A review is being sought over the controversial release of a pro-euthanasia book by Australian Philip Nitschke.
The Society for Promotion of Community Standards [SPCS] has written to the Film and Literature Board of Review [see letter below] seeking a review of the decision [web-link below] to approve the book for R18 release.
New Zealand chief censor Bill Hastings says Dr Nitschke’s The Peaceful Pill Handbook is a well-intentioned book for the terminally-ill and elderly.
However, Mr Hastings says several areas have been edited so people do not think suicide is to be taken lightly.
Australian censors banned the book last year.
The society’s executive director, David Lane, says the material breeds a culture of death in New Zealand and is not solely a matter for the chief censor.
Mr Lane says the society is seeking an assurance that those who deal with depressive and suicidal people have been consulted over the release of the book.
He says there will be calls for bookshops to be publicly shunned, should they stock the title.
Posted at 4:12pm on 12 May 2008 on Radio NZ website:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/200805121612/1fbd4b23
Appendix
For classification decision issued by Chief Censor’s Office on the revised Peaceful Pill Handbook, see:
http://www.censorship.govt.nz/pdfword/peaceful%20pill%20s38.pdf
Letter sent to Secretary:
THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.
P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville
Mr Brendan Boyle
The Secretary of Internal Affairs
Department of Internal Affairs
Wellington
11 May 2008
Dear Mr Boyle,
The Society seeks leave under s. 47(2)(e) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (“the Act”), to apply to the Film and Literature Board of Review (“the Board”) for a review of the classification of the revised version of the pro-euthanasia book The Peaceful Pill Handbook. According to a report in the Sunday Star Times (11/05/08), this book contains “graphic descriptions of ways people can kill themselves” and “is set to go on sale in New Zealand within weeks”. It has been classified R18 by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, headed by Chief Censor, Bill Hastings.
The Sunday Star Times reports that Hastings said “it could significantly increase the risk of young people killing or harming themselves and had the potential to greatly disturb or shock them”.
The book’s co-author Dr Phillip Nitschke has held seminars in New Zealand teaching people how they can commit suicide. His book provides clinical accounts of “meticulously planned suicides by various methods” that according to the Chief Censor’s report could make self-inflicted death appear acceptable, even desirable, and its rating of suicide methods could encourage readers to believe death could be achieved without undue suffering to themselves, “the prospect of which may previously have acted as a deterrent”.
We understand the classification decision issued by the Chief Censor’s Office was registered on 8 May 2008 [OFLC No. 800267] and that it will be entered into the published List of Decisions on Friday 13th June 2008.
The Society has forwarded its completed prescribed application form to your Office by fax, setting out its reasons in brief for seeking this review. It requests that a reduced fee be granted to the Society as it is a non-profit charity, without any commercial interests in the publication. Once the question of fee quantum is notified to the Society, we can deal with that matter promptly.
Yours sincerely
David Lane
Executive Director, SPCS
On behalf of the SPCS National Executive
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