Fans claim censorship is at work

MTV has pulled an episode of South Park from broadcast in Mexico, which mocked the country’s president.

Monday’s episode, showing the leader as wasteful, was pulled from the schedules at the last minute.

The company explained it was because they did not get the permit needed to broadcast an image of Mexico's flag, seen briefly on screen – but local South Park fans were not convinced, with some suggesting it had been censored by the Mexican Government

The 2009 episode – Pinewood Derby – featured a number of world leaders, including Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

And the character who looks remarkably like Mexico’s Felipe Calderon frivolously spent a financial windfall on water parks.

The episode attracted some flak in Australia, as it featured John Howard as Prime Minister, even though he had been replaced by Kevin Rudd 18 months earlier; and also showed Vladimir Putin as President of Russia, even though he stepped down in the previous year.

A spokesman for MTV Mexico insisted they decided to pull the entire episode to avoid a possible fine from the government for breaking strict rules regarding the use of its flag. And he said that altering the image to remove the flag would have led to a worse reaction.

He said that as soon as the permit was ready the episode would be broadcast in its entirety.

Of course, the scene is already widely available online anyway:

Published: 10 Feb 2010