Murderdrome is not Ulysses, Lolita or Lady Chatterley's Lover. It's a dark, bloody comic strip marked by the type of over-the-top violence that has made its genre so popular among young readers with a lot of pent-up rage.

But Murderdrome has now joined the pantheon of suppressed fiction as the first digital book banished from Apple's App Store by censors in Cupertino.

By now, you might have heard that Murderdrome has been banned by Apple. This is due to the part of the sdk that suggests content must NOT offend anyone in 'apple's reasonable' opinion. Here at infurious, we would love to work with Apple to ensure a content rating system can be put in place to allow material that is no more offensive than many of the R rated films available to download on iTunes.

PLEASE leave a comment committing your support to us - we'll forward ALL of these to Apple, so that we can ensure that not only Murderdrome, but that ANY comic submitted to Apple doesn't fall foul of the same censorship.

Iran accused Britain yesterday of insulting Islam by awarding a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses prompted the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his assassination. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, portrayed the decision to honour the novelist as an orchestrated act of aggression directed against Islamic societies, describing Rushdie as "one of the most hated figures" in the Islamic world.

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Rushdie returned to public life in 1999, a decade after being forced underground by Khomeini's declaration. He was the most high-profile of the 946 people honoured in the Queen's birthday list, drawn from nominations by the public or expert organisations. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said the honour was "richly deserved" and the reasons for it were "self-explanatory".

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In a statement following the announcement of his knighthood on Saturday, Rushdie, 59, said he was "thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour". Literary supporters said the decision to include the novelist among 21 knighthoods was overdue, claiming the British establishment had for many years been reluctant to be associated with the controversial figure.

There is so much sex on TV and on billboards today-seemingly more than when Forever first came out-why do you think the book continues to be so controversial?

Because it's a book. Some adults, for whatever reason, have a desperate need to control everything in their children's lives. They can't control what's on television or on a billboard, but many think they can control what their children read. These individuals believe if their kids don't read about it, they won't know about it, and if they don't know about it, they'll never do it. They think they can have a book banned if they don't want their children to read it. They'll go into school waving a book, demanding that it be removed. There are a lot of would-be censors out there. Not only do they want to make the decision for their children but for all children. How much better it would it be if the parents could read the book, too, and then talk about it with their teens.

Dozens of literary masterpieces and international bestsellers have been banned in Iran in a dramatic rise in censorship that has plunged the country's publishing industry into crisis. Companies that once specialised in popular fiction and other money-spinners are being restricted to academic texts under a cultural freeze instigated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Several thousand new and previously published works have been blacklisted by Iran's culture and Islamic guidance ministry, which vets all books.

Terry Chevalier's best-selling novel Girl With a Pearl Earring has been banned after completing six print runs. Dozens of literary masterpieces and international bestsellers have been banned in Iran in a dramatic rise in censorship that has plunged the country's publishing industry into crisis. Companies that once specialised in popular fiction and other money-spinners are being restricted to academic texts under a cultural freeze instigated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Several thousand new and previously published works have been blacklisted by Iran's culture and Islamic guidance ministry, which vets all books.

Newly banned books include Farsi translations of Tracy Chevalier's best-seller Girl With a Pearl Earring and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the latter for upsetting clerics within Iran's tiny Christian community. Chevalier's novel has completed six print runs in Iran and earned hefty profits for its local publisher, Cheshme.

Another publishing house has been banned from selling a successful series of books featuring lyrics by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Black Sabbath, Queen and Guns n' Roses. Stores were told to remove the books or face closure. Permission was subsequently denied for the publisher to reprint. The crackdown also covers classics, such as William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and scores of works by Iranian authors.

Amy Crump, director of the Marshall Public Library, said once the new policy is place the two books will be reconsidered for circulation under the new guidelines, "as if they were new." Fun Home and Blankets were challenged earlier this month by a Marshall patron who claimed the books were inappropriate because of explicit graphics.

Crump said this is the first time any book has been challenged by a library patron, "which is probably why we've never had a selection policy." She said the new policy,"is not aimed at just these two books," and once implemented, "we'll be able to make decisions about all kinds of books." The materials selection committee will include six of the eight members of the board and two or three library staffers experienced in collection development, said Crump. "The committee will consult with other libraries about their policies and with attorneys," she said. The process of developing the guidelines and gettting approval by the board will take a minimum of two months.

The Marshall library has approximately 75 graphic novels in its collection. All books, including graphic novels, are placed in adult, young adult or children's sections as appropriate. Fun Home, Bechdel's story of growing up a lesbian with a closeted gay father, was placed in the adult nonfiction section, said Crump, while Blankets, an autobiographical story about Thompson's Christian fundamentalist childhood, was originally in the young adult section.

It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

Forever by Judy Blume

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Istanbul's second criminal court of first instance ruled yesterday that an article defending the rights of a conscientious objector amounted to "heavy criticism conveyed within the scope of freedom of expression" and did not constitute a crime.

In her column, published in the weekly Yeni Aktuel magazine last December, Magden defended conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan who was sentenced to a record four-year term in a military prison for disobedience after refusing to wear his military uniform. She argued that Turkey needed to establish a civilian service as an alternative to compulsory military conscription.

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Magden is one of a string of writers and journalists to stand trial for expressing opinions. Earlier this month the case against the bestselling author Elif Shafak, charged under Article 301 for "insulting Turkishness" in her latest novel, was reopened.

The novelist Orhan Pamuk faced similar charges for commenting on the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of the first world war. The charges against Pamuk were dropped for technical reasons late last year amid intense international pressure.

The U.S. government's crackdown on media indecency could prevent World War Two veterans from sharing their stories in an upcoming TV documentary series by Ken Burns, the head of the Public Broadcasting Service said on Wednesday. Noted filmmaker Burns' highly anticipated seven-part series "The War" features salty language used by servicemen and others. If the expletives make it to air, they could lead to crippling fines for the offending stations as a result of a new law signed last month by President George W. Bush.

Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, told reporters at a media event in Pasadena, California, that she was reluctant to bleep the words out, because that would diminish the impact of the documentary. Airing the film after 10 p.m., when the new rules do not apply, would reduce the available audience, she said. "The American people need to know this is not about Janet Jackson," Kerger said, referring to the singer's breast-baring turn at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The incident sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill and spurred the bipartisan push to boost fines for indecency violations.

Under the new law, fines rise to as much as $325,000 per violation from $32,500. Television and radio broadcasters are barred from airing obscene material and are limited from broadcasting indecent material between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., times when children are likely to be watching. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has defined indecency as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities."

Karger said she had unsuccessfully tried to get advance clearance for the documentary from the five members of the Republican-controlled broadcast regulator. But the FCC's policy is not to deliver an opinion before a broadcast.

The case against Turkish author Elif Shafak, who is charged with "insulting Turkishness" under Article 301 in the Turkish Criminal Code, was reopened. Shafak wrote "The Bastard of Istanbul," in which a character references Armenian genocide, Thebookstandard.com reported Tuesday.

An Istanbul public prosecutor dismissed the charges last month, based on arguments that the book is a work of fiction and therefore cannot be prosecuted. But a complaint from a member of the Unity of Jurists caused the seventh high criminal court to overrule the decision. Similar charges have also been brought against Shafak's translator Asli Bican and publisher Semi Soekmen, of the Metis Publishing House.

"The situation in Turkey has changed since the introduction of Article 301 last year," Director of the Writers in Prison Committee at International PEN Sara Whyatt, told Thebookstandard. "I think the trials are intended to harass and intimidate these writers and journalists. Elif Shafak is at the beginning of what could be a long and painful process."

Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course.

Meeting with reporters near Capitol Hill, Brin said Google had agreed to the censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service in that country. Google's rivals accommodated the same demands — which Brin described as "a set of rules that we weren't comfortable with" — without international criticism, he said. "We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Brin said.

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Brin visited Washington to ask U.S. senators to approve a plan that would prevent telephone and cable companies from collecting premium fees from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for faster delivery of their services. Brin, dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and a black sport jacket, said he wasn't sure whether he changed any lawmakers' minds. Google's China-approved Web service omits politically sensitive information that might be retrieved during Internet searches, such as details about the 1989 suppression of political unrest in Tiananmen Square. Its agreement with China has provoked considerable criticism from human rights groups. "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.