new Delhi: The classification of Vivek Agnihotri’s “The Kashmir Files” has sparked a controversy in New Zealand, with the country’s main censors revisiting the film’s classification, a criticism criticized by Winston Peters, a former deputy prime minister.
“The Kashmir Files”, written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Kashmir Valley in the 1990s, news agency PTI reported.
Winston Peters, the country’s former deputy prime minister and head of the political party New Zealand First, has criticized the main censor’s decision.
In a Facebook post titled “The Kashmir Files’ Censored: Another Attack on the Freedom of New Zealanders”, Peters said, “Censoring this film is tantamount to censoring information or images of the March 15 atrocities in New Zealand, or For him is removing all images of the 9/11 attacks from public knowledge.”
He was referring to the mosque shootings in Christchurch in 2019, in which a single shooter killed 51 people and injured 40 others.
K Files Row in New Zealand
New Zealand newspaper Stuff reported on Saturday that the country’s top censor, David Shanks, is revisiting the film’s R16 rating after the Muslim community expressed concerns ahead of its March 24 release.
According to the New Zealand Classification Office, the R16 rating means that minors under the age of 16 cannot watch the film without adult supervision.
Shanks informed the publication that the decision of the Taxonomy Office does not mean that the picture is banned in the nation.
He was approached by members of the Muslim community, he said, concerned that the film “could incite anti-Muslim sentiment and possibly lead to hatred.”
Shanks revealed that the situation was “complicated”, as the community’s concern was “with respect to and offline behavior of the film, rather than the film’s content”.
“The concerns raised were valid and serious, so it was important to take stock and stop,” PTI quoted him as saying in its report.
Shanks stated that the first classification of the film was released without considering these issues.
(with PTI inputs)