Municipality bans play in eastern Turkey

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Hürriyet photo

Authorities have banned a theater play in the eastern province of Erzurum, allegedly due to a prop that condemns fascism, daily Hürriyet reported.
 
The founder of the theater group staging the performance, Nedim Saban, said the ban followed Erzurum Municipality's continuing pressure about the props that were being used on stage, one of which had the words "Fascism be damned!" written on it.
 
"A play has been pressured due to its prop and was censored for it," Saban said. "There is still a system in Anatolia that asks for actors' criminal records and for plays' texts.”
 
The play, titled "When There is All This Poverty," tells the story of a Jewish woman hosting a group of children whose mothers are prostitutes in an Arab neighborhood in France.