Sunday, September 26, 2010

Banned Book Week: Book banning at Kuwait's International Book Fair

Happy Banned Book Week everyone!

I was thinking that along with trying to draw notice to books here in the USA that people have tried to ban, we should also remember to look outwards to other countries who do their own book banning.

If you haven't heard, the Kuwaiti government recently decided to ban a number of books from being shown at their annual International Book Fair this year. Publishers are being told that they're not allowed to bring certain books that the government thinks offend Kuwaiti principles.

Isn’t it frightening to think that there are still governments that have the freedom to tell you what you should & shouldn’t be reading? If you aren’t scared then you should be. Freedom of speech is one of our most valuable rights & everyone should be allowed to exercise it.

You or I might not have any control over what happens in other countries but we should at least be aware of what is going on. If all we do is ignore such problems then it makes it all too easy for us to ignore it if it begins to happen to us.

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