Society of (De)kata

The effective book ban by the school authorities in Perry Township has outraged teachers and education reformers.

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Now I haven’t seen the book in question - or even Hilary Swank’s heartwarming film version - but this time it’s not scrotums, penguins or even Harry Potter, it’s a bit of swearing.

The suspension of the teacher involved - apparently for “insubordination” - makes this one of the more serious cases. After all, of the 420 challenges to books reported to the American Library Association last year only (only!) 65 resulted in a book being pulled. But it’s eerily familiar in one crucial aspect. According to union officials there was only one member of the school board who objected. It’s the wishes of a vocal minority, and not the silent majority which are being respected once again.

Source: The Guardian

Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis intervened yesterday to ask for the review of a recent decision by a judge, which ordered school libraries to remove a critically acclaimed book from their shelves because it contained “disgusting and pornographic”passages.

Hatzigakis called the judge’s ruling to temporarily have Ersi Sotiropoulou’s “Zigzag Through the Bitter Orange Trees”removed from schools into question and has asked the Supreme Court to look into the decision as court of first instance justice Dimitris Gavalas is already the subject of a separate disciplinary process.

Gavalas faces being fired if the accusations that he has delayed issuing judgments in a series of cases are proved to be true.

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Greek Justice Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis is said by sources close to him to be incensed at a judge’s decision seeking to force the withdrawal of Ersi Sotirolpoulou’s award-winning book, “Zigzag Through The Bitter Orange Trees” from the school library system.

The banning of the book risks becoming the central, tarnishing episode of Hatzigakis’ tenure at the ministry, and the Minister does not appear willing to take a passive position on the issue. “A judge cannot be allowed to politicize decisions in such fashion,” he said in a meeting with aides following the publication of the judge’s decision.

In a harshly-worded letter that Mr Hatzigakis is said to be preparing, the Minister is expected within a few days to ask the head of the judicial oversight body Dimitris Kiritsakis to open disciplinary hearings on the judge over the issue of the Sotiropoulou decision.

Read the original story at TA NEA (in Greek).

Protest the recent ruling in Greece against Ersi Sotiropoulos’s Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees. Click on the link below: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/restore-freedom-of-artistic-creation-and-education-greece.html

From the webpage of Intelink Publishing, Northampton, MA — publisher of the US edition of Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees.

La «Société (de)kata» dénonce l’intervention de la Justice grecque, obligeant l’Organisme National des Bibliothèques Scolaires au retrait du roman « Ζigs-Zags dans les Orangers» de Ersi Sotiropoulou , comme un acte d’ingérence dans le processus littéraire et l’éducation et comme un acte de censure.

La Société réclame que le Ministère de l’Éducation condamne cette décision judiciaire qui ne connaît pas de précédent et d’utiliser tous les moyens légaux pour enrayer son application afin de sauvegarder la liberté d’expression et l’inviolabilité des arts et de l’éducation. Par cet acte, le système judiciaire, en pénalisant l’art de l’écriture, nous renvoie au Moyen Âge.

Cliquez ici pour signer la pétition !

The “(de)kata Society” denounces the interference of the Greek courts leading to the withdrawal from the National School Library system of the National Award novel, “Zig-Zag Through the Bitter Orange Trees” by Ersi Sotiropoulos, as an act of interference in the literary process and the educational system and as an act of censorship. The Society demands that the Ministry of Education use every legal means to block the enforcement of this unprecedented judicial decision in order to ensure the protection of freedom of expression and the sanctity of the arts and education. With this act, the justice system, by criminalising the art of writing, is throwing us back to the Middle Ages.

Athens, 17 April 2008

Click here to sign the petition.

A la suite d’un procès intenté par l’homme politique d’extrême droite, K. Plevris, à l’encontre du Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale grec, un tribunal grec a pris récemment la décision de contraindre l’Organisme National des Bibliothèques Scolaires de procéder au retrait du livre d’ Ersi Sotiropoulos, “Zig-Zag stis Nerantzies” (« Zigzags dans les orangers», Éd. Nadeau, 2003) qui avait obtenu le Prix National du Roman, en 2000. La décision du tribunal d’un conservatisme sans précédent est perçue par les intellectuels grecs comme une atteinte intolérable à la liberté d’expression et à l’indépendance de la création artistique.

A Greek Court has recently decided to force the withdrawal from the National School Library system of the Greek edition of the National Award novel, “Zig-zag Through the Bitter Orange Trees” by Ersi Sotiropoulos, as the result of a lawsuit initiated by the extreme-right politician K. Plevris against the Greek Ministry of Education.

The court’s decision, based on the judge’s opinion that the book “contains passages clearly pornographic and vulgar,” is a monument of extreme conservatism, and is viewed by Greek intellectuals as an unprecedented attack on reason, freedom of speech and the independence of artistic creation and education.

Find out more about the book here (US edition).