In August 2007 , Congolese student Bienvenu Mbutu 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 xenophobic " . Alain Berenboom , lawyer for both Moulinsart , the company which control Hergé 's estate , and Casterman , the book 's publisher , argued that the cartoonist 's depiction of the Congolese " wasn 't racism but kind paternalism " . 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 ethnicities . 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 have been put on sale , have a goal to ... create an intimidating , hostile , degrading , or humiliating environment " , and that it therefore did not break Belgian law . Belgium 's Centre for Equal Opportunities warned against " over @-@ reaction and hyper political correctness " . Shortly after , Swedish @-@ Belgian Jean @-@ Dadaou Monyas filed a similar complaint , which was supported by Afrosvenskarna , 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 Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression must be filed within one year of publication , and the latest Swedish edition of Tintin in the Congo appeared in 2005 .