KUALA LUMPUR: A New Zealand university has apologised after it seized hundreds of copies of a campus magazine that featured a cover on menstruation, sparking anger from students saying the move reinforced social stigmas and amounted to censorship.

The University of Otago said its staff this week removed 500 copies of the latest edition of student magazine Critic — which included a cartoon character bleeding from the genitals on the cover — over fears that it was “objectionable to many people”.

Calling it a censorship, the editor of the weekly magazine said the “menstruation issue” was meant to debunk common myths, and it included articles on free sanitary products and the availability of sanitary bins on campus.

“The intention was to break taboos and encourage open discussion about menstruation,” the editor, Joel MacManus, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.

The decision to remove the issue was “regrettable”, the university said in a statement posted on Twitter, but added that it was aware of some views that the magazine cover was “degrading to women”.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018