In the last decade or so, Britain has developed serious knife crime problem. It responded by cracking down on knife possession. Cracking down really, really hard. More than one person in the UK has been charged and convicted of carrying a plastic knife with a blade less than half an inch long. It’s illegal to carry a ‘bladed weapon’ unless you can prove that it’s for work or religious reasons (the latter encompassing Sikhs and presumably, Australians).
Knives are still available for kitchen use… for now. There have been calls for bans on the long pointed knives that many of us use to cut up vegetables. According to experts, the ends of these knives have no real function in the kitchen, and to prevent being misused for stabbing should be blunt instead.
The new knives, with rounded edges and a hook to catch on clothes and skin, might soon be mandatory. Soon, the British population may well be reduced to killing each other with sticks with nails in them.
The Simpsons (Russia)
In 2008, the Russian television channel 2×2 removed The Simpsons from the air, as well as South Park, Family Guy, and several other animated American shows. It did this after being taken to court by the Russian government, which threatened to ban the station entirely unless it stopped airing the shows. Prosecutors called the shows ‘extremist’, claiming they promote violence and cruelty, pornography, anti-social behavior, abound with scenes of mayhem, the infliction of physical and ethical suffering, and are aimed at invoking fear, panic and terror in children.’
According to the government, children should instead be watching television that teaches them “patriotism, respect for family values and the importance of sport,” according to the Russian government. We’re sure that that will make for some riveting viewing.
Mein Kampf (Germany)
In Germany, the copyright to the text of Hitler’s philosophical text Mein Kampf is still held by the state government of Bavaria. In response to that embarrassing incident in the 1940’s, the Bavarians have refused permission for the book to be printed in Germany since 1945.
This ban isn’t long for this world, though, since the Bavarian copyright expires in 2015. Since earlier this year, a group of historians have been working on an ‘authoritative’ version of the text, complete with footnotes, to be released as soon as it happens. This is to prevent Neo-Nazi groups in Germany rushing out their own version of the text as soon as the ban expires, and presumably making money as Mein Kampf-starved Germans rush the bookstores.
They probably won’t have much luck with that, though. Even with the copyright expired, ‘Nazi Propaganda’ is still illegal in Germany, and this law has even been used to prosecute people using crossed-out swastikas to protest fascism.
Gum (Singapore)
While other countries concentrate on preventing murder and Nazi uprisings, Singapore has been concentrating on banning what is probably the most insidious public menace of them all… chewing gum.
It has been illegal to either import or possess chewing gum into Singapore since the early nineties. According to the Singaporean government, gum use results in ‘litter and vandalism’, with people discarding their gum willy-nilly over pavements, buildings, baby’s faces, etc. According to government spokesmen, before the ban, subways had been delayed because vandals stuck wads of gum between carriage doors, preventing them from closing. Hearing that, we’re surprised that there are not more gum-related plane crashes in non-Singapore countries.
Although the law now allows gum chewing for ‘medicinal purposes’ such as nicotine, the normal fine is still between $500 and $1,000. Pharmacists must collect the ID of those purchasing gum, and non-compliance on their part can mean jail time. It all seems very harsh, but at least it means that no Singaporean school student ever had to remove dried pieces of gum off of the underside of tables during detention time.
Love (Saudi Arabia)
The guys from the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia have cracked down on Valentine’s Day in recent years, claiming that the holiday is corrupt because the true meaning of love is the ‘love of god’. As Valentines Day approaches, florists are instructed to remove any Valentines items that might have crept in, including red roses, teddy bears, and red wrapping paper. Flower merchants have been known to sell undercover red roses in what must be the most non-threatening black market ever.
None of this is really surprising, since Saudi Arabia does not take its religious commitments lightly. Not only is proselytizing religions other than Islam banned, it’s also illegal to possess a Bible or crucifix, even if you’re a foreign worker in the country. So if you’re planning on sending someone a box of liqueur-filled candy hearts with Bible verses printed on them, maybe not. Richard Dawkins would love this place. Oh, except for the theocracy, we suppose.
Avatar (China)
In January this year, just weeks after the movie’s release, the Chinese government pulled James Cameron’s movie Avatar from its screens. Well, technically only 2D versions of the film were forbidden, but 3D facilities are so rare in China that this basically amounted to a total ban.
At first glance, you can see what the Chinese Government was worried about. For the ten people out there who have not seen the movie, Avatar centers around a native population that faces being forcibly moved from its ancestral home by a powerful corporation after its resources. And China is, after all, a country that is not above randomly shifting whole populations from their homes so they can build a dam or host the Olympic Games in peace. (The number of people uprooted to build its Three Gorges dam numbers in the millions.)
But on the other hand, the bad guys in Avatar are pretty much blatant anti-American stereotypes, ranging from ‘military redneck’ to ‘different kind of military redneck’ to ‘corporate douchebag’. It would take a special kind of imagination to look at this guy:
…and think ‘this is clearly a stereotype of a Chinese communist.’
So you’d think that all this trashing of the capitalist Americans would cancel out any rebellion being fomented by the ‘native uprising’ story. But then again, the Chinese also had a secondary motive: they wanted to promote the movie Confucius, starring Chow Yun-Fat, which also came out in January and received a whopping 5.7/10 review on IMDB. So it probably needed all the help it could get.
The Internet (Australia)
Sure, we all know countries like China and Pakistan severely restrict their Internet access. But wealthy, democratic nations like Australia? That’s kinda weird.
The Australian government introduced mandatory Internet filtering in 2008. The restrictions were meant to filter out child porn, “how-to” crime sites and references to sexual violence. The leaked list of sites blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) also included online poker sites, and the website of an Australian dentist. We’re sure there was a reason for that. It was probably some form of child-pornography dentistry.
Although the filter itself is being heavily protested and has not yet been implemented, the ACMA is already able to force Australian-hosted sites to remove blacklisted sites and even links to them, or face a $11,000/day fine. It has already threatened an online forum for linking to one of the sites on this blacklist. And no, it wasn’t child porn: it was an anti-abortion web page.
The Cheerleader From Heroes (Japan)
An arrest warrant was issued for Heroes actress Hayden Panettiere in 2007 after she confronted a group of fishermen Taiji, Japan, in an attempt to save a group of dolphins from being eaten. Hayden was filmed crying hysterically after the then 18-year-old failed to rescue the dolphins:
Things got worse for her after that. Back in the US, Panettiere learned that she was being charged with trespassing and could technically be arrested if she re-enters the country, dooming the young actress to a lifetime without anthropomorphic beans and penis festivals.
Now, at that age, youthful idealism is completely understandable. But really, the girl should have realized that the Japanese take their dolphin-killing very, very seriously:
