The Annual Report 2009/10 of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has just been released to the public. It highlights how censors have sought to protect the New Zealand public from the toxic, putrid and pernicious impact of, and exposure to – hard core pornography – such as the numerous DVDs imported from the United States by companies such as Auckland-based Eden Digital Ltd, directed by American-based businessman John Malcolm Carr.

The Herald of Sunday (“Ministry targets porn mogul” Steve Crow)  reported that $640,000 of sexually explicit porn DVDs  were transferred to John M Carr’s Eden Digital Ltd,  just prior to two of Steve Crow’s companies being put into liquidation. Titles cited by the reporter were both imported from the US where Carr resides. See:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674407 19 Sept. 2010.

So many DVDs that Eden Digital has imported and submitted for classification have been deemed “objectionable” (i.e. banned) – for degrading sexually explicit content – that the Society wonders why the police, in consultation with NZ Customs, have not laid charges against its director John M Carr for the importation of “objectionable” publications from the US. The OFLC considers the banning of such material “a reasonable limitation on the freedom expression” to “prevent injury to the public good”. [Read more…]