Borat, the fictional alter ego of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, has been called many things in his time: a sexist, a racist, a rabid anti-semite and a bumbling oaf who releases chickens on to the New York City subway. But his latest incarnation casts the Kazakh TV host in an altogether more sympathetic light. Borat - or more specifically his movie - is a victim of human rights abuses.
This, at least, is the opinion of the US Department of State, which yesterday singled out Borat, Brokeback Mountain and The Da Vinci Code as films that were banned or restricted by foreign governments in 2006. The department's annual human rights report suggests that state censorship of art may be entering dangerous new territory.
The state department claims Kazakh authorities were instrumental in restricting access to Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie, which painted a satirical portrait of the former Soviet republic. The government stepped in to terminate Borat's official website, first taking control of the registration of .kz internet domains and then revoking Borat's domain. Such actions were "symptomatic of repression", the report argued. It added, "The government limited individuals' ability to criticise the country's leadership, and regional leaders attempted to limit local media outlets' criticism of them."
The report was also critical of the handling of the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain. Ang Lee's film was banned in the Bahamas after censors ruled that it depicted "extreme homosexuality" and therefore "lacked public value".
The Hollywood blockbuster The Da Vinci Code was also subject to direct government restrictions in Egypt and Samoa, apparently prompted by concerns that the film's story might be a cause of religious unrest.
