Board slated

Press, 16 July 1980, Page 20

Board slated

P.E.N. (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) is the latest organisation • to enter the “Death of a Princess’ controversy. The New Zealand centre’s executive has ;deplored both the decision of the board of Broadcasting Corporation to ban the film, and the manner in which it arrived at that decision. It regards the arguments put forward by the board, when it had declined even to see the film, as wholly unconvincing. If the proffered arguments that t«ste, tact, and sensitivity to minority feeling are the basis of criteria for selecting television programmes, there is much that is at present screening which would similarly qualify for withdrawal, it says. But if the true reason, of irritating a foreign government — although no hard evidence of damage to the economy has been produced — then New Zealand now admits censorship of a new kind, it says. In effect, any country whose good will as a trading partner New Zealand wishes to retain may now interfere in our affairs by insisting on the suppression of any criticism or comment which it considers embarrassing, the organisation says. P.E.N. rejects the claims of any foreign group, local businesss interest, or Government advisory board to make decisions on their behalf in an area in which it regards access to information and freedom of choice as fundamental liberties. It says its members insist on. the people’s right and opportunity, enjoyed by almost ail other free Western communities, to make up their own minds on a work which has aroused so much controversy throughout the world. ’