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FREEDOM TO READ WEEK, February 26-March 3, 2012

Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Schools and libraries are regularly asked to remove books and magazines from their shelves. Free expression on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.

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FIND US ON FACEBOOK!

Freedom to Read Week now has a Facebook Page! Please visit us and click that you're attending and show your support! It's a great place to instantly post pictures and share information about your events!

In other web-savvy news, FTRW also has a Twitter account.


NEWS AND OPINIONS

February 17, 2012 — Freedom to Read Week: Why It Matters! Focusing Attention on Our Right to Choose

October 19, 2011 — The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that hyperlinking to defamatory material on the Internet does not constitute publishing the defamatory material itself.

June 15, 2011 — Hill's Book of Negroes causes stir in Netherlands, CBC News, June 15, 2011

May 18, 2011 — Parents from the Bluewater District School Board want The Wars by Timothy Findley removed from all classrooms in the district.

April 11, 2011 — The American Library Association has announced its annual list of challenged books.

February 16, 2011 — For Immediate Release


NewSouth Books' plan to publish a sanitized edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is still provoking comment in Canada. One issue is whether such books should be used in public schools.


In India, Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey is the target of a censorship attempt. Mistry is an acclaimed Canadian novelist, and Such a Long Journey was published in 1991.


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"It is too late in the day to stop men thinking. If allowed to think they will speak. If they speak they will write, and what they write will be printed and published. A newspaper is only a thought-throwing machine, a reflex of the popular mind. If it is not, it cannot live. We are not disposed to send our proof-sheets to anyone to correct."

— Amor de Cosmos (1825-97), British Columbian newspaper editor, in The British Colonist (1859), after the governor of British Columbia, Sir James Douglas, attempted to suppress the newspaper