In Dublin magazine can continue publishing so long as it loses the veiled ads for prostitution, a High Court justice has ruled.
Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan temporarily overturned an order by the Censorship and Publications Board, the Associated Press reports. The order shocked Irish media circles by its order of a six-month ban on In Dublin.
The publishers agreed to drop ads for massage parlors, escort agencies and any other suspicious ``front'' businesses for prostitution until the dispute receives a full court hearing, possibly in September.
In Dublin had sidestepped the ban by distributing the latest edition of the twice-monthly magazine by removing In from the name.
O'Donovan's opinion noted it was "nothing less than reprehensible" for the censorship board to impose the ban without telling the publishers just what it found objectionable. "We only became aware of exactly which ads the board objected to in the affidavit produced in court yesterday," says In Dublin publisher Mike Hogan. "Had we known before then, we would happily have removed them."
The government-appointed board had once banned a wide range of literature, including James Joyce, in the days when the Republic of Ireland was a conservative Catholic society, but the AP says the board has mostly played very little role in 1990s Irish culture.
But O'Donovan did not exactly let the publishers off easily, chiding them for circumventing the board order by distributing under the slightly-changed name.
