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For far too long, through most of human history, authoritarians of all types – secular and religious – have dictated what we can say, think, and even feel. They use different pretences from “disturbing social order” to so-called blasphemy laws and “hate speech and misinformation” regulations.

Just like viruses, authoritarianism and censorship constantly evolve and adapt to the environments they occupy. The more vague the regulation is, the smaller the net of acceptable speech. 

According to Freedom House, eight out of ten people in the globe live in nonfree or partly free countries and authoritarianism is on the rise.

Before the internet, or where there is no equivalent of the first amendment, the authoritarians just outlawed ideas and books they don’t like. 

Where I grew up in Iraq, during the regime of Saddam Hussein there were more banned books than read and the only acceptable speech was dictated by the one ruling party.

Nowadays, books are censored by themes, and militants set unwritten rules of what books are acceptable and what are not, avoiding the embarrassment of publishing lists of banned books to reduce the controversy that attracts attention to those books and authors while at the same time killing and imprisoning them

Nowadays, books are censored by their theme. Militants & autocrats set unwritten rules on which books are acceptable and which are deemed intolerable, thus avoiding the embarrassment of publishing lists of these banned books. By not publishing these lists, it reduces the controversy and attention to these books, while at the same time their respective authors are killed & imprisoned.

In the US, there is federal protection for freedom of speech granted by the first amendment. 

Authoritarians have taken a different approach utilizing big corporations, universities, HR departments, and local school boards under the guise of protecting “minorities” and “children” from ‘harmful ideas,” allowing no room for the agency of those they claim to protect. 

While the ideologies, the methods, and the pretenses of authoritarians are different, the impulses and the outcomes are mostly the same. Absolute control. 

The End Banned Books campaign is an advocacy and educational campaign to expose these methods and educate the public on the harmful effects of censorship in all its forms all around the globe. 

We are happy to be joined by our partners at Human Rights Foundation, Students for Liberty, Justitia, Heterodox Academy, Atlas Network, and all freedom living organizations and individuals around the world 

Faisal Saeed Al Mutar
Founder of the End Banned Books Project