community of historians.

The American Library Association – Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports from libraries, schools, and the media on attempts to ban books in communities across the USA. It compiles lists of challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship efforts that affect libraries and schools in the United States.

The File Room is a web-based censorship archive that was initiated as an artist’s project by Muntadas and originally produced by Randolph Street Gallery (a non-profit artist run center in Chicago, IL, 1979-1998).

The International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) is an association of cities around the world dedicated to the value of Freedom of Expression. Each ICORN city focuses on one writer at a time, each writer representing the countless others in hiding, in prison or silenced forever.

The Literature Police website and database are supplements to Peter D. McDonald’s book The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences, which was first published by Oxford University Press in February 2009. It is intended for anyone curious to know more about the subject and for those interested in doing further research into the vast topic of apartheid censorship.

Other relevant links

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Oslo Freedom Forum

Freedom of Information Center

Index on Censorship

PEN International

Reporters Sans Frontieres

The Free Expression Policy Project

The National Coalition Against Censorship

Censored Books: Links to Downloads & EBooks

Free eBooks by Project Gutenberg

Many books discussed in Anne Lyon Haight’s Banned Books: 387 B.C. to 1978 A.D. (1978) are available for download on this site of Project Gutenberg.

ManyBooks.NET

More than 40 banned books are downloadable as eBooks on this site, which features more than 29,000 downloadable eBooks.