"Da Vinci Code" too much for deeply religious Fiji

SYDNEY, June 2 (Reuters) ''The Da Vinci Code'' won't be shown in Fiji after protests by hundreds of Christians led to screenings of the controversial movie being stopped, cinema operators said today.

About 400 people marched through the capital Suva today calling on the newly re-elected government of Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase to ban the film, based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel.

Another protest, backed by Fiji's Methodist Church, was planned for Saturday in the town of Lautoka, a sugar belt town on the northwest coast of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu. ''Due to the protests, we have closed the film,'' Dev Damodar, chief executive of Village Six, Village Roadshow Ltd's Fiji arm, told Web site Fiji Village (www.fijivillage.com).

''It's a democratic country and people have the freedom to express their views,'' he said after the decision to remove the movie from Village's 10-screen Fiji operation. Methodist Church of Fiji General Secretary Reverend Ame Tugawe welcomed the decision but said the Lautoka protest would still go ahead tomorrow.

About 52 per cent of the former British colony's 906,000 population are Christians, with the majority of those Methodists.

The Fiji move came as two more Indian states banned screenings of the movie after protests by minority Christians.

Southern Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya in India's Christian-dominated northeast joined Punjab and Tamil Nadu in banning the film.

Village Roadshow announced on Tuesday it was in the final stages of negotiations to exit its cinema exhibition operations in Fiji and New Zealand, as well as Britain and Austria.

REUTERS SI PM1257