The Media Development Authority (MDA) has requested that 15 photos in Iranian photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian's I Know Why The Rebel Sings exhibition be removed, according to Ong Keng Sen, festival director for the O.P.E.N, a Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) pre-festival event.

I Know Why The Rebel Sings, which supposedly depicts Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State in the Syrian civil war, had 15 of its photos censored, Ong said. The MDA had taken issue with 31 out of the 150 photographs submitted.

According to Ong, no reason was given for the objections and the photographs had already previously been printed in the Apr 13th edition of TIME magazine.

In a statement made at the launch of the exhibit, which is rated NC16, Ong said:

(These) photographs had already been circulated in the April 13 2015 issue of Time Magazine. And these images were mostly from this. And no reason was given for why the Time magazine was not banned but these images were not allowed to be exhibited. But for me there is no official statement of why and there is no statement of which photographs.

So the permit is issued as permit allowed. So you can see the photographs have been removed. You can see the black spots where they were visually, because they are in a visual world tonight. And for me it was very surprising, they were women fighting ISIS. I suppose in Singapore if you have a cause, it can be a little too much. And you know Newsha has been very vociferous in her treatment of women subjects, and in these she reclaims a space talking about the large issues in the world.

We are still waiting for a lot more permits because they are usually given only two days in advance. And so we are living with a new terror where we don’t know, it is out of our control.

In a statement, an MDA spokesperson said the photographs submitted by Tavakolian and her exhibition's curator Vali Mahlouji included photographs of members from a terrorist-linked organisation who had committed acts of violence to further their cause:

SIFA had submitted about 150 photos by photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian for an exhibition at The OPEN. These included photographs of members from a terrorist-linked organisation, who had committed acts of violence to further their cause (e.g. suicide bombing).

Singapore takes a firm stand against extremism, and will not allow photographs that undermine public order, national security and/or stability to be displayed. MDA had conveyed this to the festival commissioner and event organiser SIFA, who then presented the exhibition without those photos.

The women depicted by Tavakolian were part of the Women's Protection Unit of the nationalist militant Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) - which has fought a war of independence against Turkish government. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by several countries, including the United States, Japan and Australia, but not the United Nations.

The organisers for the O.P.E.N had already been informed as soon as it was determined that the pictures depicted members from a terrorist-linked group, said the MDA. The MDA also added that it will review the contents of the TIME issue containing Tavakolian's pictures, noting that it "does not pre-vet publications that are sold in Singapore. The importation and distribution of publications is largely self-regulated."

Top image from the SIFA blog.

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