'Borat,' 'Brokeback Mountain' listed as human rights victims in '06

WASHINGTON - Fictional gay cowboys and a faux reporter fromKazakhstan suffered human rights abuses in 2006 as crackdowns onflesh and blood victims were extended to the Internet, award-winningfilms and noted plays worldwide, the State Department says.

From the movies "Borat" to "Brokeback Mountain," foreigngovernments banned or restricted access to a variety of big andlittle screen entertainment as well as live events, the StateDepartment says.

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen - creator of Borat, the crassKazakh chronicler of the American condition - and the gay cowboy lovestory that won three Oscars were hit with what it deemed violationsof freedoms of speech and expression.

So were the "The Da Vinci Code," "The Vagina Monologues" and eventhe popular Google Earth Web site, according to the department'sannual survey of global human rights practices released this week.

Amid a litany of deadly crackdowns on dissent, extrajudicialkillings, torture and arrests, the report suggests that traditionalcensorship of overtly political works of art, literature and film maybe entering new territory.

Baron Cohen, who has vexed the authoritarian Kazakh governmentwith his mocking and rocketed to fame in the film "Borat: CulturalLearnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,"became a victim when Kazakhstan moved against his satirical Web site.

Specifically, it took control of the registration of .kz Internetdomains in 2005 and then revoked Baron Cohen's Borat domain, sincerelocated, because it deemed his site offensive, the report said.

The movie depicting Borat's pseudo-documentary wanderings acrossthe U.S. became an unlikely hit and earned Baron Cohen a Golden Globeaward. It also generated complaints that he duped his Americansubjects into making racist and sexist remarks and portrayed Kazakhsin an unflattering light.

Borat, for example, asserted that Kazakhs are addicted to horseurine, enjoy shooting dogs, view rape and incest as respectablehobbies and are fond of "running of the Jew" festivals. Baron Cohenis an observant Jew.

The State Department report made no mention of the contents of thefilm or the Web site but said Baron Cohen's banishment wassymptomatic of repression in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic incentral Asia.

It accused the government of monitoring dissident e-mail andInternet activity, blocking or slowing access to opposition sites andplanting propaganda in Internet chat rooms.

Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" was banned in the Bahamas, wherecensors said it lacked public value and depicted extremehomosexuality, nudity and profanity, the report said.