Films Listed Among
Human Rights Victims
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, March 8, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Fictional gay
cowboys and a faux reporter from Kazakhstan suffered human rights abuses in 2006
as crackdowns on flesh and blood victims were extended to the Internet,
award-winning films and noted plays worldwide, the State Department says.
From the movies ''Borat'' to ''Brokeback Mountain,'' foreign governments banned
or restricted access to a variety of big and little screen entertainment as well
as live events, the State Department says.
British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen -- creator of Borat, the crass Kazakh
chronicler of the American condition -- and the gay cowboy love story that won
three Oscars were hit with what it deemed violations of freedoms of speech and
expression.
So were the ''The Da Vinci Code,'' ''The Vagina Monologues'' and even the
popular Google Earth Web site, according to the department's annual survey of
global human rights practices released this week.
Amid a litany of deadly crackdowns on dissent, extrajudicial killings, torture
and arrests, the report suggests that traditional censorship of overtly
political works of art, literature and film may be entering new territory.
Baron Cohen, who has vexed the authoritarian Kazakh government with his mocking
and rocketed to fame in the film ''Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make
Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,'' became a victim when Kazakhstan moved
against his satirical Web site.
Specifically, it took control of the registration of .kz Internet domains in
2005 and then revoked Baron Cohen's Borat domain, since relocated, because it
deemed his site offensive, the report said.
The movie depicting Borat's pseudo-documentary wanderings across the U.S. became
an unlikely hit and earned Baron Cohen a Golden Globe award. It also
generated complaints that he duped his American subjects into making racist and
sexist remarks and portrayed Kazakhs in an unflattering light.
Borat, for example, asserted that Kazakhs are addicted to horse urine, enjoy
shooting dogs, view rape and incest as respectable hobbies and are fond of
''running of the Jew'' festivals. Baron Cohen is an observant Jew.
The State Department report made no mention of the contents of the film or the
Web site but said Baron Cohen's banishment was symptomatic of repression in
Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in central Asia.
It accused the government of monitoring dissident e-mail and Internet activity,
blocking or slowing access to opposition sites and planting propaganda in
Internet chat rooms.
While Borat came under fire in Kazakhstan, Ang Lee's ''Brokeback Mountain'' was
banned in the Bahamas, where censors said it lacked public value and depicted
extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, the report said.
Eve Ensler's acclaimed feminist play ''The Vagina Monologues'' failed to pass
censors' muster in Uganda, which claimed it promoted ''unnatural sex acts,
homosexuality and prostitution,'' the department said.
The film version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel ''The Da Vinci Code'' sparked
action by government officials in at least two countries -- Egypt and Samoa --
who felt its assertions of a centuries-old cover-up of Jesus' alleged bloodline
could prompt religious unrest.
The report said Morocco, embroiled in a long dispute with Algeria over a
neighboring former Spanish colony, blocked access to the ''Google Earth''
directory of satellite imagery in 2006, apparently because it identified Western
Sahara as an autonomous entity.
Among other cultural rights violations, the State Department cited:
--Algeria, for forcing the cancellation of performances by French humorist
Djamel Debbouze, allegedly because of his position on the Western Sahara.
--Belarus, for forcing a dissident theater group into an underground venue to
stage a production of ''Techniques of Breathing in a Closed Space,'' a drama
based on accounts of torture of detainees based on testimony from the wives of
missing government foes.
--Myanmar, for barring a locally renowned comedian and critic of the military
regime, Zargana, from giving public performances or publicizing or screening a
new satirical film.
--Poland, for a court's failure to act on an appeal by artist Dorota Nieznalska,
who was convicted in 2004 of offending religious beliefs and sentenced to six
months of ''restricted freedom'' and community service for putting a photo of
male genitals on a Christian cross.
On the Net:
State Department's annual human rights report:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2006/
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