bloody hands bushgang is afraid of foreign artists

[donsu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1150285,00.html

Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds. James Verini reports

In the spring of 2003, the celebrated Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi was travelling to South America from Hong Kong. He did not intend to stop in the US, but his flight path took him through New York's John F Kennedy airport. There, Panahi, a winner of the Golden Bear award at the Venice film festival who had visited the US several times, expected to while away a few dull hours. Instead, he was detained by officials; because his fingerprints were not on file, he was handcuffed and held in custody for several hours. He was so incensed at his treatment that he vowed never to return to the US.

-snip-

No one, it seems, is exempt. Last week, at the Grammy awards, the Cuban guitarist Ibrahim Ferrer was supposed to have received an award - but he couldn't get into the country. The 76-year-old was cited as a security risk. A Peking Opera company had to cancel an 18-city tour because the American consulate in China claimed not all of the musicians could adequately prove that they intended to return home after the tour ended. The South African anti-apartheid leader and singer Vusi Mahlasela had to cancel a good chunk of a US tour because his visa took months to get approved, as did the Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia.

-snip-

Artists from Muslim countries and Cuba seem to have the most difficulty - since the 1980s, Iranians travelling to the US have been fingerprinted - but the trouble extends across the continents. Pena said that Polish film-makers have refused to come to his festival because of the way they were treated on previous visits. And according to Marc Scorca, president of Opera America, opera directors from countries as uncontroversial as Italy and Spain have begun avoiding US engagements. "They don't want to put up with the hassle," he says, "which then means that American opera singers are not getting the work abroad they used to."

-snip-

The results of all this seem pretty clear. As Opera America's Scorca puts it: "These procedures are leading to diminished exposure of American audiences to great artists and making it harder for US artists to get work abroad." But the stakes, many believe, are even higher than that. "Art is cultural diplomacy," says Sandra Gibson, president of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters in Washington, which lobbies Congress and USCIS on behalf of hundreds of members. "And it's just as important as it was during the cold war. It's as important as when Van Cliburn went to the Soviet Union to perform and changed Khrushchev's mind about the United States."
----------------------------


the articles explains all the hoops artists have to jump through just to get in or out of america.

the bushgang really isn't afraid of artists, it's just that the gang is so anal that they hate artist's freedoms. :)

[knight_of_the_star]

1. Don't make me feel good here

I can only imagine how it will be for artists who don't toe the line if Bush wins in November :scared:

[donsu]

2. like what the Russians did - their prisons full of artists

who, by the way, did not shut up.