 In August 2007 , Congolese student <unk> <unk> Mondondo filed a complaint in Brussels , claiming that the book was an insult to the Congolese people and required banning . Public prosecutors investigated and initiated a criminal case . The matter was eventually transferred to a civil court in April 2010 . Mondondo 's lawyers argued that Tintin in the Congo amounted to " a justification of colonisation and of white supremacy " , and Mondondo called it " racist and <unk> " . Alain <unk> , lawyer for both <unk> , the company which controls Hergé 's estate , and Casterman , the book 's publisher , argued that the cartoonist 's depiction of the Congolese " wasn 't racism but kind <unk> " . He said that banning it would set a dangerous precedent for the availability of works by other historical authors , such as Charles Dickens or Jules Verne , which contain similar stereotypes of non @-@ white <unk> . The court ruled in February 2012 that the book would not be banned , deciding that it was " clear that neither the story , nor the fact that it has been put on sale , has a goal to ... create an intimidating , hostile , degrading , or humiliating environment " , and that it therefore did not break Belgian law . Belgium 's Centre for <unk> Opportunities warned against " over @-@ reaction and hyper political <unk> " . Shortly after , Swedish @-@ Belgian Jean @-@ <unk> <unk> filed a similar complaint , which was supported by <unk> , an interest group for Swedes of African descent . The complaint to the Chancellor of Justice was turned down as violations of hate speech restrictions in the Swedish <unk> Law on Freedom of <unk> must be filed within one year of publication , and the latest Swedish edition of Tintin in the Congo appeared in 2005 . 
