We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
INSTITUTE TOPICS
CINEMATOGRAPHIC CENSORSHIP IN THE NEAR EAST.
In the Eastern Mediterranean countries, which are the principal centres of Islamic life and culture, religious considerations are one of the main factors in film censorship. The necessity of safeguarding the intimate life of these peoples through religious, that is to say moral, influences, is obvious when we remember, not only that photography — the presentation of man in effigy, whether still or in motion — is regarded as sacrilegious, but also the immense importance attached to the protection of family life.
East and West, with their diverse systems of life, meet on the shores of the common sea, the Mediterranean, but they do not merge. The mental attitudes of the two peoples are absolutely different. Christianity and Islamism live side by side, without interfering with or encroaching on one another, and only when morals and religion are at issue do we become aware of the imperious will to prevent any offence against the sentiments and the normal ways of life which are the objective ethics of mankind.
For this reason the task of cinematographic control, even if restricted and justified by the limitations of religious ideas, comes into touch with the western concept. However much they may differ in form and expression, the bases of morals and education are the same everywhere. The rules laid down for the censorship reveal a like difference in form and expression, but the groundwork is always the same : the defence of the family and the State by recalling men to the observance of the religion of their forefathers and by insisting upon the respect due to themselves and their fellows.
Egypt.
The exercise of Control. — The ministerial decree of the 2nd August 1921, issued by the Ministry of Finance in concert with the Ministry of the Interior, lays down in Art. 1 that no film shall be exhibited in public places, or, if imported from abroad, be removed from the custom-house or post-office, without the previous authorization of the Ministry of the Interior ; this is shown by affixing a tail to the film ; which forms an integral part of the film and must be projected together with it, so that the audience shall be apprized that it has been passed by the censor.
The censorship of films in Egypt is carried out at the Ministry of the Interior through the medium of special officers. This constitutes a
693