PEN International in collaboration with Freemuse and PEN Lebanon have submitted a joint report to the Working Group on the UPR for Lebanon, with a specific focus on the protection of artistic freedom.

Lebanese authorities stop the screening of ‘The Silent Majority Speaks’, which depicts the 2009 post-election Green Movement protests in Iran, organisers of a local film festival said on 16 November 2014. Lebanon’s Censorship Committee is part of the General Security agency and monitors all films before screening in the country. …

The Virtual Museum of Censorship in Lebanon doesn’t just display censorship of the past, it also supports artists who have been subject to censorship, raises awareness about Lebanon’s censorship practices and advocates for changing the law while holding authorities accountable. “Lebanon’s censorship practices and laws are outdated and the bureaucracy …

Locked in a two-year battle with Lebanon’s General Security bureau, playwright Lucien Bourjeily never imagined his verbatim ‘docuplay’ about the censorship process would make it past the censors. But it did. By Jessica Holland A play that examines Lebanon’s censorship system has been approved by the country’s office in charge …

Lebanese theatre director Lucien Bourjeily said General Security returned his passport which the security apparatus had confiscated for unclear reasons. Lucien Bourjeily announced on his Facebook page that it was a “victory” over what he called an arbitrary confiscation and a curb on his freedom of movement. The director was …

“The alarming security situation in 2013 had a negative impact on media and cultural freedom in Lebanon,” wrote Firas Talhouk in the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom’s annual report on press and cultural freedom in the Levant. Censorship of media, media activists and bloggers increases during periods of …

British theatre producer David Cecil, Lebanese playwright Lucien Bourjeily, Egyptian rapper Mayam Mahmoud and the Turkish writer Arikan are shortlisted for the Index Awards 2014, which during 14 years have honoured some of the most remarkable fighters for free expression from around the world. The award show takes place in …

March, a Lebanese NGO, have been documenting the obscure and arbitrary censorship practices in Lebanon via their ‘Virtual Museum of Censorship’ since the group was founded in 2011. In March 2014, Global Post published an in-depth coverage of their work and the current censorship practices in the country. “To describe …

On 28 August 2013, director and filmmaker Lucien Bourjeily was summoned to the Lebanese Censorship Bureau and told that his play, ‘Will It Pass or Not?’, could not go ahead. The play, which tackles the theme of censorship head on, poses the difficult question that any Lebanese artist who explores controversial or sensitive issues …

Newsletter from Article 19, published on article19.org on 14 November 2013: Art, in any form, constitutes a key medium through which information and ideas are imparted and received. Artist Alert, launched by ARTICLE 19 in 2008, highlights cases of artists around the world whose right to freedom of expression has …