Adjudication No. 120 (November 1981) [1981] APC 33

ADJUDICATION No. 120 (November 1981)

A Mr Wallace has complained to the Australian Press Council of a series of articles published in The Australian newspaper on 19 to 22 July 1981, giving a detailed account of the treatment and execution of four Australian airmen by Japanese soldiers in 1944 and the trial and execution of those responsible after the Japanese surrender.

The substance of the complaint is that the articles, including their headings and sub-headings, were calculated to cause distress to the relatives and friends of the deceased airmen, whom the articles identified by name.

The Press Council has considered the whole of the articles in question, and is of opinion that they are a serious and extensively researched account of a portion of the history of the war which deserved to be recorded in detail. Although the events to which they relate occurred 37 years ago, it is inevitable that the articles would tend to open old wounds among relatives and friends of the victims of the Japanese atrocity which they recount, but in the opinion of the council that affords no reason for denying the propriety of the newspaper's action in publishing the articles.

The complaint is dismissed.