Iran can’t keep Western magazines off the news stands — but they can make sure that folks don’t see anything that the regime wouldn’t approve of.
It’s mind-boggling to think of the people whose work it is to sit there with a giant felt-tip pen and cover up skin all day long.
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When we lived in Djakarta Indonesia, from 1968 to 1973, Indonesia would censor Dad’s Time magazines. They used a kind of black glue and a piece of paper. The paper would be cut to fit over the offending photograph (presumably a woman in a bikini or something like that), and the glue would be applied to hold the piece of paper to the magazine page. The glue invariably seeped through the page of the magazine and glued it to the next page behind it. It was pretty grotesque, and I imagine it was very time-consuming. On the one hand, labor was cheap, so I’m sure it didn’t cost the government much to do this. On the other hand, this job meant that the censor HAD to look at the offensive pictures. I suppose it would have been too risky for them to simply hope that no Muslims would come across the magazine once it was delivered to my Dad, but at the same time, what kind of purification ritual did the censor have to go through as a result of his job?
I feel like I’ve mentioned this here before. So sorry if I’m repeating myself. It seems to be an age-related disease in my family if my Dad and my grandfather are anything to go by.
Censors and their staffs never seem to have a problem dealing with the “filth” they are exposed to.