International media attention given to Lebanese censorship
usually focuses on the banning of Western films, like “The Da Vinci Code” or
the animated “Persepolis.” But the real victims of the Directorate for General
Security and its zealous censors are local film and theater directors, who face
an often arduous process to secure permits for filming, screening or staging
creative works.
General Security follows its own internal mandate, and its
directives can be stretched in any direction: Censors decree that creative
works should not “pose any danger or harm to Lebanon,” should not upset
“political or military sensitivities” and should not incite “sectarian or
factional discord.” Unlike cases of paper publications, the censorship process
for local film and theater unfolds entirely outside the courts. While
publications can only be censored if a lawsuit is brought against them (and
authors and journalists can defend themselves in the Court of Publications),
directors cannot question or appeal General Security’s decision to bowdlerize
or entirely ban their work.
In recent years, local civil society organizations have
begun to speak up against this practice; these voices seek not only to curb
censorship, but to limit General Security’s extensive powers and curb its
considerable autonomy from even the minister of the interior, who have thus far
been unable to assert control over it, particularly in matters of censorship.
Last year, a coalition of the major cultural organizations
in Lebanon (such as Metropolis DC, Ashkal Alwan, Né à Beyrouth, among others)
grouped under Marsad al-Raqaba (“The Censorship Observatory”), and organized
the first collective effort to provide a comprehensive assessment of censorship
exercised by state institutions.
Led by prominent human rights lawyer Nizar Saghieh, the
Observatory’s research exposed the degree to which political and religious
leaders are directly involved in censorship cases. It documented how General
Security’s censorship department routinely sends films and other creative works
that might upset religious institutions to these bodies (like Dar al-Fatwa, the
highest Sunni religious authority, or the Catholic Information Center), and
almost always complies with their wishes on whether to excise scenes or ban a
work altogether.
In May, for example, after a request from the Catholic
Information Center, General Security asked that certain scenes be removed from
Joe Bou Eid’s “Tannoura Maxi” because they were allegedly “offensive to
Christianity.”
Similarly, individual political figures are also routinely
consulted on creative works that mention them or their parties. Films on the
Civil War have been routinely censored since the 1990s on the grounds that
references to the conflict “threatens civil peace.”
In actuality, however, it only threatens the peace of mind
of the warlords who are still in power. For example, Randa Shahal, who
represents an older generation of Lebanese directors who tackled the Civil War,
saw many of her films brutally cut – the most famous of which is “A Civilized
People” (1999). Simon El Habre was forced to excise six minutes of his 2009
documentary “One Man Village,” because it mentioned the role of the Progressive
Socialist Party during the Civil War.
Marsad al-Raqaba’s efforts have been followed by others. Encouraged
by the region’s year of uprisings, activists have acquired an increasingly
diminishing tolerance for security forces’ control over creative expression.
Recently, the Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom (SKeyes) – an
organization established in 2007 by the Samir Kassir Foundation to monitor and
publicize violations of freedom of the press and artistic expression in the
Levant – launched Mamnou3 (“Prohibited”), a mockumentary series that parodies
the internal workings of the General Security’s censorship department. In one
clip, an officer of the Directorate smiles smugly as he edits a famous theater
director’s script, pleased with his own creativity in altering the text to suit
“public morals.”
Since Lebanon lacks Internet regulation, SKeyes hopes to
avoid a possible ban by focusing the campaign online and promoting it via
social media platforms. Although it is too early to gauge whether Mamnou3 will
provoke a backlash from General Security, the campaign has already received
considerable media attention in Lebanon and beyond, and the first three
episodes released on YouTube have already attracted almost 11,000 views in the
week since their release. Seven additional episodes are planned.
Both SKeyes and Marsad al-Raqaba call for ending General
Security’s oversight powers and establishing instead an independent regulatory
body to apply a rating system for films or plays. The new body would also
receive complaints after works have been screened or staged and rule on whether
the work should be censored – rather than the current practice of censoring a
film or play while still under production.
Daunting challenges remain, and a number of forces impede
progress: an intransigent political class, aggressive security forces unwilling
to surrender arbitrary powers, and conservative citizens who worry about
uncensored creative expression. Civil society organizations will have to put
aside their differences and work harder at coordinating their efforts – much
like the defenders of censorship have; in the early 2000s, religious leaders
established the Commission to Preserve Values in an effort to monitor media
ethics and morals. The organization has made a number of complaints to the
office of the public prosecutor regarding scantily clad women in television
programs and on billboards, and has called on the state to preserve “people’s
dignity” and to censor programs, films and publications.
Despite this, there remains much hope. In the past two
years, thanks to Marsad al-Raqaba’s efforts, the previously opaque censoring
process is much clearer – and knowledge of it is half the battle.
And as the Mamnou3 campaign itself shows, creative
expression is alive and kicking in Lebanon – as are creative ways around the
censors’ excisions.
Doreen Khoury is a program manager at the Beirut
office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Her work focuses on electoral reform,
censorship and social media. In September she will begin a fellowship at the
German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. This commentary
first appeared at Sada, an online journal published by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace.