Frank Zappa Quotes

Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity.

Censorship is definitely one of the main issues that you have to live with in China – period!

As there is in Germany - as well as in Russia and Italy - no art which is not approved of by the government, any criticizing remark about the present policy made by me would easily be taken as a hostile act. I cannot have my name put up against an official report from Germany without risking very unpleasant consequences.

That was only the beginning - where one burns books, one will finally also burn people.

My musician friends are banned from playing concerts in China because they share the same views as I do. My name cannot appear on the web, because my opinion is different from the Party.

Unfortunately the situation of human rights in Iran isn't improving. Some of the newspapers were shut down and the government didn't try to reopen the newspapers that were shut down before. And the laws are as bad as before.

In communist countries, you execute your poets. In the free world, the poets execute themselves.

India is one vast prison with high walls of suppression clothing her mind and her body.

Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.

When someone has to intervene to defend the liberty of the press, that society is sick.

If you want to do what you want to do, you cannot work. So art is going to be finished, and this is the will of the Islamic republic: to not have any artists or art and close the doors of all the cinemas and music and everything.

I love my country, but I believe that we are too quick to censor nudity.

Russians have a new freedom, but as long as they don't express that freedom on a public platform.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press is dangerous.

Literature has its own life, even in a dictatorship like the Soviet Union.

In certain areas where the media are still controlled, the changes have come to a halt, which is a very frustrating situation. I would like the changes to take place throughout China.

There is a long tradition in China for writers and journalists to take pen names, partly as protection from retaliation by authorities. If Facebook requires the use of real names, that could potentially put Chinese citizens in danger.

That President Mohammad Khatami's policies have been blocked is the bitterest incident in the contemporary Iranian history. This means that the wishes of millions of people who voted for Khatami and called for freedom and justice have been ignored... Why should cultural activities and journalism be so risky in Iran?

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

One thing is sure — none of the arts flourishes on censorship and repression. And by this time it should be evident that the American public is capable of doing its own censoring. Certainly, the Thomas Committee is growing more ludicrous daily.

The surest way to make our youth suspect that there may be something in Communism would be for the government to outlaw it.

It never occurred to me that I was important enough to have some politician go out of his way to silence me. I only found out about it in the '80s by accident - a broadcaster announced they received letters of commendation from the White House for having suppressed my music. My career was so highly impacted in the U.S. it will never recover.

Political oppositionary activity on the Russian Internet caused the government to pass laws limiting both service operators and users. As a result, the Russian tech environment became much less liberal, losing freedom as one of its competitive advantages.

As far as the 2009 elections go, there has been a serious crackdown on human rights in Iran, a clampdown on the media and the wrongful imprisonment of journalists. So it seems what's happening is the government is going after people who have a voice, people who change society or public opinion.