KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 -- Malaysia defended its ban on Spielberg's Oscar-winning film 'Schindler's List' Thursday, saying the movie could cause unrest in the multi-racial nation.
Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir, who also is home minister and responsible for the office of film censorship, said the ban was news to him.
'I wouldn't be able to say because I do not know,' Mahithir said when asked why the film was banned. 'I have not seen Schindler's List. I don't know what it is.'
A spokesman for the National Film Censorship Board confirmed the ban on the film, which won seven Oscars earlier this week, saying it had been rejected earlier this month. The spokesman declined to elaborate on reasons for the ban.
'Schindler's List,' the story of a German industrialist who saved more than 1,000 of his Jewish employees from Hitler's holocaust, won seven Oscars Monday, including best picture and best director for Spielberg.
Information Minister Mohamed Rahmat said there must be good reasons to ban Schindler's List. Each country had its own set of values and the right to censor whatever it thought necessary, he said.
Malaysia has to take action from time to time if there is anything that could cause a security problem and affect racial and religious harmony, he said.
'I don't think Malaysians will lose out if they don't get to see 'Schindler's List,'' he added.
Australian Jews expresed outrage at Malaysia's ban on the film Wednesday, calling on the government to overturn the ruling.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry has written to Malaysia's High Commission in Australia describing the ban as 'truly shameful.'
Council President Isi Leibler said Malaysia indicated it banned the acclaimed epic holocaust film because because 'it reflects the privilege and virtues of one race only' and was 'propaganda with the purpose of asking for sympathy as well as to tarnish the other race.'
'This is outrageous and truly shameful,' Leibler said in a statement, calling the ban a 'morally repugnant decision.'
On the the Jewish group's claim that the film was banned because he was anti-Semitic, Mahathir said, 'I am not anti-Semitic but I am anti- Zionist expansionism and the conquest of Arab territories by the Zionists.'
A local film distributor whose proposal to screen the film in Muslim Malaysia was turned down said a subsequent appeal also was rejected said the company would have to abide by the board's decsion.
A spokesman said the board gave its reasoning for the ban, but refused to make public the reasons.
