What happened to virgin is nothing new, this happens always in Kuwait. If anybody went to ma3rath el ketab (only books sold where about Islam or Cooking)Â would know that most books are censored in Kuwait, they have to be read by some guy in the ministry checked then passed, most dont pass. From my point of view virgin made a large fuss because it pinched a certain kind of community. the shutting of the store effected a small number of book buyer but a large number of electronic and music buyers. Many arabic book stores in Hawali have been harassed and closed down, some moved to other locations. Such action from the Ministry of Communication have been conducted a long time ago, Nothing new really. There is an old novel called Fahrenheit 451, it talks about how the government suppresses reading books and controlling what people learned. Looks like Kuwait is following the same path!
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April 28th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
MASKHARAAA!!
I WANT THIS STORE BACK.
btw.. any idea on whos the owner?
April 28th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
fayoora one of the Al-Saleh family is the owner.
April 28th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
i think the owner is 7amad al saleh? chenna maktoob on the paper ely stuck on the walls or something.
i read that book in high school, and i liked it a lot. i totally forgot about the book burning thing. yeah.. that looks just like our country, controlling what we read and see.
April 28th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
lets do a strike to re-open all closed shops, let a new revolution begin :p
strike will take place at costa marina cresent.. lets chill and strike :p
no but seriously, whats the point with closing all these shops while u can find all u want on the internet ?
April 28th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Enigma: yah thats Kuwait for you, they talk about progress then they control what you read! true hipocrits
Kuwaitoons: strike= costa=food ic:P buying from the net is international, but buying from Kuwait is Kuwaiti law.
April 29th, 2007 at 1:18 am
walla we’ve had enough of fake democracies…just give us freedom!
April 29th, 2007 at 1:25 am
ÙŒRegarding Kuwaiti censorship, to me it does not make sense in many ways! let aside the respect to the country’s boundaries I can live with that, but reading should be up to what you are not to what you are forced to be/ follow
However online shopping, traveling can get any thing into your brains
I agree there is nothing new about what happened, but the special thing is that it happened to a place that is very popular & we know how we love OH this famous series of blah blah is here in Kuwait type of place, besides Virgin is the ONLY media “all types of media” store in Kuwait, this is the thing I like about it. In one store you can get ur PSP a new game, a book, music and also accessories for ur gadgets!
over priced? yes mostly, still its a joy just to spend hours among books, music & games!
Book wise Virgin can not beat the library in Al-Muthan “esp. non-Arabic books & mags” it does not have the best, but it has the variety under one roof.
April 29th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Øكوماتنا والرقابة…..
يبدو ان وزارة الاعلام ÙÙŠ الكويت بدأت Ùجأة بالتسخين لتكون مستعدة لدخول الملعب، ملعبها التي تملكه وتديره وهي Ùيه الØكم واللاعب، لكن بدلا من …
April 29th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Kuwaitoons ..
Yallah Start the strike
Im with u
April 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am
q8-chillgirl: exactly other book shops carry larger categories like the muthana one, personnely i just feel good walking around virgin, seeing whats new.
MAZE: this you’l never get, sorry to say
moodless: looks like they are into gear yes, but wait until they change in the minister in 6 months then back to normal, happy hour four the shop owners:)
April 29th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I have heard of closures….being the act of last-resort….even in Dubai you do have censorship…and even if the shops do get away with “banned content”….they get fined and content gets pulled from the shelf…and the shopping experience keeps going on… but this is new for me in Q8… especially large firms like this…anyways we will have to wait and see…..if they can come back… Phoenix Rising..
April 29th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books burn, remember?
Some of those older science fiction authors were the BEST!
There seem to be a lot of books coming into the country, being shared, being traded, being loaned. At least they are not banning bringing books in for individual reading. Hard to stop the spread of ideas
April 30th, 2007 at 1:44 am
q8xpat: yah dubai is even worse with censorship in books…
intlxpatr: yah i do, yah atleaset we still have the liberty of ordering books from amazon. We kuwaiti love putting laws so we can se if we can create a loop and go around them:)
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
WOW!!! I really have to say: YOU SAID IT!!!!
What kind of freedom is that there? No wonder I never think of going back there! I rather my freedom in the EU!
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Nora: what can we do here, its so stupid!
May 9th, 2007 at 2:39 am
46410a017d…
46410a017d…
September 7th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Effexor