India bans documentary on New Delhi gang rape

International buzz surrounds India’s Daughter, a BBC documentary on the 2012 gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh, a promising young medical student in Delhi, the nation’s capital. News of the brutal attack sent shock waves throughout India, resulting in tougher laws against sexual violence. The Wall Street Journal reported filmmaker Leslee Udwin, herself a rape victim, created the documentary “to thank India for leading the world by example, for championing women’s rights.”

India was not flattered. Fearing it portrays the nation poorly, authorities have banned the documentary. At the scheduled viewing time, television stations broadcast a blank screen instead of the film, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh threatened action against the BBC for ignoring the court-ordered ban.

“This is an international conspiracy to defame India,” Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Venkaiah Naidu told reporters, according to The Guardian.

Statements made by Mukesh Singh, one of four men convicted and sentenced to death for participating in the Delhi assault, triggered the controversy.

“A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night … doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes,” he said in an interview from prison. Singh blamed the woman for being out so late, adding “a girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy.”

The film premiered in New York on Monday, with Oscar-winner Meryl Streep and Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto in attendance.

“This is not just an India problem … there’s not a single country in 2015 that is free of sexual violence against women,” Pinto, an Indian citizen, told reporters before the film’s screening.

The issue of women’s rights divides India, where many families consider a girl’s birth tragic. Sex-selective abortion is widely practiced, though illegal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.