Paulo Coelho: [The Gaze of the Gazelle] an Important and Life-Affirming Memoir

Arash Hejazi — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 21:47:24 +0000

On 20 June 2009, a brief video clip was circulated all over the world. It showed the death of a young, unarmed woman called Neda, who had been shot in the chest while taking part in a protest in Tehran and was bleeding to death on the street. Few images in the contemporary world have had such an instant and powerful impact. This footage was so intense it raised the awareness of the world on what was happening in Iran and forced world leaders to condemn the way the Iranian government was treating its citizens.

For me, however, it was more personal. There was a young man in the video trying to save Neda. He was my friend, Arash.

When I met him for the very first time, I could never have imagined that this slim young man would get caught in the crossroad of history ten years later. Even if I had the power to look into the future and see that this passionate doctor-publisher-author was destined to be present in one of the most important documents of contemporary history, I couldn’t have imagined the way he would react to it. I couldn’t have imagined that he would have the courage to testify against an unspeakable crime, and be prepared to forsake everything to expose the truth.

I met Arash in Tehran in 2000 when I visited Iran. Arash was the Iranian publisher who, despite the fact that Iran has not signed up to any of the international copyright agreements, had made the decision to publish my work with my authorisation.

I was in a state of confusion when I met him. Finally I was in Iran, and while I had been looking forward to visiting Iran for some time, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know what the implications of my visit were going to be, or if Christina and I were in any kind of danger. However, I had made the decision to venture this visit; I already knew that I had thousands of readers there waiting for me and I was ecstatic at the thought of seeing the land of Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz and Omar Khayyam.

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‘You don’t deserve to be published’ Book censorship in Iran

Arash Hejazi — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:20:52 +0000

Citation: Hejazi, Arash, ‘You don’t deserve to be published’ Book Censorship in Iran, LOGOS: The Journal of the World Book Community, Volume 22, Number 1, 2011 , pp. 53-62(10), DOI: 10.1163/095796511X562644

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

Censorship is as old as human intellect. It has been practised in almost every country at some level throughout history: from 399 BC, when Socrates was forced to drink poison, to the horrors of the Inquisition, and the oficial coining of the concept with the publication of Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Roman Catholic Church; from the obligation of English publishers to register their books with the Stationers’ Company in the 16th century until the case of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; and the Nazi book-burning campaign and the absolute offfĳicial control of the governments of the USSR, China, and Eastern European countries over published material.
It has always been a highly controversial issue as well, especially since Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) requested the member states of the UN to enforce freedom of speech in their countries. The concept of censorship has been defĳined by various authors and organizations, but no agreed defĳinition has yet been given; therefore the term covers a wide range of activities which sometimes overlap with other concepts, such as moderation, regulation, sensitivity, and intervention. However, for the purpose of this research, the term censorship only refers to restrictions imposed by an authority or authoritative body on a creative work, which impedes the availability of the original work to its potential audience prior to or after its publication, or forces the creator to modify or omit parts or all of the work against their free will. Therefore,
editorial intervention does not fĳit the criteria, as it can be prevented by the free will of the author. The only exception is self-censorship which can be categorized under censorship by fear; one of the most powerful restrictive tools which may have the power to act as an authoritative body, inflicted by conditions outside the author’s control.
The importance of addressing censorship as an issue becomes more evident when considering that, despite the abolition of most of the traditional and historical tools for imposing restrictions on freedom of speech by the coming of information technology and the internet revolution, it is still being practised, and controls a wide range of the mind’s expressions, including books.
Therefore, it seems that raising awareness towards the consequences of censorship has never been more important since the Enlightenment, and the censorship practised in Iran today is a good example…

‘Read the rest of the article in PDF here: ‘You Don’t Deserve to Be Published: Censorship in Iran’

This article is being republished on the author’s official website according to the rights retained by the author for self-archiving. Republishing or reusing this article without prior consent from the Publisher is strictly forbidden.

books – Arash Hejazi

Paulo Coelho: [The Gaze of the Gazelle] an Important and Life-Affirming Memoir

‘You don’t deserve to be published’ Book censorship in Iran