A North Carolina lawyer who has previously advocated for censorship in his local school district was last week approved by the legislature to serve a four-year term on the State Board of Education. Most notably, J. Todd Chasteen was involved…
Author: Maren Williams
CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein Examines Representation and Free Expression in Comics
Earlier this year, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein toured the exhibit Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art at Brooklyn’s Interference Archive. The physical exhibit packed up in April, but it lives on as a Tumblr blog…
Large Turnout for Hong Kong Democracy Protest After Bookseller Revelations
Thousands of Hong Kong residents joined pro-democracy demonstrations last weekend, following local bookstore manager Lam Wing Kee’s revelation that he was involuntarily detained for eight months on the Chinese mainland as authorities there sought information about customers and the books…
Virginia Lawmaker Wants Librarians Fired for Summer Reading Lists
A debate over summer reading books in Virginia’s Chesterfield County Public Schools intensified last week when a state senator characterized the books as “trash” and said the school librarians who recommended them should be fired. The titles that have raised…
Independence Day Around the World
As we celebrate Independence Day, we also celebrate the independent spirit of our country’s founders, men and women who fought against an oppressive regime and eventually gave us the law that CBLDF works to protect: the First Amendment. Freedom of expression…
Farghadani Strikes Back with New Cartoon
In light of the fact that she recently spent 18 months in prison for drawing a caricature of the Iranian Parliament, Atena Farghadani could be forgiven for taking a bit of a professional break to savor her newfound freedom. Instead,…
French Government Investigating New Death Threats Against Charlie Hebdo
French government prosecutors opened an investigation last week into new credible death threats against surviving members of the staff at Charlie Hebdo, an anonymous source told Le Parisien newspaper yesterday. The threats came by mail and on the magazine’s Facebook page…
Thai Cartoonist “Invited” to Explain Himself to Government Commission
A Thai political cartoonist and his editor at a weekly news magazine have been summoned to meet with government election commissioners this week and explain a cartoon that mocked a previous draft of Thailand’s nascent constitution. Even though the cartoon…
West Allegheny Students Petition for Freedom to Read
About 200 students of West Allegheny High School in western Pennsylvania have signed a petition asking that the full text of Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle be restored to the ninth grade reading list, after the assignment was modified…
Exiled Somali Cartoonist’s Design Featured on German Stamp for Refugees
Eight years ago, Somali cartoonist and journalist Abduallahi Muhiaddin, who uses the pen name Abdul Arts, was forced to flee his home country under threat from militant group Al-Shabaab, which did not appreciate how it was depicted in his cartoons.…