“The laws of censorship are so vague that it allows the people in charge to censor anything they want. And what worries me is that I think it is getting worse.” Lea Baroudi founding member of the NGO March

BEIRUT, LEBANON—At the entrance to the Beirut office of the March organization, there is a well-stocked bookshelf. Its contents include notables such as Of Mice and Men, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Da Vinci Code, Sophie’s Choice and the slightly less classy Little Book of Big Penis.

Crack the covers and you’ll realize this isn’t any ordinary book collection. The pages are all blank. The Lebanese government has banned them. The reasons range from homosexual references and politics to religion and vague connection to things Jewish.

On an adjacent shelf sits an eclectic CD collection of banned music, including Frank Sinatra (Zionist tendencies), Lady Gaga (offensive to Christianity), The Buddha Bar Compilation (religion) and Bad Religion (offensive name).

March, a Lebanese NGO and the owner of this collection, has been documenting these obscure and arbitrary censorship practices in Lebanon via its Virtual Museum of Censorship since the group was founded in 2011.

“The laws of censorship are so vague that it allows the people in charge to censor anything they want,” says Lea Baroudi, a founding member of March. “And what worries me is that I think it is getting worse.”

March gathers its information through a network of informants among artists and importers and retailers in music shops, bookstores and theatres. It also searches newspapers and TV archives for records of censorship cases and has conducted dozens of interviews with individuals whose material has been banned.

“We are fighting censorship because it is very important to have freedom of expression, particularly in a country as diverse as Lebanon. We should get used to accepting each other’s differences rather than trying to shut each other up,” Baroudi says.

While censorship decisions are bizarre enough, the methods of censorship can be even more absurd.

In some cases, material that is banned in one medium can be allowed in another. For example, while a movie may be banned in cinemas it could be approved on DVD.

In the Virgin Megastore in downtown Beirut, some box sets have a sticker warning customers of “missing items that were confiscated by general security for censorship reasons.”

Others are distinguished by what is known locally as “black marker” censorship: the name and title are simply blacked out with a marker. You can listen to the song, you just can’t read the title or artist name.

One reason for censorship is the 1955 Lebanese Anti-Israeli Boycott law, which outlaws any material related to the State of Israel. Although the law targets Israel, rather than Jews, it has been interpreted broadly by some censors. This has resulted in decisions to ban some movies in which Jewish actors appear while allowing others, and the random black markering of any name that has a Jewish ring to it.

The classic Of Mice and Men was recently banned when an officer thought the name John Steinbeck sounded Jewish, according to the Daily Star newspaper. After discovering he wasn’t Jewish, the ban was lifted.

The Israeli factor also extends to actors, composers or artists who, while not being Jewish, have had some connection to Israel. All movies featuring Jane Fonda (banned since visiting Israel in 1982), Elizabeth Taylor (who converted to Judaism) or the music of Frank Sinatra are banned because they have been labelled in Lebanon as supporters of the Israeli state.

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The New York Times reported that Francis Ford Coppola was refused entry by airport security in 2009 after attempting to fly his private jet to Lebanon for the opening of the Beirut Film Festival. The reason? Part of the engine was made in Israel. He was forced to land in Damascus and travel overland.

Displayed next to the March office bookshelf is a quote by French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvetus:

“To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves.”