By Shivali Shah, Co-Editor-In-Chief
A display of books telling stories of silenced voices greeted students at River Hill, urging attention to ongoing censorship issues at the center of Book Action Month and Banned Book Week.
During Amnesty International’s Banned Book Week, from Oct. 5th to Oct. 11th, the organization aimed to bring recognition to banned books around the world and also to the authors behind the writing, whose free expression has been challenged. By shedding light on these stories, the week accentuates the growing global struggle for freedom of speech.
The Amnesty Club—our school’s chapter of Amnesty International, a global movement dedicated to protecting human rights—brought this action to our very River Hill media center, organizing petitions for students to call for action against unjust revocations of freedom of speech.
The petitions covered issues beyond books alone, highlighting a wide range of civil liberty issues, including censorship of “social media posts, articles, protests and of course [written work],” describes Amnesty Club’s co-founder Kateryna Seneko.
One cause stood out the most to students, amassing the highest number of signatures: a petition fighting for the emancipation of Saudi Arabian teacher Mohammad bin Nassar al-Ghamdi, who was sentenced to death for his online social media posts in which he protested increasing prices and called upon the Saudi government to release detained religious clerics.
Senior Medha Murikipudi, who signed the petition, shared her motivations behind her participation, “I signed the petition because I believe that students deserve to have access to a wide range of perspectives, especially from minority groups. Writing helps us understand experiences beyond our own, which builds more empathy and understanding for others in the community.”
That awareness is what spurred concrete action from the Amnesty Club. “It was important to start [the petitions] in order to advocate for those who were affected by the banned books and had their freedom of expression taken away,” Seneko explains, highlighting that these cases are rarely isolated incidents. “[I wanted] people to know what banned books are, since people are challenged all the time for what they write.”
Mr. Ahr, one of our school librarians, explains how activism like this is a crucial learning opportunity in the fight for artistic liberty, “I think it’s important to actually point [the books] out, so that people can see that somewhere in the country, this book was banned. Reading it and figuring out what’s so controversial not only puts [students] in the point of view of the people who thought it was objectionable, but also helps them formulate an argument about why it shouldn’t be banned.”
This international issue has also planted itself locally. “There is a Moms for Liberty group in Howard County and one of their key missions is to police [controversial] books on library shelves,” explains Mr. Ahr. “But no book that has been challenged, including by the Moms for Liberty, has ever been removed from the shelf,” attesting to the standards of freedom upheld by our Howard County Public School System.
The Amnesty Club provides an outlet for River Hill students to get involved with human rights issues such as these, especially during a time when censorship issues are intensifying worldwide. “Since high schoolers are the future generation, it is more important than ever that they realize what is happening in our world, not just their country but internationally. It’s up to them to be able to tell others about these issues and realize that they are a part of everything that is happening,” Seneko says. “You can always learn more and be a part of more, and that is what Amnesty International is all about.”
As Banned Book Week came to a close, the display and petitions in the media center highlighted the core issue affecting both communities locally and globally: ongoing attempts to restrict access to information. As Mr. Ahr puts it, “Everyone should be able to read what they want to read. If you find [a book] objectionable, then you can just choose to not read it, but you shouldn’t keep other people from reading and exploring that book.”