Several governments and intelligence agencies are operating secret prisons. The fact that these facilities do not officially exist means they are well-protected from the prying eyes of human rights agencies and the courts. Torture is often the norm in these places, and detainees are kept in inhumane living conditions.

Various world governments don’t want you to know about the following secret prisons. Some were closed down before or after they were exposed, while others remain unconfirmed, with the governments in question denying their existence.

10 Salt Pit
Afghanistan

The Salt Pit is a secret CIA-run prison in Afghanistan. It is one of the several prisons set up by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks and was intended to hold people suspected of having links with terrorists. Torture was par for the course at the Salt Pit, and prisoners were often subjected to inhumane punishments and conditions, including mock executions.

The Salt Pit used to be a brick factory before it was turned into a black site. Its cells are small and without windows or toilets. All that the prisoners have to relieve themselves is a bucket. Inmates are stripped naked and made to sleep on cold concrete floors. CIA operatives always keep loud music playing as a form of psychological torture.

Dr. Ghairat Baheer, who was held at the prison for six months, revealed that CIA interrogators tied him to a chair and sat on his stomach. Another, Gul Rahman, who later died in custody and remains the only verified death at the prison, experienced more violent punishments. He was stripped naked with his hands chained over his head while he was repeatedly beaten and drenched with buckets of water.

Rahman died of hypothermia on the morning of November 20, 2002. He was half-naked. The CIA did not return his body to his family or inform them of his death.^[1]

9 Camp 7
Guantanamo Bay

While the prison at Guantanamo Bay is already infamous and controversial in its own right, it also has its own secret prisons, which are even more controversial. One such place is Camp 7, which was built in a hidden location, away from the main prison. Camp 7 was so carefully hidden that no one knew of its existence for two years after it opened in 2006. The few who did never talked about it.

When its existence was revealed, journalists were not allowed to visit. The Red Cross was allowed in, on the condition that it never publicly speak about what it saw. Camp 7 was home to 15 prisoners the CIA considered “high value detainees.” One was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who is fingered as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

The CIA has been accused of torturing prisoners at Camp 7. During a tribunal hearing, one of its inmates, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, complained that his cell always vibrated and made some strange noises. The US military denied all accusations of psychological torture and claimed Shibh was just hearing things.

In 2014, Pentagon confessed that Shibh was hearing real noises but said it was the result of the prison falling apart. It claimed Camp 7 was originally constructed as a temporary structure and asked Congress for $49 million and $69 million to work on its drainage and foundation. Congress refused to allocate the funds.^[2]

8 Penny Lane
Guantanamo Bay

Penny Lane was another secret prison at Guantanamo Bay. Opened in 2003, the prisoners held there enjoyed a life of luxury. They lived in cottages, complete with a very comfortable bed, kitchen, patio, shower, and television. They could also request for additional luxuries, including pornography.

The fact that the inmates held in Penny Lane enjoyed a life of luxury shouldn’t be very surprising. The place was exclusively reserved for confirmed terrorists undergoing training as double agents. After their training, they were released and allowed to return to their terrorist cells, where they sent inside information back to the CIA.

This information was used to prepare drone strikes against targets of interest. In exchange, the CIA gave the terrorists millions of dollars in payment. The program was not a total success. Some of the terrorists rejoined their cells and never reported back to the CIA.

Some also became unwilling double agents after the CIA threatened to harm their children. Al-Qaeda itself knew the CIA would attempt to turn some of its people taken prisoner into double agents and had reservations about members released from Guantanamo Bay. The double agent program ended in 2006.^[3]

7 The Resort
North Korea

The Resort is the Penny Lane of North Korea. Its inmates are not terrorists but blacklisted relatives and officials of the North Korean oligarchy. It is not located on a remote island, either, but close to a town called Hyanghari, just 50 kilometers (30 mi) away from the Chinese border.

The Resort is believed to hold around 1,000 people. It has so many inmates because prisoners will often move in with their families. While heavily guarded, it does not look like a prison but more like a small town. Prisoners do not attempt to escape, since the living conditions aren’t bad. They don’t perform any hard labor or endure any additional punishment and get free cooked meals everyday.

Kim Song Ae is one of the people suspected of being held at the Resort. She used to be the second wife of the late president, Kim Il Sung. Another suspected prisoner is an aunt of the current president, Kim Jong Un. She is the wife of Jang Song Taek and was taken to the Resort after her husband was executed in December 2013.^[4]

6 Cat’s Eye
Thailand

Also called Detention Site Green, Cat’s Eye was a secret CIA prison in Thailand. For all we know, the site could still be in operation, since no one knows its precise location. Some say it is outside Bangkok, while others say it’s in Udon Thani. However, all agree that it is in Thailand, even though the CIA and the Thai government deny its existence.

Cat’s Eye was exposed in a 2014 US Senate report in which its location was listed as “Country [REDACTED].”

The prison was hurriedly set up in 2002 to hold Abu Zubaydah, a mujahideen fighter suspected to be one of bin Laden’s henchmen. Abu was picked up in Pakistan in March 2002, and the CIA was confused on where to keep him. They wanted a place far away from US jurisdiction and the Red Cross.

Abu was heavily tortured at the prison. For several months, he was the only inmate held there, and his torturers had lots of time to spare with him. He lived inside a box that was no bigger than a coffin and was continuously waterboarded until he fainted. The CIA used him to test out several of their “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which is just a fancy name for torture.

Cat’s Eye’s second prisoner was Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, who arrived there in November 2002. Both prisoners were frequently slapped, stripped naked, and deprived of sleep. They were also slammed against walls in an aptly named punishment called “walling.” Cat’s Eye was reportedly shut down in December 2002, after the CIA moved the inmates to another black site in Poland.^[5]

5 Temara Interrogation Center
Morocco

The Temara interrogation center was a secret prison jointly operated by the CIA and the Moroccan government. Located in Temara, near Rabat, the facility originally opened as a CIA-run secret interrogation center following the September 11 attacks. However, the CIA soon turned it into a prison. The Moroccan government joined in but was more interested in detaining political prisoners.

Zakaria Moumni, a French-Moroccan citizen who was held there for four days for political reasons, said his Moroccan interrogators told him he was in a slaughterhouse and would leave in pieces. Another, Oussama Boutahar, who fought with a Bosnia-based Islamist militia group in the 1990s and in 2003, said the Moroccans told him they were torturing him because the Americans told them to.

A report by the US Senate revealed that the CIA knew Morocco was torturing prisoners at the facility. The CIA complained to the Moroccan intelligence agency, but the complaint only destroyed the relationship between the CIA and the Moroccan government. The CIA also planned on abandoning the Temara site for another prison but later changed its mind. Morocco denies all accusations of torture.^[6]

4 Camp Lemonnier
Djibouti

Djibouti is a small country. It is located in the Horn of Africa alongside several other nations, including the Al-Shabbab- and pirate-ridden Somalia. It is also close to Yemen, which is presently experiencing a disastrous civil war.

The strategic location of the small nation is the reason the US established a military base on its soil. From the base, called Camp Lemonnier, the US launches drone strikes against targets in Somalia and Yemen.

There are also unconfirmed claims that the CIA operates a secret prison at the base. The US Congress reportedly has information about the existence of this facility but has refused to declassify it. Congress is also said to be aware that some of the prisoners held there are innocent.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleh Asad was one of the inmates supposedly held at the prison. He said he was tortured there before he was transferred to another black site in Afghanistan, where he was also tortured.

Mahdi Hashi, another supposed former prisoner, said he was taken to the prison after he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Mogadishu, Somalia. He claimed he was arrested because he refused to spy for British intelligence.^[7]

3 Unnamed Gay Prisons
Chechnya

Chechnya is a Muslim-majority autonomous region of Russia. It has been involved in series of wars with Russia in an attempt to become an independent nation. To end the recurring wars, Russia granted it autonomy. Today, Chechnya has its own head of state, Ramzan Kadyrov, who Russia leaves to do as he wishes.

Kadyrov has been accused of running secret prisons where gay men are tortured to death. Russia and Chechnya do not tolerate gays. While Russia has introduced laws to keep gays in check, Chechnya prefers abducting them and keeping them in secret detention centers where they are repeatedly tortured, sometimes to death.

Some journalists who reported the existence of the secret prisons in Chechnya have been murdered. Novaya Gazeta, the first paper to report the kidnappings, detentions, and killings, has seen at least six of its journalists killed. Some of its living journalists are still being threatened, and others have even fled the country.^[8]

2 Unnamed Prisons
Ukraine

Between 2014 and 2016, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) operated a secret prison in Kharkiv. The site was used to hold people the agency suspected of supporting or sympathizing with Russia during that nation’s military intervention in Ukraine and the consequent annexation of Crimea.

At the time, the SBU denied the existence of any secret prison and dismissed the accusation as Russian propaganda. The SBU and Ukrainian military launched independent probes into the existence of the facilities, but both closed their investigations without reaching a conclusion.

Mykola Vakaruk was held at the secret prison for about 600 days, during which he was repeatedly tortured. When he arrived, one of his interrogators told him he would receive a blow to the chest for every incorrect answer he gave.

Vakaruk received repeated blows and was kept in a 2-square-meter (22 ft²) cell which was so cold that water turned to ice. This culminated in him losing a kidney. He was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the damaged kidney before he was returned to the prison. He said he was forced to confess that he supported the Russian-backed fighters.

Vakaruk was let go when Ukraine started a mass release of the prisoners due to pressure by human rights groups. He received a paltry 100 hryvnias ($3.80) as compensation, and he and other detainees were threatened never to disclose their experiences to anyone.

The secret prison in Kharkiv was one of the several clandestine facilities operated by the SBU. Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch accused the agency of maintaining other secret prisons in Kramatorsk, Izium, and Mariupol. The Russian-backed fighters were also accused of operating secret detention centers.^[9]

1 Black Jails
China

The black jails are independent secret prisons illegally operated by various Chinese provinces and local governments. Because of the governmental structure in China, citizens are expected to report any grievance to their local and provincial governments.

If they do not get justice, they are allowed to report to the central government at Beijing. The central government itself uses the number of reports it receives to determine the effectiveness of the local and provincial governments.

To avoid getting into Beijing’s black books, the local and provincial governments employed over 10,000 people to hunt, kidnap, detain, and torture citizens who travel to Beijing to make reports. The prisons are usually unoccupied homes, psychiatric wards, and guesthouses.

In 2009, it was suspected that the provinces operated 73 black jails inside Beijing. The central government initially denied the existence of the black jails but later confirmed that they were real.^[10]

Several governments around the world have hit lists of people they want dead. The lists usually contain names of people that are claimed by the governments to be terrorists or spies. As we are about to find out, this is not always so. Suspected terrorists, human right activists, and journalists have also been targeted.

Not every government will own up to having such a list. For the ones that do, they deny that these are hit lists and call them other names. Even then, they will rarely discuss the topic. Here are 10 governments that currently have hit lists or had them in the past.

10 United States

The US government has a not-so-secret hit list, the “disposition matrix,” that contains the names, locations, and preferred methods of killing people the government considers enemies of the United States.

While the existence of the list is an open secret, the names on it aren’t. At the time that Barack Obama was president, the government decided who got on the list during weekly meetings the press called “Terror Tuesday.” Obama only approved the list. The names were added by US military and intelligence officials and, sometimes, the British government.

Once names were approved, the military and the CIA tracked the suspects and killed them with drone-launched missiles or covert special forces assaults. In rare instances, they arrested and interrogated the targets. Most were suspected jihadists in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

The disposition matrix has been criticized because it supposedly contains names of people who might not be terrorists. Drone strikes also kill lots of civilians. Between 2001 and 2013, over 400 Pakistanis died due to 330 US drone strikes. Nevertheless, the US government denies that the disposition matrix is a kill list. The government insists that the matrix is merely a form of defense against people threatening the US.^[1]

9 China

Whether China has an active hit list is unconfirmed. But it did in 2010 when its Ministry of State Security killed over 30 CIA spies operating in the country. The killings started in 2010 when the Ministry of State Security (China’s equivalent of the CIA) infiltrated a CIA spy network operating in China.

At the time, the CIA was using some low-key tech for communication. It was unencrypted, and CIA spies were even using regular laptops and desktops for communication. The system was originally intended for Middle Eastern countries with weak counterintelligence capabilities.

Unfortunately for the CIA, China has a strong and active counterintelligence capability. It tracked down CIA spies using the unencrypted communication channels and assassinated these individuals. China clearly knew what it was doing as it only killed real CIA spies. Although 30 were confirmed dead, intelligence officers believe the figures is higher.^[2]

8 Britain

The British government has its own kill list. Interestingly, most of the targets are British citizens. A few years ago, the British intelligence agencies—MI5, MI6, and the Government Communications Headquarters—drafted a list containing the names of 200 British citizens who had joined the Islamic State.

Hundreds of British citizens joined the Islamic State at its height. The actual figure is unknown, but it is believed to be around 700. Britain feared that the radicalized citizens could return to the country to launch terrorist attacks. So it settled on assassinating the top 200, including 12 bomb experts.^[3]

The intelligence agencies passed the list to Special Air Service commandos inserted into Iraq’s territory. The commandos were tasked with finding and killing these jihadists, although they were allowed to capture some targets. The British government also targeted some jihadists with drones.

7 France

France used to have a hit list—at least when Francois Hollande was president. Hollande’s kill list was inspired by the US disposition matrix that we already talked about. The targets were individuals believed by the French government to have taken people as hostages or done things that hurt French interests. Most were in Syria and the Sahel region of Africa.

Like the US leaders, the French government called the killings “neutralization of strategic objectives,” “targeted eliminations,” or “homicide operations” instead of “murders” or “assassinations.” However, unlike the US, the French government used manned airplanes because it did not have attack drones.

At other times, the French government just passed on its information about the target to the US, which killed these individuals with drones. However, we have limited information about France’s kill list because the country is often quiet about so-called targeted assassinations. We do know that the list was compiled by the French army and the Directorate-General for External Security, France’s equivalent of the CIA.^[4]

6 Germany

The German government has a hit list even though it does not handle its own dirty work. That is the responsibility of the United States. Germany passes details about targets to the US, which adds them to the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL), a hit list of 3,000 drug dealers, Taliban, and Al-Qaeda fighters operating in Afghanistan.

Targets listed on the JPEL are hunted by Task Force 373 (now called Task Force 3-10), a secret US team operating in Afghanistan.^[5] Troops on the team are ordered to capture or kill people on the list. However, they will often kill because it can be difficult to capture targets who resist arrest or attempt to escape.

5 Russia

The existence of a kill list maintained by the elusive Russian government is inconclusive. Russia does not admit that it has a hit list. The US and NATO do not make this claim about Russia, either. However, Ukraine does.

In 2018, Ukraine said that Russia had a list of 47 Russian and Ukrainian journalists it was planning to kill. Ukraine revealed this after staging the murder of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko. News agencies reported that Babchenko had been assassinated in his home in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, until Babchenko showed up the next day telling everybody that he was not dead.

Babchenko and the Ukrainian authorities explained that the hoax assassination was meant to reveal Russia’s plan to murder Babchenko and several others. Although the Ukrainian government did not say how this helped to uncover Russia’s supposed sinister plot, officials went on to release a list of 47 people whom Russia planned to kill.^[6]

4 Iran

CIA spies operating in Iran used the same flawed communication channel that got them exposed in China. Iran also intercepted their communications and identified several CIA spies whom the government later hunted and killed. Interestingly, Iran discovered the communication channel first and could have informed China.

Iran became aware of the spy network after suspecting that CIA agents were actively spying on its nuclear program. A CIA double agent showed the Iranians a secret website that the agency used to communicate with its operatives in Iran. Of course, Iran knew that this couldn’t be the only site, so they went in search of the rest.

When we say “search,” we mean Iran actually used a search engine (Google) to find secret CIA websites on the Internet. Then the government tracked, captured, and executed CIA spies who visited the site. Only a few managed to escape. Iran shared the information with several other friendly nations, including China. Then China used this information to track, capture, and kill CIA spies operating in its territory.

John Reidy, a former contractor with the CIA, blamed the agency for the botched spy operation. Reidy had discovered the flaw years earlier and warned the CIA about it. The agency responded by firing him.^[7]

3 Philippines

The Philippine government has a not-so-secret hit list of 649 people it considers terrorists. The existence of the list was revealed when the government tried to get the courts to declare the targeted people as terrorists. If that had happened, the court would have unwittingly given the state the power to kill its citizens.

Curiously, the list contained names of several non-terrorists like Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a United Nations human rights advocate in the country. In fact, lots of the targeted people are known activists and not terrorists. In some instances, the government skipped the names altogether and used aliases like “John Doe” or “Jane Doe.” This would allow the government to add the names at a later date.

The Philippine government insisted that the people on the list were members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military wing, the New People’s Army (NPA). Human Rights Watch condemned the list, which has been described as President Rodrigo Duterte’s way of getting rid of political critics and rivals.^[8]

2 Israel

Israel has never hidden the fact that it has a hit list. In fact, in August 2001, the government released a list of seven Palestinians it was planning to kill. Israel claimed that it added the Palestinians to its kill list because the Palestinian Authority had refused to turn them over after terrorist acts were committed against Israel.

Other agencies suspect that the released hit list was a PR attempt by Israel. The country may have wanted to prove to the world that it only killed Palestinians when they refused to cooperate. The move was also a psychological attempt to force the men to flee and desist from launching further attacks against Israel.

The country uses different ways to neutralize the targets on its list. Two common methods are snipers and helicopter-launched missiles. Less orthodox strategies include strapping bombs to the telephones of the targets. Like almost every other nation, Israel does not call the killings “assassinations.” It calls them “targeted killings.”^[9]

Palestinians are often the victims of Israel’s so-called targeted killings. This is very controversial in Gaza and the West Bank where helicopter-launched missile attacks have slaughtered lots of civilians. This has increased anti-Israeli sentiments in the areas of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinians.

1 Sri Lanka

In 2010, it was revealed that the Sri Lankan government had a secret hit list of 35 journalists and NGO workers. The nation’s intelligence agency supposedly ranked the targets according to their importance. However, the government had not killed anybody before the list was leaked.

One of the targets was J.C. Weliamuna, the Sri Lankan director for Transparency International. Two years earlier, he had escaped a suspected assassination attempt when an unidentified person threw a grenade into his home.

The attack was believed to be sponsored by the Sri Lankan defense ministry, which was furious that Weliamuna was representing some Sri Lankans in human rights abuse cases involving the ministry. The government never investigated the attack.

Another person on the list was Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a Sri Lankan NGO. He received death threats in 2009, a year before the list was leaked. The Sri Lankan government has been implicated in torture, murder, and forced disappearances of 14 journalists since 2006.

The Sri Lankan government denied that it had a hit list, although officals agreed that they had planned to monitor some groups. Amnesty International said that the Sri Lankan government had compiled and deliberately released the list to intimidate NGO workers and journalists in the country.^[10]

History is not the same everywhere. How else can we explain historical accounts of an event differing from nation to nation? Since the 20th century, several governments have realized that they could rewrite history to their own benefit. And they have been doing just that.

Governments promote these edited versions of history through their schools and textbooks. Their students learn a distorted account of history, which they will often believe into adulthood. Surprisingly, misrepresenting history is not a Third World problem. It cuts across developed and developing economies. However, Asian nations seem to be at the forefront.

10 South Korea

In 2015, the South Korean National Institute of Korean History drew national attention after making controversial edits to the country’s history textbooks. The changes provided overtly positive views about South Korea and promoted negative views about Japan and North Korea. Specifically, they stepped up the criticism of North Korea and condemned its ideology of juche (“self-reliance”).

Conservatives, who suggested the edits, raised concerns that South Korean youths could grow up to admire juche even though North Korea was not self-reliant. North Korea depends on China for major needs, including oil and food. Conservatives also denounced current history textbooks for blaming North and South Korea for the Korean War even though it was North Korea that attacked first.

Conservatives added that current textbooks—which they say are written by liberals—extensively criticized the military regime of Park Chung-hee, who got into power after a coup in 1961. They said that current textbooks downplayed his achievements and beamed their lights on the crimes of his government. Curiously, Park Chung-hee’s daughter, Park Geun-hye, was president when the history textbook edits were proposed.

The conservative South Korean government planned to introduce the textbooks into the country’s schools by March 2017. This would be followed by a ban on every other history textbook in use at the time. The government backtracked on the ban after a series of protests and criticism that the government was trying to brainwash the populace.^[1]

9 Iraq

In 1973, Saddam Hussein had the history textbooks of Iraq rewritten to promote himself and the ideology of his Ba’ath Party. According to the revisions, Hussein had saved the Arab lands from the incursion of the Jews, whom he called greedy people.

Years later, Hussein’s version added that Iraq had won the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–88 and the 1991 Gulf War against the US. Both were false. These textbooks became a source of concern for the US-led coalition that toppled Saddam’s government in 2003.

Working closely with a team of Iraqi educators, the US government removed every reference to Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party. They deleted several references to Iran, Kuwait, Jews, Kurds, Sunnis, Shias, and the US. The educators also edited the details of the 1991 Gulf War to make it “less controversial.”^[2]

8 India And Pakistan

India and Pakistan have had a troubled relationship ever since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. The tense relationship between both regions led to the partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan that year. This was followed by several riots, wars, and the consequent independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan.

These days, either nation is always exploring ways of getting back at the other. They have taken their wars to schools where they have edited their history books to teach a skewed version of past events to their citizens.

History textbooks in both nations provide different reasons for the 1947 partitioning. Pakistani textbooks claim that Pakistani Muslims seceded from India after the Indian Hindus turned them into slaves right after independence. Meanwhile, Indian textbooks claim that the Pakistanis only used the creation of a new country as a bargaining chip and never really wanted one.

India and Pakistan were enmeshed in a series of deadly riots that killed 200,000–500,000 people right after the partitioning. While Pakistani textbooks blame India for the riots by claiming that the Hindus attacked first, Indian textbooks suggest that both sides were guilty.

History textbooks printed in either nation also claim victory in the 1965 war. Pakistani textbooks claim that India “begged for mercy” and “ran to the United Nations” after suffering a series of defeats at the hands of the Pakistani military. Indian textbooks claim that India had almost reached Lahore in Pakistan before the UN ordered the end of hostilities.

On the subsequent partitioning of Bangladesh from Pakistan, Pakistani textbooks accuse India of supporting Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War that led to the independence of Bangladesh. Indian textbooks accuse Pakistan of attacking the Bangladeshis and claim that India only helped a group of people fighting for freedom.^[3]

7 Japan

Japan has a strained relationship with China and South Korea. Massive anti-Japanese sentiment arose in both nations during the 20th century due to territorial disputes and World War II when Japan invaded and committed war crimes against the citizens of China and Korea.

In 2017, the Japanese government was exposed for editing the history books of junior high school students. The edits were spearheaded by the ironically named “Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact.” The group removed parts of Japanese textbooks containing references to the 300,000 Chinese murdered during the infamous 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

The books deleted references to the 400,000 Korean and Chinese women whom Japan forced into prostitution during World War II. The new textbooks also blamed the US for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Its authors claimed that the bombings were in response to several trade embargoes that the US placed on Japan, which Japan considered an informal declaration of war.

Critics said the textbook was an attempt to absolve Japan of the extensive war crimes it committed during the 20th century. Curiously, The Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact was already working on a fourth edition at the time of the controversy. This indicates that the Japanese government is slowly removing controversial paragraphs from its history books year after year.

Hiromichi Moteki, the society’s director, disagrees that the Japanese government was editing history. He insists that the new textbooks are accurate, unlike the incorrect accounts promoted in Chinese and Korean textbooks.

Moteki added that Japan actually developed Korea and improved the quality of life of its citizens after invading Korea in 1910. According to him, it was the Koreans who actually exploited the Japanese and not the other way around as everyone believes. He also passed the Nanjing Massacre off as “communist propaganda” and said that the Japanese military never used women as prostitutes.^[4]

6 China

In 1966, Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung introduced a set of reforms that he called the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that it was part of an attempt to realign China with its communist ideology. However, on the inside, it was also a part of Mao’s ploy to regain his position as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

Over the next 10 years, Chairman Mao clamped down on several individuals, leading to a series of protests and other acts of civil disobedience that only ended after his death in 1976. The period is controversial in Chinese history, which prompted the government to remove details about the revolution from its history textbooks in 2018.

An entire chapter about the Cultural Revolution was taken out of the state-approved history textbook and replaced with one about the development of China. The deletions included every reference to the protests and government-backed violence that rocked China at the time. Editing history was easy for the Chinese government because the textbooks are published by the government-owned People’s Education Press.^[5]

5 Taiwan

In 2015, a series of protests erupted in Taiwan after the government attempted to edit high school history textbooks and distort the history of the nation. The edits were considered part of a long-term plan to reunite Taiwan with China.

Taiwan’s plan to edit the accounts of past events began in 2013 when some Taiwanese professors launched a government-approved program to “fine-tune” the island’s history. In February 2014, the professors announced that they had made some corrections to Taiwan’s history and planned to have them introduced to schools by August 2015.

The changes included the renaming of the Taiwanese Zheng dynasty to the Chinese-Taiwanese Ming Zheng dynasty, after the Ming dynasty that ruled mainland China between 1368 and 1644. However, Taiwan was never a part of the Ming dynasty and only became part of China in 1683.

Other corrections saw the professors alter the history of Taiwan after the Republic of China government under the Kuomintang took control of Taiwan in 1949. The revisions were followed by a series of protests by Taiwanese high school students who requested that the government scrap the attempt to edit their textbooks. A professor (who was not involved in the project) claimed that the edits would alter 60 percent of Taiwan’s history.^[6]

4 Afghanistan

In 2012, Afghanistan’s education ministry updated its history curriculum. This led to the instant deletion of 40 years of the nation’s history, including life under the communist government of Afghanistan, several coups in the 1970s, and the 1979 Soviet invasion.

The curriculum also excluded details about the anti-Soviet resistance led by the mujahideen (which later became the Taliban), the deadly civil war fought by the mujahideen factions after the Soviet Union was expelled, and the consequent US invasion and occupation. Any reference to these events was to be completed in a few lines.

The government said the edits were necessary to unify the divided nation where citizens have more allegiance to their tribes, clans, and political beliefs than to the nation itself. Critics say the revisions were an attempt to seek approval from the Taliban and other armed groups in conflict with the government.^[7]

The history curriculum taught in schools at the time depicted these armed groups as bad people. The government could be trying to have them in agreement as US forces leave Afghanistan. One critic likened the deletion of information about the US invasion and occupation to an attempt “to hide the Sun with two fingers.”

3 Turkey

Schools in Germany use Turkish textbooks to teach Turkish students about Turkish history. As of 2013, the government-approved history textbook was Turkce ve Turk Kulturu (“Turkish and Turkish Culture”). However, the book generated so much controversy that people started to call for its ban.

Critics said that Turkce ve Turk Kulturu often altered history to the benefit of Turkey. Like other Turkish history textbooks, it omits or alters several references to the genocide that led to the death of 1.5 million Armenians during and after World War I.

Instead, the authors claimed that the Armenians teamed with the Allies (which included Russia, Britain, and the US) during World War I to destroy the Ottoman Empire, which broke into several nations (including Turkey) after the war. The authors also claimed that Armenia willingly ceded their lands to Turkey after the war, which is false.

Critics also condemned the book over concerns that it aggressively promoted Turkish nationalism. This was because it contained an oath of loyalty to the Turkish state: “It’s my goal to protect the young, honor the aged and love my country and motherland more than myself.”

The book was issued by the Turkish education ministry and distributed by the Turkish embassy.^[8]

2 Chile

In 2012, Chile found itself in a quagmire after its education ministry tried editing parts of its history textbooks relating to the government of General Augusto Pinochet who ruled Chile until 1990. The new books labeled Pinochet’s government a “regime” instead of a “dictatorship.”^[9]

Critics, who were mostly from the left-wing opposition, claimed that the reclassification was an attempt to rewrite history to appease the ruling center-right government, which found favor with the general when he was in power. The government denied the claims, saying it only wanted to use a less politically charged word.

1 Serbia

Slobodan Milosevic was the president of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 when he became the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia should not be confused with Yugoslavia, which broke into several independent states between 1990 and 1992.

Serbia and Montenegro were parts of the new states. Both nations soon merged to create the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was not recognized in the West. However, the union hung on until 2003 when it was renamed the Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Three years later, they split into two separate states.

Milosevic is infamous for causing four wars—in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and Slovenia—during his reign. He is also accused of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Croatia. However, all that came to an end when his government fell after massive protests in October 2000.

Milosevic edited Serbian history textbooks while in power. He filled them with propaganda and accused other nations of hating Serbia for no reason. Coincidentally, he found himself at the receiving end of a history edit in 2001 when the new Serbian government removed every reference to him from history books.^[10]

The new Serbian history textbooks cleverly avoided mentioning Milosevic’s name even though they recounted several events closely linked to him, including the 1999 Kosovo war, the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, and the October 2000 protests. For instance, a line from the edited textbooks only mentioned “Massive demonstrations in Belgrade on 5 October 2000” without specifying that Milosevic was the target of the protests.

Radoslav Petkovic, the director of the state publishing house that produced the textbook, later clarified that they had avoided mentioning the names of key government figures in Serbia within the previous 10 years. He added that they had tried to ignore that 10-year period of Serbia’s history.

Of their own accord, sometimes because they have been pressured by government officials or private parties, entertainment media have banned the playing of particular pop songs. Whether at the federal, state, or local level, direct government censorship of such music occurs less often.

However, due to political and other motives, government bans have taken place in China, South Korea, Pakistan, the Congo, South Africa, and the United States. The 10 pop songs on this list were among the victims of such censorship.

Related: 10 Times Musicians Were Banned From Playing In Certain Countries

10 “Fragile”

Although Malaysian rapper Namewee denies bashing China or the Chinese people or supporting Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s independence, China banished the video featuring his hit song “Fragile” from the country. Officials insist that the artist’s tune is insulting to the nation and its citizens.

Ostensibly, the song’s Mandarin lyrics, sung by Austrian-Chinese vocalist Kimberly Chen, are part of an enchanting romantic ballad about a lover with a heart so fragile it breaks. But, according to an NBC News report, its symbols, idioms, and metaphors are disparaging, blasting “China’s volunteer army of angry digital warriors.”

Known as little pinks, these self-appointed censors form “a core element in China’s cyber nationalism, and…are highly sensitive to any criticism of the country’s leader Xi Jinping.” Those offended by the ballad point to the video’s saturation “with pink objects, decorations and costumes [and to its] dancing panda and stuffed toys in the shape of bats,” which are seen as “tweaking Chinese sensitivities over the origin of the Covid-19 coronavirus.”

Despite the ban and the controversy concerning the hit, “Fragile” has been viewed by millions throughout Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore.^[1]

9 “Beijing Evening News”

China has also banned “Beijing Evening News.” According to Jonathan Kaiman, the song by the underground hip hop group In3 is seen as representing a blistering condemnation of “the capital’s injustice and inequality.” The popular piece contrasts the plight of the poor and disadvantaged with the luxurious lives of the wealthy privileged, the former of whom “sleep in underpasses,” while the latter enjoy fine dining at banquets paid for with “public funds.”

The hit also points out the high price of health insurance, which many of the sick cannot afford. Being banned in China doesn’t seem to have hurt the band too much, though. Members pointed out that “Beijing Evening News” topped the charts.^[2]

8 “Cherry Bomb”

CT 127’s hip hop hit “Cherry Bomb” has been decried by South Korean government officials who banned it as being violent and for encouraging “bad behavior among youth.” But, aside from the “Bomb” in the song’s title, the video version of the tune shows only a group of young men, their clothing changing instantaneously multiple times, as they sing and dance in settings variously resembling a parking garage, a rooftop, a junkyard, a recording studio, an art gallery, and a city street. The only “violent” moment of the performance occurs when a singer seems to punch a pane of glass, causing it to break.

The lyrics are equally innocuous, if somewhat repetitive, mixing Korean with English, a portion of which repeats: “Quickly damage (Korean characters),” followed by “Cherry Bomb yum” (in English). The refrain, also repetitive, is much like a chant: “I’m the biggest hit, I’m the biggest hit on this stage.” In the song’s verses, the group sings about the motorcycles they ride, but from the sound of things, they’re certainly not members of an outlaw motorcycle club: “All we do is party.” Midway through the song, a pre-chorus instructs listeners, “If you’re happy and you know it/ Clap your hands yo (in this beat).” Okay, moving on…

The only illusion to anything that could be construed (with effort) as violent are references to “Cherry Bomb,” which seems to allude to a beverage since it’s sipped from a “cup,” and “a gunshot,” which is ambiguous, as it might refer to anger and violence or could simply allude to the speed at which the youth would take his leave: “Who cares about a hater, hater talk, talk/ I hear what you sayin’ but so what?/ Won’t say it to my face, so I’m off, like a gunshot.”

If anything, the well-groomed appearance of the young men in their stylish clothes and imitative gangsta-style bravado suggest parody more than criminality. Apparently, even a parody of violence and bad behavior is too much for South Korean officials.^[3]

7 “Letter to Ya Tshitshi”

Socrates likened himself to a gadfly; Bob Elvis, a musician operating out of his studio in downtown Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, compares himself to a mosquito. “I may be small,” he explains, “but I can annoy you all night long by singing, biting, and not leaving you alone.”

His rap song “Letter to Tshitshi” certainly annoyed his country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, for which reason, it appears, the nation’s Censorship Commission banned it from play days after its release. The song advises the president’s late father, Étienne Tshisekedi, of the nation’s state of affairs under his son’s tenure. The lyrics describe political corruption, electoral fraud, impure water supplies, crime, and civil unrest. As a result, not only has “Letter to Ya Tshitshi” been banned but an additional half-dozen of the rapper’s tunes were also banned. Should a radio station defy the ban, it could incur the government’s wrath in the form of lost licenses.

According to an Economist article, “The legal authority to ban the songs comes from a decree issued by a crooked dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, 54 years ago.” Even though the song’s lyrics target his son, Félix Tshisekedi would not have agreed to the ban, the article notes: “The current president’s father, were he still alive, would be appalled.” ^[4]

6 “It’s Wrong (Apartheid)”

Musicians from around the world took a stand against South Africa’s apartheid, fulfilling an important part of the protest by serving as “whistleblowers and opponents of the oppressive white government,” notes Sabelo Mkhabela. One of the many such performers was Stevie Wonder, whose “It’s Wrong (Apartheid)” makes the point, as its title indicates, that apartheid is clearly, categorically, and unequivocally wrong.

Poetic justice further brought to light the hypocrisy of the government’s ban on Wonder and other musicians whose songs denounced apartheid. After he was punished by a ban on his music for having dedicated his Oscar to Nelson Mandela, the ban on “We Are the World,” the earnings from which would profit victims of the 1983–1985 African famine, had to be rescinded. The ban was lifted on the song, but it otherwise remained in place on Wonder!^[5]

5 “El Chuchumbé”

As Music Around the World: A Global Encyclopedia notes, the first written records of Mexican folk music, which repose in the Ramo Inquisición, include “El Chuchumbé,” which has the distinction of having been “the first Mexican song to be banned.” The ban resulted from the folk song’s depiction of “soldiers and friars fighting to seduce women.” The song itself finds fault not with the lusty soldiers and friars but with the Veracruz officials who banned “El Chuchumbé” for its “lascivious sones (sounds)and obscene coplas (verses).” Whether one performed the song or observed a performance of it, the penalty was the same for defying the ban: ex-communication, which brought a one-way ticket to hell.

The song’s lyrics are rather bawdy. As Elena Deanda-Camacho, Associate Professor of Spanish at Washington College, explains, “El Chuchumbé,” which usually refers to the navel, alludes instead to the penis in the context of this song. With this meaning in mind, the prurient nature of the opening stanza is clear. In English, it reads: “In the corner he stands / a friar from la Merced / with the lifted habit /showing his chuchumbé.”

Additional lyrics further indicate, without a doubt, the meaning of the word as it is used in the song: “Whether you like it or not/ the ‘chuchumbé’ is going to get you / and if it does not fill you, I will fill you up / with what is dangling from my chuchumbé.” Listeners obviously understood the meaning of the song. As it played, dancers interpreted its lyrics “with gestures [and] shakings,” their conduct constituting “a bad example to those who watched [the dancers]…mixing caresses and…touching belly with belly.”

Church and state were both scandalized by the song’s decadence and its immoral effects, and “Chuchumbé” was banned by the Spanish Inquisition, the government enforcing its prohibition by arresting offenders and turning them over to the Church for investigation and punishment.^[6]

4 “I Don’t Want to Get Well (I’m in Love with a Beautiful Nurse)”

The United States War Department banned “I Don’t Want to Get Well (I’m in Love with a Beautiful Nurse),” apparently because the brass feared its lyrics might persuade soldiers to follow the example of their fictional counterpart.

The front of the record sleeve shows a beautiful Red Cross nurse standing by the side of a recovering soldier’s bed, holding his hand as he looks up at her. Outside the window, as an ambulance passes, one soldier shoots an enemy combatant, suggesting another of the hospital’s beds will be needed shortly.

The song’s lyrics are attributed to a friend of the soldier, who shares the contents of a recent letter he has received from the wounded soldier in answer to one of the sender’s own earlier correspondences. His pal, we learn, “was wounded in the trenches somewhere in France.” Having been asked, in his friend’s earlier letter, whether he was on the mend, the soldier responds with words that echo the song’s title, adding that “the cutest girl” feeds him with a spoon and takes his pulse. And when on the verge of recovery, he relapses. and she “begs [him] not to leave her,” meaning, possibly, she hopes he will not die.^[7]

3 “Ohio”

When the Vietnam War protest on Ohio’s Kent State University resulted in the deaths of four protesters who were shot by National Guard soldiers on May 4, 1970, riots raged across the country. Neil Young responded with his classic hit song “Ohio,” which contains the lyrics “four dead in Ohio,” an obvious reference to the protesters who lost their lives on the campus.

Conservative radio stations refused to air the song protesting the deaths of the protesters. James Rhodes, Ohio’s governor, ordered the state’s stations to ban broadcasts of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young single. Despite the ban, however, independent AM stations joined FM stations in playing the banned song, and the “radical tune” landed in fourteenth place on the charts.

Later, “Ohio” was released, with “Find the Cost of Freedom” on the flip side, in a sleeve that listed the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights and their guarantee of such freedoms as the right to assemble and the right to engage in free speech.^[8]

2 “Wake Up, Little Susie”

Somehow, even the Everly Brothers found a way to make an innocent date seem risqué. The lyrics have a teenage boy awakening his date, Susie. Although they’ve fallen asleep in a movie theater, the boy appears concerned that the lateness of the hour—it’s four o’clock in the morning—will make Susie’s parents think they have been up to what their friends would call “Ooh-la-la.” They found the movie’s plot so boring that they fell asleep, and now, the boy fears their “reputation is shot.”

The song is “about how innocent acts could be misconstrued as deviant behavior in the stiff 1950s,” a Decades website article observes. A conclusion that seems borne out by the fact that the song was banned at the time by the city of Boston.^[9]

1 The Beatles’ Entire Oeuvre

The Beatles were once banned in the Philippines. Neither their music could be played, nor their records sold. Unlike bans in other countries, this one wasn’t imposed because of politics, concerns about violence or sexual improprieties, institutionalized racial segregation, social injustice, military officers’ worries about the effects that a song might have on soldiers, or even troops’ shootings of protesting citizens. The president of the Philippines took such action because President Ferdinand Marcos believed that the mopheads had “snubbed” his lady love, First Lady Imelda Marcos.

The band’s offense? A prior engagement had precluded their acceptance of her invitation for them to join her for lunch. Government-owned newspapers throughout the islands criticized the allegedly rude musicians’ boorish behavior. Two concerts during the same day, before 100,000 Filipino fans, led to crowds’ shouts and threats as the famous foursome took off from Manila’s airport. Although the ban was lifted not long after it went into effect, the Beatles’ music never stopped being played in Filipino bars.^[10]