Twenty years and a political generation ago, a psychologist who studied children’s perceptions of women leaders marketed a t-shirt through her local Walmart with an empowering message: a panel from

Two decades later that psychologist, 91-year-old Ann Moliver Ruben, is looking back on the saga in wonder at how far the zeitgeist has come, regardless of one’s personal political leanings. When she licensed the Dennis the Menace panel from King Features Syndicate, Ruben had recently completed a survey of 1500 Miami elementary students which found that nearly half “believed that only men could be president.” Concerned that many girls were internalizing the message that they could not be leaders, she designed the t-shirt and sold a few hundred to one Walmart store in Miramar, Florida.

Before long, the store’s buyer pulled the shirt from the sales floor after at least one customer complaint. Ruben says she was told that “the message went against [Walmart’s] philosophy of family values,” while the store’s public statements at the time simply stated that it was “offensive to some people” and violated the chain’s corporate policy of political neutrality. The story soon spread nationwide, resulting in many more customer complaints in favor of the shirt and its message, as well as a protest by members of the American Association of University Women outside the Miramar store.

Realizing it had blundered, Walmart quickly reversed course, ordering 30,000 more shirts to stock in stores nationwide. Today, the chain’s director of corporate communications Danit Marquardt is thoroughly chagrined:

Wow, it still pains us that we made this mistake 20 years ago. We’re proud of the fact that our country — and our company — has made so much progress in advancing women in the workplace, and in society.

Today, Walmart itself employs ten women in top leadership positions, including the president and CEO of the Sam’s Club chain. In the world of politics, women from both sides of the aisle have been well within reach of the presidency, and Ruben is overjoyed that what was just a theoretical empowerment message in 1995 may soon come true. Regardless of political divisions, Walmart’s admitted overreaction now serves as an object lesson on how not to respond to a few customer complaints.

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In 2010, a Kamchatka resident was charged with “inciting hatred and enmity” and received a six-month suspended sentence for uploading a series of videos that the Russian Ministry of Justice classified as “extremist material.” Included in the set was the 8-minute Donald Duck short, which features everyone’s favorite curmudgeonly duck stuck in WWII Nazi Germany and forced to make munitions for an oppressive Fuehrer. Although recognized and used as United States anti-Nazi propaganda during WWII, the depictions of any Nazi-related materials is unacceptable according to the Russian government.

In the early 2000s, the Russian Ministry of Justice compiled the Federal List of Extremist Materials, which explicitly bans the depiction of any form of media that criticizes the Russian government or showcases Nazi symbolism or propaganda. Based on a fundamental misunderstanding about the content and context of the short, the cartoon was labeled “extremist material” and banned. Under penalty of the law, anything, including the anti-Nazi Donald Duck cartoon, on the list could not be produced, stored, or distributed in Russia.

Despite being included on the list for the past 6 years, the highest court in Kamchatka reevaluated the short and determined recently that it was in fact a satire of Nazi Germany and not a celebration of the Third Reich. “When prosecutors discovered this fact they filed a cassation with the regional court explaining that the video is a classic Walt Disney cartoon made within the framework of an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign,” notes the RT News.

They also wrote that the film contains no calls to extremism — on the contrary, it depicts Nazi ideology in satirical and mocking forms. The court agreed with this statement and also ruled that the film’s characters are not promoting violence against anyone.

This isn’t the first time that the Russian government has confused anti-Nazi materials with pro-Nazi materials. In 2015, several bookstore chains across Russia pulled copies of art spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, citing laws that prohibit the display of the most prolific Nazi symbol — the swastika.

In response to the pulling of his book, art spiegelman commented on the larger implications of such misinterpretations and laws that prohibit the publication and distribution of specific materials:

I don’t think Maus was the intended target for this, obviously. But I think [the law] had an intentional effect of squelching freedom of expression in Russia. The whole goal seems to make anybody in the expression business skittish… A tip of the hat for Victory Day and a middle finger for trying to squelch expression.

Thankfully, in the case of Donald Duck’s short, the Kamchatka courts recognized the error in their initial decision and had the cartoon pulled from the extremist materials list.

The short that offended Russian sensibilities follows, courtesy the Internet Archive.

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CBLDF yesterday signed on to a

Although the censorship campaign against optional summer reading books was initiated by other parents, it has been adopted with gusto by State Sen. Amanda Chase, who has three children enrolled in Chesterfield County Public Schools. Chase first suggested that the librarians who compiled the recommended lists should be fired and books such as Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers, and Tyrell by Coe Booth removed from school libraries altogether. Later she added that future summer reading lists should include warnings for parents on books that may be controversial. The concept is similar to a bill that passed through Virginia’s state assembly earlier this year before it wasvetoed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

The school district already caved to pressure from a vocal minority of parents and replaced this year’s lists that had been compiled by district librarians with links to third-party sites including YALSA, Scholastic, and Read Kiddo Read. But even that appeasement did not satisfy Chase; because some of the critically praised books from the original lists also appear on the third-party sites, she says that “it’s the same thing” as the district recommending those titles directly.

In the letter sent yesterday afternoon, NCAC defended the particular books that have been challenged in this case and laid out the reasons why content ratings or “red-flagging” of books is a bad idea overall. After pointing out that both the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Library Association are strongly opposed to red-flagging, NCAC explained the effect that the practice has on students’ education:

Labels such as ‘sexually explicit’ or ‘violent’ emphasize decontextualized passages and do tremendous disservice to the works they accompany by detracting from students’ understanding and appreciation of the works as a whole. They also inevitably invite demands for alternative assignments, which in turn encourage teachers to avoid selecting valuable literature that some parents might consider offensive. As the Ninth Circuit observed in Monteiro v. Tempe Union School District, supra, 158 F.3d at 1028 n.7, ‘due to the practical burdens, schools would be unlikely to choose to teach alternate works separately to students objecting to a portion of the curriculum. Instead, they would probably simply remove books that they believed to be educationally valuable, but that might be controversial, or offensive to some.’

Finally, the letter also reminded Chesterfield officials of the provisions laid out in the district’s policy on challenges to instructional materials, which begins with the complainant meeting with a principal and librarian before submitting a written form for each challenged work. If the issue is not resolved in the initial meeting, then the challenge is to proceed to a school-level review committee. If the complainant is still dissatisfied with the outcome there, then they may appeal to a district-wide review committee which makes the final recommendation. In this case, however, district officials have disregarded the challenge policy and allowed a group of parents to challenge three books at once via oral complaint at school board meetings. Illogically, a CCPS spokesman claimed that the policy does not apply simply because the complaints “were directed at the division level and not directed at a school.” NCAC’s letter warned that this practice “creates a precedent encouraging future complainants to appeal directly to the Board by-passing the need for a written complaint and school level review.”

Check out the full letter below, and stay tuned for updates!

Chesterfield Letter by betsy.gomez on Scribd

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Vendors stock manga at last year’s Hong Kong Book Fair.
Photo Ⓒ South China Morning Post / May Tse

Authorities raided the Hong Kong Book Fair just as it was wrapping up last week, seizing more than 1400 copies of 300 different titles suspected to be obscene or indecent under local law. One unidentified comic was among the books seized, but the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration has refused to provide any further details.

The raid comes at a fraught time for publishing in the semi-autonomous region, in the wake of bookseller Lam Wing Kee’s revelations that he was detained without charge for eight months on the Chinese mainland as authorities sought information on his customers and his employer, Mighty Current Books. Many Hong Kongers saw that incident as the latest breakdown in the “one country, two systems” policy to which China agreed in 1997, when the former British territory of Hong Kong returned to Chinese control. Thousands of residents turned out for pro-democracy protests a few weeks after Lam gave his testimony in a press conference.

Hong Kong has a thriving and largely unfettered publishing industry, churning out slightly scandalous books geared towards mainland Chinese citizens. Mighty Current’s offerings, for instance, include Overseas Mistresses of the Chinese Communist Party and Secrets of Wives of Chinese Communist Party Officials. Two of the books known to have been seized at the fair are Deep Web File and Deep Web 2.0 File, which spotlight illegal activity and taboo information found online, including a how-to guide for cannibalism. The author and publisher of those titles had previously agreed to a recall so the books could be reclassified as “indecent,” meaning they would be sold only to adults over 18 and in a plastic wrapper with a content warning.

In a press release on its website, the OFNAA said that it had also “received one public complaint against a comic book for sale at the Book Fair.” The unidentified comic has now been submitted to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classification. Depending on the outcome of that decision, the book could be restricted or completely banned, and the publisher could face fines ranging from $400,000-$1,000,000 and/or a prison sentence of 1-3 years.

The OFNAA is under the auspices of the Hong Kong regional government rather than China’s central government, but Simon Reichley of U.S.-based publisher Melville House pointed out in a blog post that “the Hong Kong Book Fair seizures seem to massively outpace the agency’s activities in the first half of the year,” suggesting that they may have been prompted by some outside influence. In any case, Reichley concludes, “it seems impossible that the agency is unaware of the tensions between the restrictive Chinese government and the Hong Kong publishing community.”

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Rose, who is best known for his involvement in the publication of the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, has since become a staunch advocate for free speech and defender of free press. From lectures at major institutes, to the publication of his book The Tyranny of Silence: How One Cartoon Ignited a Global Debate on the Future of Free Speech, Rose has reflected greatly upon the controversy that ensued since his 2005 decision to publish 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed and the broader implications of a rising global epidemic of fear and intimidation that has led to censorship and stifled free speech.

Last year, in recognition of his position in global free speech debate, the Academic Freedom Committee extended the opportunity Rose to speak at their annual event, which they describe as a “flagship lecture to promote academic freedom and freedom of speech.” On July 12, however, a letter was sent by UCT Vice-Chancellor Max Price to the committee, rescinding the invitation on the basis that it would be “extremely unwise” for Rose to participate in the lecture.

Hiding behind an acknowledgement of “the limitations on freedom of expression in general and academic freedom on our campus,” the letter implies that providing Rose with a platform to discuss such limitations could potentially “provoke conflict” and would pose a security threat to the college campus. Moreover, it states that having Rose participate in the TB Davie lecture “might retard rather than advance academic freedom on campus,” adding:

We did consider the option of holding a debate with Mr. Rose instead of a lecture. Our consultations suggest that many in the Muslim community would welcome this and a number of leaders indicated that in other circumstances, they would be willing to share the platform with Mr. Rose and to subject his views to vigorous critique. However, Mr. Rose is seen by many as a persona non grata and while most would protest peacefully against him, we believe there is a real danger that among those offended by the cartoons, an element may resort to violence.

As can be imagined, the decision by the university was not well received in the free speech community. Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of Index on Censorship commented that the decision is “a huge blow to free expression and academic freedom and UCT’s attempts to dress this up as otherwise are to be condemned in the strongest terms.”

The Academic Freedom Committee themselves issued a statement in which they expressed their upset over a decision that they see as propagating the knee-jerk reaction to censor when difficult matters are discussed. They write:

Academic freedom is severely compromised when security and other pragmatic considerations preclude inviting speakers who – while controversial – in no way violate our Constitutional limitations on free speech… We regret the Executive’s decision and what it reveals about the limited scope of academic freedom at UCT. Ours should be a campus on which people are free to express and contest ideas, even unpopular ones.

Rose himself has responded to the decision, calling Vice-Chancellor Price “disgraceful,” accusatory, and libelous, putting “the blame on me instead of taking responsibility for his decision.” Although Rose and his colleagues are no stranger to academic controversy, it still comes as a shock that an academic institution where intelligent and productive debate is meant to happen, would make transparent excuses to censor free speech. “It’s the heckler’s veto,” writes Rose, adding:

Mr. Price talks about “the harm that unlimited freedom of expression could cause.” I don’t know any person including myself who is in favor of unlimited free speech, that’s a caricature of free speech activists. What I oppose is the kind of “I am in favor of free speech, but”-position that Mr. Price provides a classic example of. His approach to free speech would make it possible to ban any speech.

Even a decade since the publication of the 12 cartoons in Jyllands-Posten, we are still fighting an uphill battle for free speech, one that has been marked by violence against cartoonists. That said, those like Rose have dedicated themselves to fighting the battle and exercising their right to free expression, calling out those who would censor it out of fear.

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(c) Badiucao

Chinese cartoonist Badiucao has no qualms about tackling China’s difficult political and social issues. As a result, he’s become skilled at eluding the authorities that would censor him.

In a recent interview with Cartoonists Rights Network International, Badiacao speaks about the lengths he goes to in order to protect his identity and safety in a country well-known for censoring criticism and threatening the families of those who voice opposition. Badiucao first addresses his choice of nom de plume, citing that “a random name” makes it more difficult for authorities to even identify him, and he lives in genuine fear that his government might harm him.

When asked about the risk posed to family members of dissident voices, Badiucao tells CRNI:

Yes, repercussions for family and friends is the most common way for the Chinese Government to throw terror on people like me. They stop your family from going overseas, even children of dissidents — for example, human rights lawyer Wang Yu’s son. They frame family members and send them to prison in order to bend the will of dissident or purely as a punishment: Three-Year Prison Term for Nephew of Chinese Dissident Chen Guangcheng.

Badiucao himself lives in exile in Australia and relies on Twitter as a platform for expressing his dissent (he can no longer post on China’s Twitter analog, Weibo). But he also points out that no one is safe, even cartoonists living in exile, bringing up the case of two Chinese dissidents who were deported from Thailand. Upon their return to China, the dissidents, which include political cartoonist Jiang Yefei, were imprisoned.

Badiucao speaks about the reasons he moved to Australia:

The biggest motivation for me to leave China was to seek freedom and be free from the political persecution. My grandpa was in the art industry in China. And both of my grandparents got killed in the political catastrophe in 1957 for creating “wrong art,” leaving my father an orphan when he was just a toddler. Hence, I knew if I wanted to make art freely without the fear of the government, I had to leave.

Despite not living in China, Badiucao is able to reach an audience through Twitter and China Digital Times, an independent web-based newssource dedicated to providing uncensored news about China. Badiucao acknowledges that he reaches a limited — but very enthusiastic — audience via Twitter. That audience may become smaller if Chinese authorities succeed in “purifying” the internet, by Badiucao has some hope it may turn out otherwise, telling CRNI:

There is a Chinese saying: “Money can even make a ghost turn a grindstone for you.” That is pretty much the case here. A lot of social media companies want to have a share of juicy Chinese market. But the only way to enter China is to cooperate with the censorship system and even become a part of the brainwash and propaganda machine itself. However, with the weakened economy in China, I hope it will change!

Read the full interview with Badiucao here.

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Since this announcement, Pastis has been trying to share the cartoon on Facebook but the only thing that appears when he posts the image is a black box. Whether this is due to a technical glitch or intentional removal by Facebook is unclear. Fortunately, commenters on his Facebook page have had no such difficulty and have been able to share the cartoon that was pulled:

In a screen cap of a subsequent Facebook post (the post disappeared shortly after going up, but it is unknown whether Pastis pulled the post due to the image difficulties or if Facebook took it down), Pastis wrote:

So here is the strip that was not published. I guess the fear was that it would run, and another terrible event would happen, and it would appear to be making light of it. So it could not run, and a repeat strip had to be used. For what it’s worth, it was drawn over a year ago.

Pearls Before Swine is an award-winning syndicated strip that runs daily in more than 750 newspapers nationwide and features a cast of animal main characters that run the gamut from sarcastic alcoholics to endearingly oblivious foils. The 7/27 strip used a pun to mock both the irrational fear of ISIS and the NSA’s wiretapping practices. After it was pulled from syndication and a strip from 2002 was run in its place, Pastis tweeted that the strip “Seems harmless to me, but I guess these are sensitive times.”

This isn’t the first time Pastis has run afoul of would-be censors. He has had strips mocking the Bush administration attacked, and in 2007 he received death threats from Turkish citizens who felt his character Ataturk the llama was an attack on beloved former leader Mustafa Atatürk.

In a post regarding the pulled strip, the National Coalition Against Censorship writes:

It’s sadly not uncommon for newspaper strips to face editorial redactions or censorship. Comics combine stylistic elements of books and visual art and are therefore challenged by censors for the same reasons other media are challenged; censors oppose their use of offensive language, inclusion of sexual content, and references to drugs, alcohol, or so-called “touchy subjects.” 

As private entities, newspaper editorial staff are certainly within their rights to make decisions about the content they run in their papers. However, the removal of the strip raises concerns over self-censorship. Further, removal of a cartoon as relatively inoffensive at Pastis’s buys into the fear that terrorists like those who attacked Charlie Hebdo and other cartoonists around the world are trying to instill in the populace. The answer to such fear isn’t to remove a cartoon, but to support the free expression of those who would question the terrorists’ actions and the authorities that overreact to terrorist attacks by stepping on fundamental freedoms.

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The Turkish government’s media crackdown continues this week, thinly justified as a “cleansing” after the failed coup attempt of July 15-16. In the past few days, more than 130 press outlets have been shut down and arrest warrants issued for 89 journalists and media executives, with

When the attempted coup was launched by a minority of military members two weeks ago, every group politically opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan quickly disavowed any involvement, citing respect for the democratic process that put him in office two years ago even if they disagree with his subsequent actions. External analysts and media still have not been able to discern exactly who orchestrated the attempt, but the president blames followers of Fethullah Gülen, a cleric and former Erdoğan ally who now lives in exile in Pennsylvania. The Gulenists have long been favored scapegoats of the government, being cited for example in the state takeover of the Feza Media Group in March. Leman editors also suggested via Twitter that the censorship of their special edition may be due to their previous coverage of Gülen.

In an interview with the BBC, Leman editor Zafer Aknar said that the magazine began receiving threats from Erdoğan supporters on social media shortly after the post-coup cover was released online. Soon they also began massing in the street outside the Leman offices, which were nearly overrun before the police appeared at the last minute to head them off. Even though the threats have continued since that time, Aknar says police have been conspicuously absent, leaving the staff to fend for itself. Additionally, the crackdown on other media outlets has ensured that the attack against Leman has not been publicized within Turkey.

After the magazine was banned from distributing the special edition with a cover cartoon suggesting that the government deliberately pitted civilians against the military plotters, this week it instead released the “state of emergency” edition seen here, which shows cartoonists and other staff drinking tea and playing cards since they have nothing else to do. The magazine’s website is also among at least 30 that have been shut down by government order in the past two weeks.

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The bill, which was re-introduced on June 30 is part of the broader New Voices of New Jersey campaign that seeks to protect student’s rights to “gather information and share ideas about issues of public concern.” Co-sponsored by Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus, R-Sussex, and Assemblyman Troy Singleton, D-Burlington, the bill is designed to promote the exercise of free speech while limiting school districts’ abilities to censor perceived sensitive content. As noted in the bill’s Statement:

This bill guarantees certain freedom of expression rights for students in public schools and public institutions of higher education. The bill provides that a student at a public school or a public institution of higher education who gathers, compiles, writes, edits, photographs, records, or prepares information for dissemination in school-sponsored media has the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press, and is responsible for determining the news, opinion, feature, and advertising content of the school-sponsored media.

In recent years, there has been an alarming rise of journalistic censorship at the school level. Earlier this year, a high school newspaper in Missoula County, Montana, was recalled for its article “Free the Nipple,” which explored the timely topic of public perceptions and negative assumptions of the exposed female nipple. From outright censorship to fostering a fear of negative backlash for publishing controversial material, journalism in the academic setting has become a precarious place where both students and advisors have in some cases been too afraid to speak out.

In response to this trend, similar versions of the New Jersey bill have already been passed in nine states, the most recent Maryland, where the bill will go into effect October 1. These laws along with the work of New Voices USA inspire Assemblyman Singleton to fight for the bill in New Jersey. “[It’s a] critically important issue to support journalists,” Singleton told the Student Press Law Center. “Supporting journalism in general is important to keep those of us in office accountable.”

Others, like high school newspaper advisor and Garden State Scholastic Press Association executive board member, Tom McHale, also see the educational value of the bill beyond simply preventing unnecessary and undue censorship and upholding students’ constitutional rights. “Schools should be teaching kids to become responsible citizens,” notes McHale. “For many schools, that’s part of their mission statement. So to me, (supporting the legislation is) important for anyone who cares about education.”

John Tagliareni, a newspaper advisor and co-organizer of the bill, also reminds us of the importance of the bill and the necessity to stand up for everyone’s constitutional right to free speech. “You don’t stop the kids from learning,” he says. “The goal is to educate students. [The] best journalism that is out there isn’t getting practiced like it should be. We have to just keep fighting.

Help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work in 2015 by visiting the Rewards Zone, making a donation, or becoming a member of CBLDF!

Contributing Editor Caitlin McCabe is an independent comics scholar who loves a good pre-code horror comic and the opportunity to spread her knowledge of the industry to those looking for a great story!

In the immediate wake of the 2011 Tahrir Square uprising, the Egyptian graphic designer and comic creator who goes by Ganzeer gained notoriety as a

Now living in New York, Ganzeer is producing a dystopian sci-fi webcomic, The Solar Grid, which draws on that experience as well as other current issues such as whistleblower data leaks, surveillance, environmental havoc caused by human works, and crowdsourced opinion-forming. Two chapters have been published online already, with seven more to come.

The 2014 cartoon of Sisi shown here is the one that led government-connected TV presenter Osama Kamal to denounce Ganzeer as a “recruit of the Muslim Brotherhood.” The piece has since been taken down from the artist’s website, but when posting it he also predicted that Sisi would “turn Egypt into a police state.” That statement turned out to be prescient, what with the arrests this year of cartoonists Islam Gawish and Makhlouf, an official investigation of satirical puppet Abla Fahita for “violating public modesty,” and a two-year prison sentence for author Ahmed Naji on the same charge. Ganzeer tellsThe Guardian’s David Batty that he’s certain there is no way he could freely return to Egypt now “unless I’m willing to change my position and say I support Sisi and I think he’s the best.”

Instead, he hopes to continue driving the cultural conversation forward–his chosen nickname Ganzeer means “bicycle chain” in Arabic–with the highly topical issues in The Solar Grid. While the comic’s theme of environmental destruction caused by humans naturally calls to mind climate change, for instance, Egyptians will also recognize an echo of the Aswan High Dam, which was vaunted as an economic driver and a triumph of engineering when it was built in 1970 but soon ruined the fertile croplands of the Nile Delta, which no longer benefit from the natural flood cycle and its new deposits of silt.

While much of The Solar Grid is naturally informed by Ganzeer’s own experiences in Egypt, it also deals with issues that are universal in our current technological age. One subplot deals with a Snowden-like government whistleblower, and future chapters set on Mars depict a direct democracy where some citizens choose to outsource their vote to an AI that makes decisions by algorithm. Acknowledging it’s an expansive and ambitious project, Ganzeer explains that he doesn’t have “a specific subject matter that I’m concerned with – other than that there are some really fucked up things about the world that I really don’t like and want to comment on.”

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