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Photos courtesy Dr. Philip Nitschke |
Banned Australian
Authors Burn Own
Books, Give Away
Free Net E-Books
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Two pro-euthanasia doctors burned their own banned books, but revived the texts by giving them away for free on the Internet.
Last month, the Australian government banned The Peaceful Pill Handbook, written by Dr. Philip Nitschke and Dr. Fiona Stewart. It is a criminal offense in Australia to sell the book, own it or give it to someone. The book details various suicide methods and outlines how to make barbiturates, which Nitschke and Stewart dub “the peaceful pill.”
Australia’s censorship board, called the Classification Review Board, outlawed the book after being pressured by religious organizations, Nitschke said.
In protest of the ban, the two doctors joined about 100 other demonstrators Monday (March 26, 2007) in front of the Parliament House in Canberra.
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There they burned 150 copies of the banned book, Nitschke
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said.
His goal was to “get an image that would hopefully embarrass the Australian government,” Nitschke wrote in an email to www.bannedmagazine.com.
The event was covered by the Canberra Times and the Australian Associated Press (AAP), but according to a LexisNexis database search it was ignored by other Australian newspapers.
One protestor was ejected from Parliament because he stood up and yelled that he supported The Peaceful Pill Handbook, the AAP reported.
The protest came on the 10th anniversary of the federal government in Australia overturning a Voluntary Euthanasia Law in the Northern Territory, a state in northern Australia.
The book has been selling briskly on www.amazon.com, Nitschke said. Customs officials apparently don’t have a large enough work force to screen every book mailed into Australia by the giant online retailer. But Nitschke and Stewart also have an electronic version of the book on GoogleBooks (click here to read book).
