Threat Against Commentator

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32073, 22 August 1969, Page 22

Threat Against Commentator

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 21. Threats to shoot an N.Z.B.C. television interviewer, Mr Brian Edwards, were made last night during the transmission of/S “Gallery” programme in which Mr Edwards was commenting on Northern Ireland.

The police were informed of the threats and immediately sent a patrol to Mr Edwards’s home. Four telephone calls were made to Broadcasting House in Bowen Street and the switchboard operator who received them was told by a man that unless the programme was taken off, Mr Edwards would be shot. But the programme had been pre-recorded and at the time Mr Edwards was at home, watching the programme. A Wellington police spokesman confirmed today that Mr Edwards’s life had been threatened, and that patrols had been sent to ensure that the threat was not carried out. Mr Edwards said today:; “We get a lot of abuse in the; mail in this job. This was I something different” On the programmei-Mr Edwards gave an outspoken commentary on the situation in Northern Ireland. Mr Edwards said it was his personal viewpoint on the Irish situation. He criticised the bigotry and intolerance in the country, and said the solution to Ulster’s problems was not in economic or political reform, but in fostering tolerance and understanding. Today, he said: “I can only assume that the man who made the threat against me was probably another Irishman watching the programme at a pub. We are all rather hot. you know. “I had a eall from the police, who said that the operator at Broadcasting House had had four calls from the same fellow. The first time he rang, he apparently wanted that programme taken off the at. “The operator told him this was impossible. He then got abusive. The next time he rang he said that if the programme was not taken off the air he would come and shoot ine. “After three or four times the operator got understandably nervous and rang the police.” Mr Edwards said he had

become used to a considerable amount of abuse, but most of this was contained in mail sent to him. Mr Edwards, who has taken a lead in penetrating television interviewing since he came to New Zealand nearly six years ago, was boro in Cork, tn the Irish Republic. But he moved with his parents to Northern Ireland when he was only six weeks old. He went to Queen’s University in Belfast and then to Edinburgh to earn a doctorate in philosophy. He was a lecturer in German at Canterbury University before he joined the staff of the N.Z.B.C.