Participating Programs:
- Choral Concert - Radio Two
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Sunday, February 18th, 2007, 8 am (8:30 am NT)
Choral Censorship from the outright to the more benign, less obvious manifestations of censorship. Choral Concert will delve into the various choral traditions which have been subjected to censorship in one form or another from Renaissance restraints on Palestrina and the classical world of Mozart (whose music was also subject to strict parameters imposed by the Roman Catholic Church) to Stalinist Russia and the effect of Marxist ideology on the choral music of Prokofiev and Shostakovitch.
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- The Current - Radio One
Monday, February 19th, 2007, 8:30 am (9 am NT)
Off The Shelves is a documentary by CBC producer Arif Noorani about the book Three Wishes and the battle over whether or not it belongs in public school libraries. Three Wishes features interviews with Israeli and Palestinian children talking about living in the middle of a conflict zone. The Ontario Library Association short-listed Three Wishes for its Silver Birch reading program in 2006, asking kids in grades up to 6 to read 20 selected books and vote for their favourites. But others saw it differently, prompting a handful of school boards -- including Toronto and York region -- to put the book behind locked doors. The book is still forbidden on some public school shelves.
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007, 8:30 am (9 am NT)
Under Threat is an examination of the difficulties faced by Morrocan newspaper publisher Abubakr Jamai. He was given an International Press Freedom Award for standing up to the government of Morocco. But that didn't cut much ice at home. No one told him he couldn't print politically unpopular stories - but somehow his advertisers disappeared, he was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and government vans bussed in protesters to make a scene in front of his office.
Then it got personal. There was a kidnapping attempt on his 2-month-old son, and his co-director of the newspaper had his tires slashed. The threats and actions have forced Abubakr Jamai to rethink his role in publishing the truth.
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007, 8:30 am (9 am NT)
Sandra Bartlett on the struggle for plurality of voices in the Canadian Muslim community.
- Definitely Not The Opera
Saturday, February 24, 2007, 1 pm (1:30 pm NT)
Don't cover your ears! This week DNTO explores censorship in popular culture. Host Sook-Yin Lee chats with filmmaker Kirby Dick, of This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Greg Macpherson, Amy Millan and Ndidi Onukwulu perform songs you'll be surprised to discover were once on the banned list. Contributor Tammy Everts finds out why passing gas fails to pass muster with censors. And comedian Trish Cooper considers the merits of self-censorship.
- Dispatches - Radio One
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007, 7:30 pm (8 pm NT)
A Special edition of Dispatches: with reports from our CBC News Foreign correspondents. Can songs be so dangerous as to be banned? Connie Watson reports on Mexico's "Narco Corridos", a genre of song which glamorize drug traffickers and crime, so much so that some Mexican authorities are trying to get them off the radio. And Margaret Evans visits Syria to report on how the government fears the growth of blogging so much it's clamping down already.
- Global Village - Radio One and Two
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007, 8 pm (8:30 pm NT), Radio One
Censor This! is a feature documentary written and produced by Bruce Edwards, Ann MacKeigan and Susanne Reber. This hour long program takes a sonic tour around the world from the street bazaars of Istanbul to the townships of South Africa. From the conflict zones of Beirut and Rwanda to the North American popular music of the 20th century. Using the strength of the music and powerful narratives the documentary exploes the duality which allows music to be at once frightening and seductive to those in power positions.
Censor This! will also be re-broadcast on Radio Two on March 3rd to mark an international day of music and censorship.
Saturday, February 24th, 2007, 5 pm (7:30 pm AT; 8 pm NT), Radio Two
Stories of current music censorship sent in from Correspondents around the world. From Zambia, a radio station limits the languages spoken, in Afghanistan women learn music but still find censorship from their communities, in Italy, the government attempts to stop Camorra music, and Zimbabwe's most famous censored musician, Thomas Mapfumo, speaks of his lack of musical freedom.
- Here's to You - Radio Two
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007, 9 am (9:30 am NT)
Here's To You looks at music in the Soviet Union. Russian Church music and the twist were banned. Balalaikas and the Tchaikovsky Competition were allowed. From Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff (who left) to Prokofiev (who returned) to Shostakovich, Ashkenazy and Rostropovich (who stayed), it's a look at the musical history of that nation.
- In Performance - Radio Two
Tuesday, February 20, 2007, 8 pm (8:30 pm NT)
Dmitri Shostakovich, whose 100th birthday was celebrated in 2006, is now recognized as one of the 20th century's most important musical voices. During his lifetime, he twice fell out of favour with the Soviet regime, and his works were banned from public performance. After Stalin denounced his second opera, "Lady MacBeth From Mtsensk Region," he never returned to the form, and musicologists lament the opera composer the world lost. On tonight's program we'll hear music from commemorative concerts in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, plus letters written by Shostakovich, and testimony from cellist Yuli Turovsky about Shostakovich's importance to people in the Soviet Union.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007, (8:30 pm NT)
In Performance takes part with a concert from Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. The Artists of the Royal Conservatory present "Music in Exile," featuring works by composers who - for a variety of perceived sins - were forced out of regular musical life in Nazi Europe and into "internal exile." You'll hear works by Kaminski, Hartmann, Jarnach and more.
Thursday, February 22, 2007, 8 pm (8:30 pm NT)
From George Weston Recital Hall in Toronto, Persian classical music with expatriate Iranian singer Parissa and the Dastan Ensemble. This concert could not be performed in Iran today by a solo female singer and a group of male musicians.
- Morning and Afternoon Shows - Radio One
Week of February 19th to 23rd
Censor This content will include discussions on how parents manage/censor information and entertainment for their kids and interviews with local leaders for Freedom to Read week. Also, five well known Canadian musicians will perform covers of banned songs. Listeners will hear a tune a day on their Radio One afternoon shows.
- Quirks & Quarks - Radio One
Saturday, February 24th, 2007, 12 pm (12:30 pm NT)
This week on Quirks & Quarks we'll look at the growing concern over censorship in science - especially in the United States. Host Bob McDonald will speak with Dr. Susan Wood who has gone to bat for dramatic reform of the Federal Drug Administration. In 2005 she resigned as director of the FDA's Women's Health Office in protest over the agency's disregard of scientific data that supported making the so-called Morning After Pill - or Plan B - available over the counter.
And we'll hear from Jay Dyckman from National Coalition Against Censorship in New York. He and other political watchdogs have documented countless cases of political interference with science in recent years. All of them, Dyckman says, amount to nothing short of censorship and jeopardize the integrity of the science that we rely on to make informed policy decisions. Decisions that affect our health, our environment and our future.
- Skylarking - Radio Two
Sunday, February 18th, 2007, 4 pm (5:30 pm NT)
Censorship: Is it better to know the dark or avoid it? Can sounds themselves be dangerous? Skylarking looks at censorship, in a show dedicated to the late, Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.
- Sounds Like Canada - Radio One
Monday, February 19th, 2007, 10 am (10:30 am NT)
Shelagh Rogers speaks to Deepa Mehta about her Oscar-nominated film Water. Deepa is just back from India where the film is to be released this week, and once again there are calls to censor scenes from the film before its release. Water has been controversial since Mehta began shooting it in India, facing thousands of protesters accusing her of blasphemy.
Also, an interview with Shonali Bose, director of the film Amu, who has faced censorship in India and in Canada. Amu is a film about the killings of Sikhs following the assasination of Indira Ghandi. No distributor would pick up her film even though it sold out at the Toronto International Film Festival. But the Indo-Canadian community has rallied and raised enough funds to get the film released here.
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007, 10 am (10:30 am NT)
Sounds Like Canada originates from Charlottetown, where Shelagh speaks with two Sudanese immigrants about their struggle for freedom of expression in their homeland. Benjamin Mathiang is a journalist, now studying in Canada who plans, one day, to return home to help further the democratic movement. His sister Ruth Mathiang is a singer and immigration settlement counsellor. Their father, who had been imprisoned for his political beliefs, fled Sudan with his nine children.
- Studio Sparks - Radio Two
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Thursday, February 22nd, 12 pm (12:30 pm NT)
As part of Censor This!, Studio Sparks will feature the story and music of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish musician whos life was immortalized in the recent film The Pianist. Szpilman was a Polish Jew who survived the Second World War living and hiding in Warsaw. He wrote his memoirs in 1946, but his book was immediately supressed by Poland's Communist government. It was only after the fall of the Soviet bloc that his son managed to get the memoirs published. The book provides a stark portrait of life and death in wartime Poland.
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- World at Six - Radio One and Two
Monday, February 19th, 2007, 6 pm (6:30 pm NT)
CBC News Mexico correspondent, Connie Watson reports on journalists and writers in Mexico who are increasingly censoring themselves because its just too dangerous to write about crime and corruption. It's one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a journalist.
Tuesday, February 20th, 2007, 6 pm (6:30 pm NT)
CBC News Foreign Correspondent Michael Mcauliffe reports on a group of popular singers in Bali who face potential prison sentences after performing at a benefit concert.
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007, 6 pm (6:30 pm NT)
In Russia censorship extends well beyond the media. Bill Gillespie reports on the Kremlin's attempts to snuff out criticism coming from non-governmental organizations by drowning them in volumes of paperwork. This is costing these groups hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay registered and has forced some to shut down entirely.
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007, 6 pm (6:30 pm NT)
TBA
Friday, February 23rd, 2007, 6 pm (6:30 pm NT)
CBC New Correspondent Jennifer Westaway reports on the influence of the Iranian musicians in Los Angeles on the Tehran music scene.
- The World in Performance
Friday, February 23rd, 2007, 8 pm (8:30 pm NT)
Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukuzdi has lived under heavy censorship in Zimbabwe and Vusi Mahlasela fought censors in apartheid South Africa. Hear both of them in separate concerts.
- World Report - Radio One
Monday, February 19th, 2007, 6, 7 & 8 am (6:30, 7:30, 8:30 am NT)
CBC News Mexico correspondent, Connie Watson reports on journalists and writers in Mexico who are increasingly censoring themselves because its just too dangerous to write about crime and corruption. It's one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a journalist.
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007, 6, 7 & 8 am (6:30, 7:30, 8:30 am NT)
CBC News Correspondent Margaret Evans reports on the clampdown on the growing blogging community in the Middle East.
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007, 6, 7 & 8 am (6:30, 7:30, 8:30 am NT)
CBC News Correspondent Connie Watson reports on Mexico's "Narco Corrido" ballads and the government's attempts to ban them because they glorify drug lords and crime.
- World This Weekend - Radio One and Radio Two
Sunday, February 18th, 2007, 6 pm (7 pm AT; 7:30 pm NT)
David McKie reports on the killing of writer journalist Tara Singh Hayer - a murder that remains unsolved to this day.
- Writers & Company - Radio One
Sunday, February 18th, 2007, 3 pm ET/AT (5 pm PT/MT/CT; 3:30 pm NT)
Eleanor Wachtel speaks with international writers about their personal experience of censorship. Eleanor will interview Shahriar Mondanipour, an Iranian novelist, essayist and editor. He was censored and threatened by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance because of his literary and political activities, and has been unable to publish his work in Iran since 1992.
Also featured is Pierre Mumbere Mujomba, a Congolese playwright and novelist. His conflict with the Congolese government stemmed from a production of one of his plays in 2003, performed as a commedia-style farce, which commented on the excesses of the Mobutu regime in the former Zaire. Mujomba was threatened and left the Congo after the intervention of PEN International.
