‘The Kashmir Files’ courts controversy in New Zealand

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Mar 20: Vivek Agnihotri’s “The Kashmir Recordsdata” has courted controversy in New Zealand with the nation’s chief censor reviewing the movie’s classification, a transfer that has been criticised by a former deputy prime minister.

Former New Zealand deputy prime minister Winston Peters slammed the film board and stated that censoring the movie could be an assault on the liberty of New Zealanders.

Taking to Fb, Peters posted “The ‘Kashmir Recordsdata’ has been proven in America, Australia, India and lots of different areas world wide. To this point the movie has been considered by over 1.1 billion individuals.”

“The movie is about true and actual occasions surrounding the 1990 ethnic cleaning of Hindus in Kashmir and at the moment over 400,000 Kashmir Pandits stay in exile after 32 years,” he stated.

“To censor this movie is tantamount to censoring info or photos from the March fifteenth atrocities in New Zealand, or for that matter eradicating from public data all photos of the assault on 9/11,” he added.

“Mainstream Muslims have each on this nation and world wide readily and rightly denounced all types of terrorism on the premise that committing violence within the title of Islam shouldn’t be Muslim. Neither ought to steps taken towards Islamophobia mistakenly result in the shielding of terrorists within the title of Islam,” he stated.

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“Terrorism in all its varieties, it doesn’t matter what its supply, needs to be uncovered and opposed. This try at selective censorship would quantity to 1 additional assault on the liberty of New Zealanders and folks worldwide,” he concluded.

Written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, “The Kashmir Recordsdata” depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Kashmir Valley within the Nineteen Nineties.

New Zealand outlet Stuff on Saturday reported that the nation’s chief censor David Shanks is reviewing the movie’s R16 classification after considerations had been raised by the Muslim neighborhood forward of the film’s launch on March 24.

In accordance with New Zealand’s Classification Workplace, an R16 certificates mandates {that a} movie can’t be considered by youngsters beneath 16 with out grownup supervision.