U.S. firms now need OK to publish authors from nations under sanction
Will voices of dissent still be heard? By Scott Martelle Los Angles Times (Dec 7 2004)
Part E; Pg. 1. [free registration required]
In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American firms from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first get U.S. government approval.
The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the 1st Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States, a country that prides itself as the international beacon of free expression.
…spokeswoman Molly Millerwise described the sanctions as “a very important part of our overall national security.”…
The regulations seem shaded by Joseph Heller’s classic novel “Catch-22.”
American publishers are allowed to reissue, for example, Cuban communist propaganda or officially approved books but not original works by writers whom the Cuban government has stifled.
More information:
- IEEE OFAC Information page
- ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PRESSES
- Nobel Winner Ebadi Sues U.S. to Publish Memoirs, By Claudia Parsons, ABC News /Reuters
Nov 3, 2004. - AT THE LIBRARY by JULIE WINKELSTEIN,
Contra Costa Times, Nov. 19, 2004.