• Cinema Vietnam bans Barbie movie over controversial map of South China Sea

The American film Barbie, by director Greta Gerwig, was withdrawn on Monday from Algerian cinemas despite having been released on July 21, without an official statement from the authorities, which has aroused criticism about a new episode of censorship.

According to the digital newspaper 24H Algérie, the Ministry of Culture sent a circular on Sunday to the distributor MD Ciné, as well as to the theaters of Algiers, Constantine and Oran for its immediate withdrawal for "attack on (religious) morality", although so far it has not spoken publicly.

Among those affected by this decision is the multiplexer Garden City TMV, which opens its facilities in the capital today, and which deprogrammed the tape from its billboard this week to replace it with other foreign titles such as the successful "Oppenheimer".

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  • Writing: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Madrid

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  • Editor: AFP

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This, unlike "Barbie", contains sex scenes and nudity, so netizens have questioned the reasons for the ban.

Algeria thus follows in the footsteps of other countries in the region such as Kuwait and also Lebanon, which argued that this blockbuster "promotes homosexuality" and encourages the idea of "rejecting the custody of the father, belittling the role of the mother and ridiculing him, questioning the need for marriage and to form a family."

In just three weeks, about 400,000 spectators have been able to attend its screening, starring in unusual waiting lines in the Maghreb country, in which most of the cinemas have disappeared and today there are only about twenty, compared to the 450 that existed before its independence in 1962.

In recent years, professionals have denounced the precariousness of the national sector, especially with the withdrawal of public subsidies at the end of 2021 after the dissolution of the Development Funds for Art, Technology and the Film Industry (Ftadic), which has blocked numerous projects.

Last Friday the Audiovisual Regulation Authority (Arav) announced the temporary suspension of the new private television channel Essalam TV, after showing a foreign film with scenes "contrary to the precepts of Islam and the customs of society".

Soon after, the channel apologized for the "unintentional error" and explained that it sanctioned the person responsible. In November, El Adjawaa TV – broadcasting from the UK – was shut down for good for broadcasting "immoral" images.

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  • Algeria