Pigs have faces censored in Malaysian edition of International New York Times

Seemingly innocuous photographs of pigs on the front and inside pages of The International New York Times (NYT) were censored in the Malaysian edition of the paper.

A front page story featured a picture of piglets standing in the snow, but the printers of the Malaysian edition, KHL Printing Co, had blacked-out the faces of each animal.

A continuation of the story about rising demand for pigs reared in the open on page 19 of the paper was given the same treatment, with the faces of two adult pigs blacked-out. A representative from the printing company based in Shah Alam said that pictures of pigs are not allowed in a Muslim country like Malaysia.

“From last time also we do this. If there is picture of nudes or like this we will cover. This is a Muslim country,” the spokesman said when asked why the faces of the pigs had been censored. He added that the printing firm had not received express instructions from the authorities to censor the pictures.