According to the band, Apple’s iTunes in the region decided to walk back on their decision to ban some of the songs that the company felt was “inappropriate” for us Arabs. They cited a “content aggregator” was behind the pulling of the 5 songs, and expressed “regret” and promised that the album in its entirety would be available again on iTunes.
Congrats! Glad to see that standing up to censorship by big corporations worked this time, in hopes the song will inspire a more critical thinking, tolerant and progressive Arab world.
UPDATE: Apple’s iTunes has walked back, and promised to list all the album’s songs. Congrats! source
This morning, Apple’s iTunes Middle East proved they are an unethical corporation that is helping quash freedom of expression in the Arab World.
Al Rahel Al Kabir (The Great Departed) is a Lebanese band known for their brutal (but beautiful) criticism of religious fundamentalism, political oppression, military rule and other problems people in the Middle East face on a day-to-day basis (and have suffered under for decades).
Apple’s iTunes ME said one of the songs violated its policies on cover songs, but the rest, they claimed is “inappropriate” for Arab audiences, as the band posted on their Facebook page:
Most surreal of all is the justification given for the censoring of these songs — that they are “inappropriate for the Arab world” because of their “political” and “religious” content, and their “sarcastic” nature. (source)
In response, the group decided to pull the rest of their album “La Bombe”, from Apple’s iTunes. I applaud them for this, because if there’s anything worse than government-sponsored censorship and oppression, it’s big corporations that make money off us censoring arts and culture.
Gino's Blog 