The decision by a Sydney library to dump an exhibition about Palestinian refugees after a visit by counter-terrorism police the night before it opened has been criticised as an act of censorship. Sydney Morning Herald has the story.
Leichhardt Municipal Library was to launch the Al-Nakba pictorial exhibition last Friday. A local community group, Friends of Hebron, had developed the display of photos, poems and articles over eight months.
“We set up the exhibition at the library on Thursday night and the librarian … approved the exhibition, and said that it could be seen by children and other people who came into the library,” said Carole Lawson, a Friends of Hebron member.
But that night, shortly before the library closed at 8pm, officers from the police counter-terrorism operations arrived at the library.
a shame
That’s too bad. coughcoughcoughcowardscoughcough
Been there, done that
In my town, the local art museum put on an exhibit of art by a Palestinian woman, who was Christian by the way. They didn’t get shut down, but they got a terrible amount of flack and there were tons of protests. The art itself was not controversial. Mostly still-life images and photographs and paintings of everyday people baking bread, working, etc.