The Paper Plus Group and the Warehouse have said that they will not be stocking Ian Wishart’s book Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case.
The book, written in collaboration with the Kahui twins’ mother Macsyna King, has been the subject of online controversy. A Facebook group opposing the book’s sale currently has more than 25,000 members.
Paper Plus CEO Rob Smith says the company has received a high volume of feedback about the book from customers, franchise holders and staff.
“The prevailing opinion is that our stores do not feel comfortable selling this book and our customers do not want to buy it. This is certainly not about censorship or Paper Plus taking the moral high ground. We are simply listening to our most important stakeholders and acting in accordance with their feelings,” says Mr Smith.
The Warehouse has also confirmed that they will not be selling Breaking Silence.
A spokesperson for the Warehouse said the decision was based on feedback from the community. They said they were a family-oriented store that likes to be led by their customers.
Whitcoulls are requesting feedback before they decide if they will stock the book, saying they are “closely monitoring” the comments being made.
Ian Wishart has responded to news of the cancelled orders with a statement saying the book will be published direct and distributed through some independent bookstores.
"Freedom of speech died in New Zealand today," said Wishart, "and ordinary New Zealanders should be very afraid when a protest by 0.5 percent of the population of four million people can dictate what books you are now allowed to read”.
The Facebook group ‘Boycott the Macsyna King Book’ is inundating other retailers with threats of protest if the book is stocked in their stores.
Mr Wishart has called the group “dishonest,” saying that “Thousands of commenters on that site have made erroneous statements, often from ignorance (one of the things the book aims to correct).”
Mr Wishart says a number of posters are repeating the claim that having been told by a doctor to go to the hospital, Macsyna and Chris Kahui instead went to McDonald’s.
He posted audio from Macsyna’s interviews that he says illustrates the difficulty she was having getting Chris to take the twins to the hospital.
A transcript of the audio follows.
“We drove back from the doctor’s, he didn’t want to go to the hospital. I stopped at Countdown. We got back to Courtley Crescent, and I said ‘wait here in the car with the twins.’ I went back inside the house, I came back out and he was gone.
“I was pissed off. I started running round and getting things and I rang his sister Tracy and I said to her ‘Tracy I need your help’ and she goes ‘what’s the matter?’ and I said ‘I need you to ring Chris and get his arse back here’.
“She said ‘well what do you want me to make him do? What am I gonna do?’ I just lost it at her. I said ‘you know how you’re always bossing him around? You can get on the phone and tell him to get his arse back here and help me to get the boys to the hospital’.
“I started crying on the phone, and she goes ‘what the f**k’s happening?’ and I went ‘I don’t know, Tracy, we just left the doctor’s, he said to get to the hospital’. And she said ‘well why the hell don’t you go to the hospital?’ and I said ‘because Chris didn’t want to come and because I wanted to grab the other stuff,’ and she goes ‘well you should have just not bothered – who cares what he wanted?’
“It’s pretty hard to say that to the driver. What am I going to do, turn the wheel for him? He drove from the doctor’s. She went ‘oh, f**k’ and I went ‘please, man! If you could ever help me this is how you can help me. Now ring your brother and make sure you get it done! I’m not going to go through all of this on my own. He helped me, now you help me. These are our kids, and you’re part of it, so you f**king do something!’
“Then I hung up on her, and she did! She did try and get a hold of Chris. But I heard that she actually drove over and went to try and find him. She arrived at the house, talked to Stuart, and he said ‘yeah, Chris just pissed off. Macsyna said she had to go to the hospital because her and Chris went to the doctor’s, but then Chris took off and left the babies’. So Stu explained it to Tracy, and Tracy went off and looked for Chris”.
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