Even a show about the stoning of women in Yemen has been canceled. You never know.
The Victoria and Albert Museum, the most famous and crowded museum in the English capital, first exhibited, then hid from the public a portrait of the Prophet of Islam, a work of devotional art depicting the image of Muhammad. The fear of exposing it follows the massacre at the French weekly Charlie Hebdo.
And this litany of cowardice boasts other important cases. The British Library included an image of Muhammad in its exhibition of sacred icons, but with his face veiled.
Recently, the Edinburgh University Library celebrated the existence of a manuscript that contained many depictions of Muhammad, but none was shown in the exhibition.
The Hague Museum was planning an exhibit of photographs, including two masks of Muhammad and Ali. These were quickly withdrawn from the museum.
And the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has removed every work that contains images related to the Prophet from its galleries of Islamic Art. Egle Zygas, spokesman for the Met, explained it by claiming it was a "simple rotation of the exhibits, planned for some time." Maybe someone believes him.
The famous carnival in Cologne, Germany, will not show the wagon dedicated to Charlie Hebdo. "We do not want a wagon that would limit freedom and lightness", say the organizers of the event.
"You cannot laugh at everything," was the title of the new show in Paris by Patrick Timsit, named appropriately. The Roundabout Theatre denied the artist the space to perform, as the comedian would have to embrace a bomb. Even a show about the stoning of women in Yemen has been canceled. You never know.
In France before Carron, nobody had ever brought to the big screen a story of conversion to Christianity from the religion of the Qur'an, the story of "apostates" who, in Islamic regimes, are hanged from cranes or burned alive.
"The Apostle" is not the only film to have been deleted from the French theaters after the attacks in Paris. "Timbuktu", the film by Abderrahmane Sissako, awarded at Cannes and nominated for an Oscar, has just been deprogrammed in Villers-sur-Marne by the decision of the mayor, Jacques-Alain Benisti. The film is a passionate appeal against jihadists, it shows all the horror in Mali, the birthplace of the wife of Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist at the kosher supermarket in Paris. Sissako's film was also overshadowed at the film festival of Ramdan, Belgium. "In order to move things forward, you must take risks," said the director Carron facing the censorship of her film. "You do not win wars with silence."
In Welkenraedt, Belgium, another exhibition that included a panel dedicated to Charlie Hebdo was censored.