Russia To Censor ‘South Park’ and ‘The Simpsons’

Raw Story reports that a Russian channel will censor “The Simpsons” cartoon series to comply with a new law that bans scenes of violence, drinking, and smoking before a late evening watershed.

The Russian channel, 2×2 channel, is aimed toward young adults. In order to comply with the new law, that comes into force on Friday, the station says that they will cut scenes where the Simpsons family watches the incredibly violent cartoon “The Itchy and Scratchy Show”.

“Under the new law we cannot show ‘The Itchy Scratchy Show’ from ‘The Simpsons'” before 11 pm, said general director Lev Makarov.”

“We will retouch in an ironic way all the programmes where there are scenes that fall under the new law. For example we will black-out the screen and write a joky message in a rolling caption.”

According to Newser, “The Simpsons” is not the only show that is being strongly censored in Russia. Makarov says that “South Park” will also have to be moved to after the watershed as well.

“South Park” will be moved to after the watershed because of a running joke in which one of the main characters, Kenny, is murdered every episode.

“All the scenes from ‘South Park’ where ‘they killed Kenny’ should disappear until 11 pm. So ‘South Park’ will air after 11 pm,” he said.

This new law is for “protecting children from information causing harm to their health and development”. The law says that these certain images and scenes encouraging to try drugs, tabacco, alcohol, and justifying violence must not be shown until after 11 p.m.

The new law has gotten wide criticism from Russia’s Internet companies with amendments signed into it by President Vlatimir Putin in July. The amendments allow the state to create black lists of websites and force their closure.