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Tunis,october 10th. 2006
Culture Ministry's
review board censors new play.
"Corps-otages" (Khamsoun),
a new play by Jalila Baccar and Fadhel Jaibi, is censored in
Tunisia.
The Ministry of Culture's review board has announced the
censorship of playwright Jalila Baccar's new work,
"Corps-otages" ("Captive Bodies"), directed by Fadhel Jaibi.
After wavering for more than three months, the review board,
which is responsible for reviewing all theatrical releases in
the country, refused to issue the permit required for the play
to open. The board is demanding that Jaibi bring the play in
line with a list of 100 themes subject to censorship before it
grants the opening permit.
Board members took issue with the play's treatment of problems
confronting Tunisian society as it enters its 50th year of
independence (religious extremism, terrorism, intergenerational
conflicts, abusive security policies), and have demanded that
all dates, names of persons and places, as well as Coranic
excerpts and references to Tunisian history be removed.
Tunisians, it seems, will be denied the right to see a play
which has only recently returned from a highly successful run at
Paris's Odéon theatre, in June 2006.
In Tunisia, theatre is the only cultural form subjected to
preliminary censorship under the law. A public performance
permit (visa de représentation publique) must be obtained for
all productions. Permits are granted by the national review
board, a branch of the Ministry of Culture, which along with the
Ministries of the Interior and of Religious Affairs, is also
represented on the board.
It is interesting to note that, as the board enjoys a virtual
monopoly on theatrical distribution channels in the country, it
may exercise a form of indirect censorship via these
distribution channels, even when a permit has been granted.
OLPEC condemns the censorship and reminds the board that freedom
of expression is a basic right of all citizens in Tunisia,
guaranteed by the Constitution as well as by Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the In
The President
Mohamed Talbi
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