Word: bans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...months, Sudan has begun to play ball with the West, even as it has shouted that it isn't doing so. The government has entered new peace talks on Darfur and in June announced that it would allow nongovernmental organizations back into the region following a three-month ban. At the same time, Washington has relaxed a few of its positions on Sudan. Special envoy Scott Gration recently told Congress that there was no evidence to support the U.S. designation that Sudan is a state sponsor of terrorism. Gration has also said that the situation in Darfur is no longer...
...post-World War II constitution, written in 1949, set out to ensure that a democratic system would be able to defend itself against forces hostile to democracy. The Grundgesetz guarantees basic rights like freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, but it also gives the state the power to ban organizations that threaten the democratic order. Clauses prohibiting the use of symbols which violate the constitution, including Nazi symbols, were added to the German penal code in 1960. In the past few decades, as Germany has seen a rise in right-wing extremism, these laws have been used as tools...
Then there's the case of Hitler's own writings. Since the end of World War II, Bavaria has blocked reprints of Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf. The southern state, which owns the copyright, says the ban is the only way to keep the book from being misused by the far right. But some German historians argue that scholarly editions of the book should be legally publishable. "Mein Kampf is a key work about the Nazis' rise to power and an important source of information about the Third Reich," says Horst Möller, a professor at Munich's Institute...
Further muddying the issue is the fact that the Munich Institute has already published a scholarly edition of the diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Why ban a scholarly edition of Mein Kampf when the Nazi propaganda boss's diaries are available, asks Möller. In the hope that Bavaria might one day lift the ban, the Institute is preparing an edition of Hitler's book. Meanwhile, Germany's Central Council of Jews has said it backs the publication of an edition that would take a critical look at Nazism...
...Mein Kampf can just order a copy. And there are other ways of getting around the laws. When Broadway hit The Producers - in which two theatrical producers attempt to oversell financial stakes in a surefire flop about Nazi Germany - opened in Berlin earlier this year, it sidestepped the swastika ban by using stylized pretzels instead. For some Germans, the inventive solution - adhering to the law while winking at it - was further proof that attitudes to the past are changing. (Read: "Showtime for Hitler: The Producers Comes to Berlin...