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ROME (Reuters) - A British filmmaker said on Friday he was a victim of censorship after a leading museum cancelled the Italian premiere of the documentary "Girlfriend in a Coma", which is highly critical of Italy's political and economic situation.

The museum where the film was to have been shown on February 13 cancelled the showing and said it could not be held until after the country's elections on Feb 24-25.

Former Economist magazine editor Bill Emmott, who made the film with Italian Annalisa Piras, called the decision by the Museum of 21st Century Art (MAXXI) a product of "censorship and stupidity".

MAXXI, run by a foundation overseen by the culture ministry, said it could not be host to activity that can be seen to have political connotations ahead of the elections.

"This is not censorship," a spokesperson said. "After the elections, the film can be shown here." The election date has been known for nearly two months.

Emmott was for 13 years the chief editor of the Economist magazine, which published covers highly critical of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, including a famous 2001 cover which read: "Why Silvio Berlusconi is Unfit to Lead Italy".

"I am shocked. I would not have been shocked if this had happened during the government of my good friend Silvio Berlusconi, but the culture ministry doing this now is astonishing," he told Reuters by telephone from Jamaica.

The MAXXI is run by a foundation which is funded by the culture ministry.

The film, which has already shown in New York, Miami, Brussels and London, paints a picture of what the authors say is the country's moral, social and economic decline over the past 20 years since Berlusconi came to power.

"What this decision reflects is a very cautious mentality that wants to hide the reality of the situation of Italy and seeks to stifle debate about the causes because they might be too revealing," Emmott said.

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Filmmaker cries censorship as Italy political documentary blocked

Play Let #39;s! Psychonauts - Part 5 - Censorship at it #39;s finest.
The game censors stuff.. Not me though.

By: Kake Manz

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Play Let's! Psychonauts - Part 5 - Censorship at it's finest. - Video

London, Jan. 30 (ANI): The British broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been accused of an 'extraordinary' act of censorship for ordering a playwright to edit certain lines from a Radio 4 drama about honour killings.

In an episode for the broadcaster's DCI Stone series, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti told the story of an investigation into the killing of a 16-year-old Asian girl.

When it came to light that the teenager had been a victim of a so-called honour killing, the fictional detective is advised to handle the case "sensitively" because the family is Muslim, the Telegraph reports.

At the end of the episode, called Heart Of Darkness and due to be broadcast in the Afternoon Drama slot this week, a character said that "there is so much pressure in our community, to look right and to behave right."

Bhatti said that a week before recording she received an email from the producer saying the BBC compliance department had asked them to take lines out.

She added that 'it is an extraordinary and awful situation. They said the lines were offensive but they absolutely were not'.

The BBC's alleged "censorship" of Bhatti's work came after her controversial play Behzti was withdrawn from a Birmingham theatre after protests from Sikhs in 2004.

The play featured scenes of rape, abuse and murder inside a Sikh temple and sparked demonstrations outside the Birmingham Rep.

A Radio 4 spokesman told The Independent that "this is a hard-hitting drama about the realities of honour killing in Britain'.

He said that "a single line in the script could be taken to infer that the pressure and motivation to commit such a crime in a family comes from the wider Muslim community, potentially misrepresenting majority British Muslim attitudes to honour killing'.

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BBC accused of 'extraordinary' act of 'censorship' for editing play on Muslim honour killings

By Emel Akan Epoch Times Staff Created: January 29, 2013 Last Updated: January 31, 2013

A woman checks the book of Chuck Palahniuk in a bookstore in Instanbul in 2011. (Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images)

ISTANBULRumors that two classic books could face censorship in Turkey boosted them to best-seller status within a week.

Steinbecks Of Mice and Men reportedly had been referred to the authorities for censorship in schools in Turkey because of several immoral parts of text, along with popular childrens book My Sweet Orange Tree. The Ministry of Education subsequently denied the rumors, but not before book sales soared.

It is true that recent reactions have boosted the sales. It is not desirable though. It is unfortunate that the book has become part of such rumors, said Irfan Sanci, chief editor of Sel Publishing House that publishes Of Mice and Men.

Publisher of My Sweet Orange Tree, Can Publications, also confirmed soaring sales. A representative said: The increase was triggered by both reaction and curiosity. There has been lot of support by readers. Some were second time buyers.

But the manager at Kabalci bookstore in Besiktas, one of the busiest bookstores in Istanbul, downplayed the reported increase in sales. We have seen more interest and some reactionary buying in the last few weeks, but it was not enormous. It was media pump up. Some people bought the books with the fear of censorship.

Both books have been popular in schools as they are among the 100 novels recommended by the Ministry of Education. Leading Turkish online bookstore Idefix, has listed both books as bestsellers.

Books are resilient the more they are banned or attempted to be banned the more people read them, said World famous Turkish author Elif Safak in a tweet when the two books hit the bestseller lists.

Although it is a common practice to ban books in Turkey, the government recently lifted a ban on 453 books. Some included titles from 1960s70s.

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Censorship Rumors in Turkey Boost Classics to Bestseller List

An exhibition of paintings showing cannibalism and dismemberment is stirring a debate on art censorship in Japan, the home of violent manga comics.

Aida Makotos work at Tokyos Mori Art Museum last night provoked protests from a Japanese organization called People Against Pornography and Sexual Violence.

The group wrote to museum director Nanjo Fumio demanding that the images be removed because the museum was showing sexual, misogynistic material.

Its not so bad compared to manga and anime on the Internet, Nanjo said in an interview. This artists vision is about our society, which is hidden and (which) often people dont look at. The disturbing works encourage the viewer to question violence in all its forms, not to celebrate it, he said.

Makotos Monument for Nothing career retrospective includes pictures of Japanese retirees playing croquet with severed heads, a suicide device designed to always fail, a giant blender full of naked women and a kamikaze attack on New York (painted before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001).

Hidden behind a black curtain is a section restricted to people of 18 years old or more, where Makoto, 47, shows images of dismembered women and of a multi headed monster having sex. The latter echoes a 19th-century print by Hokusai.

Unlike the easily recognizable output of Takashi Murakami or Yayoi Kusama, Makotos oeuvre contains so many different styles that its impossible to label him.

He draws inspiration from comic books, prostitution advertisements, the Marquis de Sade, and Yukio Mishima, the Japanese writer who committed ritual seppuku (suicide by disembowelment) in 1970.

One painting shows a farmer in traditional Japanese costume harvesting Louis Vuitton bags from a muddy field. A Bonsai sculpture has smiling heads in place of cherry blossoms, poking fun at the countrys Kawaii culture of cuteness.

A folding screen depicts crows, some with human remains in their beaks, perched on electric power poles positioned at dangerous angles -- a post-apocalyptic tableau recalling a 16th- century work by Hasegawa Tohaku.

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Manga Cannibalism Sparks Censorship Fury in Japan