Americans tend to arrogantly think that censorship is something that only happened in Stalinist Russia or, currently, the Middle East; America, of course, is proclaimed to be the land of the free. That stuff doesn’t happen here.

Many other countries think that censorship only happens within the borders of America due to its Puritanical history and the deepening culture war between liberals and conservatives that is supplanting logic and reason with ideological rhetoric and fundamentalism.

No one seems to be paying much attention to Canada.

The American Library Association holds Banned Books Week in the last week of September, but our neighbors to the north celebrate Freedom to Read Week earlier, which falls between February 24 and March 2, 2013.

By world standards, Canada may seem to be the true land of freedom, but the freedom to read can never be misjudged or taken for granted. Incidents are rising of books and magazines being confiscated at the border; many schools and libraries are seeing books removed from shelves; the free expression of ideas on the internet is under increased scrutiny; and scientific organizations are being blocked from speaking out to the public or through academic mediums.

Read On and Share the Knowledge:
http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2013/02/24/banned-books-awareness-freedom-to-read-week/