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Political censorship exists when a government attempts to conceal, distort, or falsify information that its citizens receive by suppressing or crowding out political news that the public might receive through news outlets. In the absence of unflattering but objective information, people will be unable to dissent with the government or political party in charge. It is also the suppression of views that are contrary to those of the government in power. The government often has the power of the army and the secret police, to enforce the compliance of journalists with the will of the government to extol the story that the government wants people to believe, at times even with bribery, ruin of careers, imprisonment, and even assassination. In practice most political systems condemn political censorship officially even if they practice it. Even in the United States of America, which has traditionally had one of the best records for journalistic freedom, the George W. Bush Administration bribed Armstrong Williams to tout pet programs of the Administration while posing as an independent journalist, fostered propagandistic news feeds supplied for free to television stations reported by "Karen Ryan", and allowed Jeff Gannon to become part of the White House press corps so that he could ask loaded questions that presumed an answer unflattering to the opponents of the Administration.
Non-governmental organizations such as terrorist organizations and syndicates of organized crime have been known to attack newspaper presses, destroy broadcasting towers, and assassinate journalists (among the most infamous such cases, Dan Bolles). News media with monopoly or near-monopoly power in a local market (such as WLBT-TV of Jackson, Mississippi during the Civil Rights struggle in the American South during the 1960s) have been known to censor incoming news reports from the network to which they are affiliated.
The word censorship comes from the Latin word censor, the job of two Romans whose duty was to supervise public behaviour and morals, hence 'censoring' the way people acted.
Political censorship in practice: under Communist governments
Independent journalism did not exist in the Soviet Union until Mikhail Gorbachev became its leader; all reporting was directed by the Communist Party or related organizations. Pravda, the predominant newspaper in the Soviet Union, had a near-monopoly. Foreign newspapers were available only if they were published by Communist Parties sympathetic to the Soviet Union. All electronic media (including radio and television) were under control of the Communist Party, and the government regularly jammed radio signals from such organizations as the BBC, Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Europe. Persons that the government did not want cited or published became non-persons if they were allowed to survive. The pattern of the Soviet Union became a model of other "socialist states", but some could be even more severe, such as Romania under the Ceauşescu regime placed controls upon such tools of mass communication as typewriters, photocopiers and even typewriter ribbons. Such restraints typically disappeared with the end of Communist rule.
Under the People's Republic of China which continues Communist rule in politics if not the controlled economy, employs some 30,000 'Internet police' to monitor the internet and popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Under Fascist and Racist régimes
Under Benito Mussolini, press freedom steadily deteriorated in Italy.
Nazi Germany imposed pervasive censorship of news media, placing all news media in subordination to the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Josef Goebbels and his deputy Walther Funk[1]. The government frequently terrorized journalists and shut down any journalistic enterprise operating contrary to the desires of the political leadership. The Nuremberg Laws formally prohibited Jews from owning or publishing newspapers or practicing as journalists, although that legislation ratified the situation that already existed with respect to journalism. Although for-profit newspapers operated, all such newspapers were obliged to follow the Party line if they were to survive. Intended victims could not challenge such media as Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer. Militarist and racist propaganda proliferated under the support of the Nazi Party and its leadership. Persons such as Sophie Scholl who disseminated anti-nazi or "defeatist" materials through mimeographed handbills were subject to capital punishment. Much the same pattern occurred in all countries that came under Nazi rule through conquest.
In 1950, Apartheid-era South Africa enacted a law that allowed the government to 'ban' people who had expressed views opposed to the government in power. Once the banning order is given, the victim cannot be quoted in any way, whether in newspapers, books, radio or television.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein had much the same techniques of press censorship as did Romania under Nicolae Ceauşescu but with greater potential violence. At the extreme it executed Farzad Bazoft on fabricated charges of espionage for Israel for getting unauthorized access to the site of a suspicious explosion.
