This content was published on November 7, 2023 – 17:30 November 7, 2023 – 17:30
Moscow, Nov 7 (EFE).- Libraries in several Russian regions have begun to require a passport as a requirement to lend books written by authors considered ‘foreign agents’.
Furthermore, these books have been removed from the shelves, so readers must specifically request loans from libraries, according to the digital newspaper Meduza today.
That is the case of libraries in Siberian regions such as Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Omsk, which has caused complaints from users on social networks.
Sources from the Ministry of Culture in Omsk explain that they only comply with the law with respect to the works of foreign agents, a label that writers, intellectuals and activists who criticize the Kremlin have received.
It is the case of writers like Dmitri Buíkov and Dmitri Glujovski; journalists such as Yulia Latinina and Victor Shenderóvich; and musicians such as Andréi Makarévich and Boris Grebenschikov.
At the same time, they recognize that all these books are only suitable for those over 18 years of age, although some of them are precisely children’s works.
Pro-government politicians have proposed extending this practice to all of Russian territory with the argument that these authors carry out political activities and are financed with money from abroad.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, in the country’s main bookstores, books by authors critical of the president, Vladimir Putin, and the military campaign have disappeared from their collections or been removed to remote places on the shelves. EFE
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2023-11-07 19:05:31
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