ايه
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Adviser's Office gave me a prepared answer over the 'phone and it is this: "It is not our practice to disclose details of
confidential discussions between our office and officials of
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in Hong Kong and the New China News Agency. Is it suggested that there were indeed such protests made which resulted in these two
films not being shown?
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و نیا
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As for "The Coldest Winter in Peking" it's even more odd. It was passed by the tensor. It was shown in some cinemas in Hong Kong, but only for one day. It was then recalled,
as the word was used.
Sir, the learned Attorney General made reference to the famous Handyside case. That was a case where a 14 little obscene book innocuously called "The Little Red Schoolbook"
was seized and destroyed. The argument advanced was: Look, there
was really no necessity for that because it was not seized in some 17 other jurisdictions in Britain so why was there a need to seize
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and destroy it in a particular jurisdiction? That argument did not find favour with the European Court. But how can this argument assist the Administration? We are dealing, Sir, with 21 different mass media. We have films, we have a theatre, we have
television, we have the printed media. It is perfectly all right
television now in Hong Kong to write an article or to produce a documentary
or to produce a play incorporating the very themes of the films that have been banned, and that is permitted. What is the necessity, 26 then, in banning films? Because that was the reason advanced by the Sc 27 learned author of the Opinion, Mr. Berend. He said: "If it is
permissible in the other forms of the mass media, then prima facie, or at least on the face of it, there is no necessity made out
already to ban films for political reasons." He also took another point with which, with respect, I agree: If somebody were to show a film which in the view of the Administration does damage good
relations between Hong Kong and other territories, he does not 34 commit any criminal offence. Does it not, therefore, show that at
least this Council doesn't think that it was necessary?
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Then the Attorney General said that no one
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