'Censoring Kashmir Files Is...': New Zealand Dy PM Responds As Film Put Under Classification Review

Winston Peters, the country's former deputy prime minister and head of the political party New Zealand First, has criticised the chief censor's decision.

New Zealand Former Deputy PM Winston Peters. (Source: Getty Images)

New Delhi: The classification of Vivek Agnihotri's "The Kashmir Files" has sparked a row in New Zealand, with the country's chief censor revisiting the film's classification, a move criticised by a former deputy prime minister Winston Peters.

"The Kashmir Files," written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, shows 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 criticised the chief censor's decision.

In a Facebook post, titled "The Kashmir Files' Censored: Another Attack on the Freedom of New Zealanders", Peters said, "To censor this film is tantamount to censoring information or images from the March 15th atrocities in New Zealand, or for that matter removing from public knowledge all images of the attack on 9/11."

He was alluding to the mosque shootings in Christchurch in 2019, in which a single shooter murdered 51 people and wounded 40 more.

The Kashmir Files Row In New Zealand

The 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.

An R16 rating, according to New Zealand's Classification Office, means that a film cannot be seen by minors under the age of 16 without adult supervision.

Shanks informed the publication that the classification office's decision does not imply that the picture is prohibited in the nation.

Members of the Muslim community had approached him, he said, concerned that the movie "might incite anti-Muslim feeling and possibly hate."

Shanks disclosed that the situation was "complicated," since the community's worries were about "behaviours on and offline in regard to the film, rather than the content of the film itself."

"The concerns raised were valid and serious, so it was important to take stock and pause," he was quoted by PTI in its report.

Shanks stated that the film's first classification was issued without consideration of these issues.

(With PTI Inputs)