KEY POINTS:
A Chinese documentary series aimed at promoting China to New Zealanders has been slammed as "irresponsible" and "worthless communist propaganda" by pro-Tibet groups.
Weekly hourly slots have been booked on Triangle Television by the New Zealand Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Centre for the screening of documentaries it says will "help Kiwis understand China better".
But after the screening of two China state-produced documentaries last week about the recent Lhasa riots and Tibet's past, the group has incurred the wrath of the Tibetan community and its supporters.
Tomorrow night, a 1956 documentary on the Dalai Lama, produced by state-owned China News and Documentary Film Studio, is to be screened.
"The documentaries are definitely propaganda that comes from the Chinese Communist Government," said Thuten Kesang, chairman of the Auckland Tibetan Association.
"After last week's programme, one of our members got so incensed that he wrote a letter of complaint to Triangle about the screening of such biased shows."
It was "irresponsible" for the station to be screening such "blatantly biased" documentaries, and he was looking at the possibility of complaining to the broadcasting standards authorities. But he would watch tomorrow's documentary to see how "Communist China portrays his holiness, the Dalai Lama, as an evil beast".
Human resources executive Junelle Groves, a Buddhist active in local Tibetan circles, said people in the community "have been talking" about the documentaries, and that she too would "absolutely" watch tomorrow night's programme after missing those last week.
Jim He, who obtained the films and booked air time, said he was not surprised at the reaction, as the "powerful documentaries" show "the truth about the Dalai Lama and Tibetan society".
But it was not the group's intention to focus on Tibet, but also other aspects of China, such as education, technology, economy and the arts.
"We want the documentaries to promote China and the Chinese culture to the wider New Zealand community, and Tibet is just one of the issues," he said.
Mr He said the documentaries had been supplied by the culture division of the Chinese Consulate.
Triangle Television chief executive Jim Blackman said he had got two complaints on the Tibet documentaries. "But ours is an open access policy and anyone can screen programming on us if they pay, and meet the copyright and broadcast standards.
"If anyone disagrees with what is on air, then they have the right, on the same terms and conditions, to screen a different view."
