MIRROR: d2cca5caaab4cda2.onion/banned
Banned Somewhere · real resources
Everything on this page was banned, burned, or blocked by somebody.
Not the stories. These are real. Some of these books were burned. Some were voted out of the Bible. Some can still cost someone their freedom tonight. A news site here is blocked for over a billion people. This is what the real hidden internet was built for: not crime, but reading what you are not allowed to read.
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The removal ledger2,200 years of deciding what you get to read.
- 213 BCChina's first emperor orders history books burned.
- 180 ADBishop Irenaeus condemns the Gospel of Judas.
- 1559The Church publishes its first Index of Forbidden Books.
- 1562Maya libraries burned at Mani. Four books survive.
- 1616Copernicus goes on the Index.
- 1633Galileo is banned and placed under house arrest.
- 1826Bible societies stop funding the Apocrypha.
- 1945A buried jar of forbidden gospels is dug up in Egypt.
- 1947A shepherd's rock breaks a jar in a cave. The Dead Sea Scrolls.
- 1966The Index is abolished after 407 years.
- 2006The Gospel of Judas is published, 1,800 years late.
- 2019China blocks every language of Wikipedia.
- TodaySomebody, somewhere, is deciding what you should not read. Again.
ScriptureThe book that is still smuggled.
Severely restricted in North Korea, Afghanistan, and several other countries
The Bible, free in thousands of languages
YouVersion Bible App
Read or listen in thousands of languages. Bibles can be downloaded for offline reading, which matters where connections are watched.
Open ↗Restricted wherever scripture is
Audio Bible
Bible.is
Spoken scripture in well over a thousand languages, for people who cannot read or cannot risk owning a printed copy.
Open ↗Restricted wherever scripture is
The King James Bible, public domain
Project Gutenberg eBook #10
Plain text, EPUB, or Kindle. No account, no app, no trace beyond a single download.
Open ↗Research
Where faith costs the most
Open Doors World Watch List
Open Doors' 2026 list reports more than 388 million Christians facing high levels of persecution and discrimination, with North Korea ranked the most dangerous country.1
Open ↗Signals cross borders
Scripture on shortwave
Trans World Radio
Shortwave reaches places the internet does not. It cannot easily be traced to a listener, which is why it is still used.
Open ↗Removed from the BookAncient books that were in, then out, or never allowed in.
Printed in the 1611 King James Bible. Then quietly dropped.
The Apocrypha
Project Gutenberg eBook #124
Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, and more. The 1611 King James Bible included them. In the 1820s the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped funding Bibles that contained them, and most Protestant Bibles have left them out ever since.5
Open ↗Scripture in Ethiopia. Apocrypha almost everywhere else.
The Book of Enoch
Sacred Texts archive (R. H. Charles translation)
Fallen angels called the Watchers, giants, and forbidden knowledge taught to humans. The New Testament letter of Jude quotes it. Fragments were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church kept it in the Bible.6
Open ↗Buried in a jar for about 1,600 years
The Nag Hammadi Library
The Gnostic Society Library
In 1945, farmers in Egypt dug up a sealed jar holding thirteen books, including the Gospel of Thomas: 114 sayings attributed to Jesus that never made it into the Bible.7
Open ↗Condemned as heresy around the year 180
The Gospel of Judas
Early Christian Writings
A bishop named Irenaeus denounced it around 180 AD. Then it vanished for 1,800 years, until a damaged copy surfaced in Egypt and was published in 2006. In it, Judas is the only disciple who understands.8
Open ↗The oldest complete New Testament
Codex Sinaiticus
The Codex Sinaiticus Project
Handwritten in the 300s. It includes two books that are in no modern Bible: the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. Read every page online.9
Open ↗Hidden in caves for 2,000 years
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Leon Levy Digital Library, Israel Antiquities Authority
Found from 1947 on, including the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible, and books nobody had read in two thousand years. High resolution, free.
Open ↗The original is missing
The Book of Jasher
Referenced in the Bible, lost to history
The Bible cites it by name, twice, in Joshua and 2 Samuel. The original has never been found. Books sold under that name today are much later works. Be careful what you buy.
Open ↗Burned, Banned & ErasedWhat people in power decided you should never read.
Official for 407 years
The Index of Forbidden Books
Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 1559 to 1966
For four centuries the Catholic Church kept an official list of books its members were forbidden to read. Copernicus went on it in 1616. It was not abolished until 1966.10
Open ↗Banned in 1633
Galileo's Dialogue
The Galileo affair
Galileo argued that the Earth moves around the Sun. The Inquisition banned the book and sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life.11
Open ↗Burned in 1562
The Maya Codices
Library of Congress, Dresden Codex facsimile
In 1562, a Spanish friar named Diego de Landa burned Maya books at Maní because he considered them the work of the devil. Only four Maya books are known to survive. The Dresden Codex is one.12
Open ↗Ordered by an emperor
The Burning of the Books
Qin dynasty, China, 213 BC
According to ancient Chinese historians, the first emperor of China ordered history and philosophy books burned so that only the state's version of the past would survive.
Open ↗Lost, slowly
The Library of Alexandria
Myth versus record
The legend says one great fire. Historians say it was centuries of budget cuts, purges, and neglect. Which is scarier, if you think about it.
Open ↗NewsReporting that governments block.
Blocked in China and Russia
BBC News
BBC onion service
The BBC runs an official onion mirror so readers in censored countries can reach it through Tor.2
bbcnewsd73hkzno2ini43t4gblxvycyac5aw4gnv7t2rccijh7745uqd.onionOpens only in Tor Browser. Verify any onion address with the publisher before trusting it.
Open ↗Blocked in China since 2012
The New York Times
NYT onion service
One of the first major newspapers to publish an official onion address.3
nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onionOpens only in Tor Browser. Verify any onion address with the publisher before trusting it.
Open ↗Investigative
ProPublica
ProPublica onion service
The first major news outlet to launch an onion site, in 2016, so readers could avoid being watched while reading.4
p53lf57qovyuvwsc6xnrppyply3vtqm7l6pcobkmyqsiofyeznfu5uqd.onionOpens only in Tor Browser. Verify any onion address with the publisher before trusting it.
Open ↗Blocked in Russia, declared undesirable
Meduza
Independent Russian news, in English and Russian
Run from outside Russia so it can keep reporting what Russian outlets cannot.
Open ↗Built for countries where the press is controlled
The Uncensored Library
Reporters Without Borders
Banned journalism hidden inside a Minecraft world, because games are often the one thing censors forget to block.
Open ↗KnowledgeThe encyclopedia that does not need permission.
Wikipedia is blocked in China
Kiwix
Wikipedia, offline
China has blocked every language of Wikipedia since 2019.14 Kiwix lets you download all of it, or the Bible, or medical references, and read with no connection at all. Nothing to block, nothing to log.
Open ↗Many titles banned somewhere, at some time
Project Gutenberg
Over 70,000 free public domain books
History, philosophy, and literature whose copyrights have expired. Free, no account.
Open ↗Here, too
Banned and challenged books
American Library Association
Censorship is not only something that happens elsewhere. The ALA tracks books challenged in American schools and libraries every year.
Open ↗Signed by most of the governments that ignore it
Article 19
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Open ↗ToolsHow people actually get through.
Blocked or throttled in China, Russia, and Iran
Tor Browser
The Tor Project
The browser that opens onion addresses. Download only from the official site.
Open ↗Built for censored networks
Snowflake
The Tor Project
Helps people in censored countries reach Tor by routing through volunteers. You can also be one of the volunteers.
Open ↗Built for censored networks
Psiphon
Censorship circumvention app
Free tool built specifically to get around national firewalls.
Open ↗Blocked in China and Iran, among others
Signal
Encrypted messaging
End-to-end encrypted messages and calls, run by a nonprofit.
Open ↗Measure itSee the walls for yourself.
Research
OONI
Open Observatory of Network Interference
Volunteers worldwide test which sites are blocked where. The data is public.
Open ↗Research
Freedom on the Net
Freedom House
An annual country-by-country report on internet freedom.
Open ↗Sources
- 1Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List reports 388 million Christians facing high persecution and discrimination; North Korea ranked first.The Christian Post, “Open Doors US releases 2026 World Watch List report” (2026)
- 2The BBC launched an onion mirror of its news site in October 2019 to reach readers in countries that block it.Engadget, “BBC fights censorship by launching news site on the dark web” (Oct. 24, 2019)
- 3The New York Times launched an onion service in 2017 and later moved it to a v3 address.Boing Boing (Oct. 27, 2017); Tor Project community issue #233
- 4ProPublica launched its onion site in 2016 and updated it to a v3 address in December 2021.ProPublica, “A More Secure and Anonymous ProPublica Using Tor Hidden Services”
- 5In the 1820s the British and Foreign Bible Society stopped funding Bibles that included the Apocrypha, after the 1826 to 1827 Apocrypha controversy.Bruce M. Metzger, An Introduction to the Apocrypha (Oxford University Press, 1957); Apocrypha controversy
- 6Jude 1:14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9; Aramaic fragments of Enoch were found at Qumran; the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church keeps it in its canon.George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia, Fortress Press, 2001)
- 7Farmers near Nag Hammadi, Egypt found a sealed jar of thirteen codices in 1945, including the Gospel of Thomas and its 114 sayings.James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (HarperCollins, rev. ed. 1988)
- 8Irenaeus names a Gospel of Judas in Against Heresies 1.31.1 (c. 180). The Codex Tchacos copy was published in 2006.Kasser, Meyer and Wurst, eds., The Gospel of Judas (National Geographic, 2006)
- 9Codex Sinaiticus was copied in the fourth century and includes the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.D. C. Parker, Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible (British Library, 2010); Codex Sinaiticus Project
- 10Copernicus's De revolutionibus was suspended by the Congregation of the Index in 1616. The Index lost its force of law on June 14, 1966.Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification on the Index (June 14, 1966)
- 11The Inquisition condemned Galileo's Dialogue on June 22, 1633 and confined him to house arrest until his death in 1642.Maurice A. Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (University of California Press, 1989)
- 12Diego de Landa burned Maya books at Mani in 1562 and described it in his own account. Four Maya codices survive, including the Dresden Codex.Diego de Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (c. 1566); Michael D. Coe, Breaking the Maya Code (Thames & Hudson, 1992)
- 13Radiocarbon dating of the Voynich Manuscript's vellum placed it between 1404 and 1438.University of Arizona dating, reported Feb. 11, 2011; Yale Beinecke Library, MS 408
- 14China blocked every language edition of Wikipedia in April 2019.OONI, “China is now blocking all language editions of Wikipedia” (May 2019)
Read the Dark Web: Myth vs Reality field guide for how all of this works.