Keiji Nakazawa’s internationally renowned manga Barefoot Gen, which depicts wartime atrocities from the perspective of the seven-year-old protagonist, has been pulled from primary and middle school libraries in the Japanese city of Matsue. Citing “portions that warrant consideration as appropriate…
Category: International
Muslim Cleric Renounces Prior Protest Against Danish Cartoons
Seven years after Danish political activist Ahmad Akkari began protesting the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad featured in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, he has publicly renounced his former stance and apologized for the affects his protests had. Akkari, a practicing Muslim,…
CBLDF’s Comic Market Speech On Manga Freedom
Last weekend, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein traveled to Tokyo for the Manga Freedom Speaking Tour, a series of presentations and meetings about free expression issues facing manga and how fans in the United States and Japan can band together…
Thailand’s Overzealous Censors
Thailand doesn’t skimp when it comes to censorship. According to a recent article by Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku, the country’s scrupulous censorship laws commonly disrupt the dubbed anime that is broadcast on Thai television. Whatever is deemed inappropriate — be…
Syria Continues Campaign Against Dissenting Artists
A cartoonist who co-signed a 2011 document calling for the removal of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and his government was arrested in late July, one more in an ongoing string of arrests, harassment, and disappearances of dissenting Syrian cartoonists. Cartoonists…
CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein to Visit Tokyo for Manga Freedom Speaking Tour
This weekend, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein will literally travel to the other side of the world — to Tokyo, Japan — for a series of lectures and meetings on manga and free expression, hosted by Comic Market (Comiket), Comitia,…
HarperCollins India and the Pixelated Penises
When Canadian comics artist Chester Brown’s graphic novel memoir Paying For It — about his encounters with 23 different prostitutes — was first published in 2011, it received generally favorable reviews and was widely applauded for its honesty. But in…
Singapore’s State Prosecutor Drops Sedition Charges Against Cartoonist
Sedition charges against Singapore cartoonist Leslie Chew, have been dropped. Back in May, we reported that Chew had been arrested for alleged racial insensitivity and sedition as a result of a complaint about one of his Facebook comic strips called…
Japanese Editor Arrested for Distributing Obscene Images
Three people, including Akira Ōta, who heads the editorial department at Core Magazine, have been arrested in Japan amid accusations of obscenity. Those arrested are being accused of selling magazines and manga that had sexual content which was insufficiently censored, a…
Canadian “Anti-comics” Law Used to Prosecute Website Owner
A 1949 law passed to prevent the corrupting influence of comic books is being used in Edmonton, Canada, to prosecute the owner of a website that posted a video showing the alleged murder and dismemberment of Chinese exchange student Jun…