So Where IS Justice?

*Sigh* - here's another incident in which books have been seized  - oops - "confiscated".

This time it's the Seremban police who have confiscated 22 books published by Kinibooks, a subsidiary of Malaysiakini, last Friday from Popular Book Store. The books are 12 copies of 1Funny Malaysia comic books and 10 copies of Where is Justice? 


According to Malaysiakini :

Special Investigation Divisions officer Inspector Bobby Bana said that orders came from the Negri Sembilan police headquarters last week for the books to be seized.



"We are not banning the books but are just taking them to analyse their content," said Bana, who was part of the raiding team, when contacted today.


This is the latest incident following seizures of the same books in Malacca and Penang two weeks ago.


It is understood that the books are being studied for seditious content that could compromise the harmony of the country.


'1Funny Malaysia' is a compilation of cartoonist Zunar's works while 'Where is Justice?' is about death and brutality in police custody focusing on four prominent cases involving Teoh Beng Hock, A Kugan, Altantuya Shaariibuu, and Anwar Ibrahim.

Do get your copies of both books while they are still available, here. 

Quick Ad from Adriana

Posting this for Adriana who was a Malaysiakini intern in her last reincarnation and wrote about my creative writing class:

EXCITING OPPORTUNITY!

Would you like to be part of a team of young people that travels throughout Malaysia (Peninsular and Sabah and Sarawak) to talk to the youth of the country about:

• What their Malaysia is?
• Their personal wish for the country as she turns 50?

My name is Adriana Nordin Manan, and I am in the process of applying for a grant from my college for a project to do just that, and would love to hear from you! If you are between 16 and 25 years old and keen on celebrating Merdeka a little differently this year, get in touch! We will most probably be traveling sometime in July, all expenses paid.

Final Product: a book and documentary that compile the stories and pictures, distributed to different community organizations, schools and civil society organizations. I would also be very keen on giving short talks and presentations on our findings at different venues, in the spirit of sparking honest discussion on where we are headed now that we are turning 50 as a nation.

HOWEVER, I am extremely flexible when it comes to the kind of input people want to provide, especially in terms of the final product. Having a documentary and photo exhibition would be great too, for example. Spoken word and poetry jam sessions come to mind as well, or even the “Malaysian Youth Cookbook” (ala the “Anarchist’s Cookbook”), hee hee…..

Logistics: As I need to submit my revised proposal to my college on January 31st, I REALLY NEED to hear from people before then, with questions, critiques, suggestions or simple hellos. It is important that I demonstrate that some progress has been made in getting contacts in Malaysia, to convince the committee that the dough should go to us. As I am in Ecuador at the moment, e-mail is the best way to reach me, it’s anordinm@colby.edu I do appreciate your taking the time to read this, and would love to hear from as many people as possible.

Lastly, do spread the word to anyone you think might be interested in knowing more or chatting with me about the project. Thank you so much again, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Also, if you’d like to know more about the potential funders of this project, check out http://www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org/ or http://www.davisuwcscholars.org/

Best,
-Adriana-