'Un-Islamic' book
trial opens in Malaysia
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Bookstore raids raise
concerns about the rule of law in the southeast Asian state.
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Since 1971, 1,517 books and other
publications have been banned in Malaysia [AP]
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It was a quiet
Wednesday evening towards the end of May when Malaysia's religious
authorities paid a surprise visit to the Borders bookshop in one of Kuala
Lumpur's more upscale shopping malls.
The three officers
from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, better known by its
Malay language acronym JAWI, were courteous but brought with them 20 other
men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves and taking pictures on
their mobile phones. The officers asked the employees whether the shop was selling
Allah, Liberty and Love, the newly released book by New York-based
Canadian academic Irshad Manji.
Understandably, the
staff, dealing with a raid by the religious authorities for the first time,
was nervous. They lead the men to the shelf where the offending book was on
display. After confiscating a couple of copies, the officials asked for the
manager.
Stephen Fung, a
Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslim, who buys the books and distributes them to
the six Borders branches in and around the capital, was the first to speak to
the men. But then they asked to see the most senior Muslim member of staff.
The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a 36-year-old Malay woman
planning for her wedding and in the midst of a marriage course at her local
mosque, happened to be on shift.
Accusations
"They singled out
the Malay women and asked them if they were married," Borders Books'
Chief Operating Officer Yau Su Peng told Al Jazeera. "Those who said
they were single were then accused of being a lesbian. Some were in
tears."
Nik Raina and Fung
were then ordered to appear at JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so,
Nik Raina's lawyer was turned away, denying her a right to counsel that's
enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.
All this happened even
though at the time, on May 23, Allah, Liberty and Love wasn't
actually banned.
Some groups had
expressed disquiet about the book and Borders had been forced to cancel a
"meet-the-author" session with Manji earlier in the month following
threats of violence, but no fatwa had been issued. Borders said it had been
given no indication that there was a problem with selling the book. Indeed,
it was on sale at other shops in the same shopping complex.
With its Muslim Malay
majority and large communities of non-Muslim Chinese, Indian and indigenous
people, Malaysia has long prided itself on its ethnic diversity and religious
tolerance. For decades, Shariah courts, with jurisdiction over the personal
lives of the country's Muslims, have operated alongside the civil system with
the Federal Constitution as the country's supreme legal document. But as
Islam has become increasingly politicized and the religious authorities more
assertive, the system has come under increasing strain.
Religious authorities
'emboldened'
The case "is
symptomatic of an alarming trend in which religious authorities have become
increasing emboldened by the lack of proper oversight and a secular
'leash'", Azrul Mohd Khalib, who writes a column for the online
newspaper the Malaysian Insider and works on HIV/AIDS
issues, told Al Jazeera.
Nik Raina is charged
with distributing a book that's offensive to Islam, even though her job
doesn't involve choosing the books for the store or stacking the shelves. Due
in court on Tuesday, she faces not only the prospect of a 3,000 ringgit fine
($1,000) and a two-year jail term, but a criminal record. "There was no
fatwa, no communication, not even so much as a phone call," Yau said.
"Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's a Muslim."
The Borders raid took
place nearly three weeks before the Home Ministry's Publication and Quranic
Text Control Division published the ban, declaring the book "prejudicial
to morality and public order". JAWI, which ultimately reports to
the Prime Minister's Office, says it doesn't need a court order to raid a
bookshop like Borders if it suspects it's selling "un-Islamic"
material. It's a view that's echoed by Jamil Khir Baharom, Minister in the
Prime Minister's Department and the man responsible for Islamic affairs in
the government.
Lawyers acknowledge
that laws governing the religious authorities in individual states are quite
broad. But there is skepticism about the charges that have been brought.
"It seems the
religious authorities have had to find someone who is a Muslim within the
Borders organization to be charged," said lawyer Andrew Khoo, the
co-chair of the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee. "The
question is whether the appropriate person has been charged or whether she's
the unwitting scapegoat of people trying to enforce the unenforceable."
As a company Borders can't be charged, and neither can Fung. JAWI's officers
admitted as much as they handed Fung a summons.
After Nik Raina had
been charged and a date set for the Shariah hearing, Borders learned it had
secured a judicial review to challenge the raid in the civil court. The
hearing was set for a couple of weeks before the Shariah case. But then JAWI
asked to have its hearing brought forward, a move it said was in the public
interest. JAWI did not respond to emails or phone calls requesting comment on
the raid and its aftermath.
Book seizures
It's not only Borders,
a company controlled by ethnic Chinese business tycoon Vincent Tan, which has
turned to the civil courts. The publisher of the Malay language edition of
the book, ZI Publications and its owner/director Ezra Zaid, also sought a
judicial review. As with Borders, at least 20 people turned up at ZI's offices
looking to seize the book. "The concern for me, and especially for my
staff, was the legal jurisdiction in which they were operating," he
said.
Raman Krishna has run
Silverfish Books in a Kuala Lumpur suburb since 1999. It's a small operation specializing
in Malaysian books and the kind of writing that isn't on the bestseller
lists. JAWI visited Silverfish on June 1. While the two officers were polite
and showed Raman the gazette of the soon-to-be published ban when he asked to
see it, they warned him that if he had any Muslim staff on the payroll they
would be at risk of prosecution if the book were discovered.
"The other part
of this is censorship by harassment," Raman said in an interview at his
shop. "We have a name for it, 'budaya samseng' - a culture of
gangsterism. It's absurd. No civilized society would tolerate this. I don't
understand why Malaysians do."
After JAWI's visit,
Borders wrote to the appropriate ministers to express their concern over the
circumstances of the raid and the continued prosecution of Nik Raina. It's
not just Nik they're concerned about.
The company, which
bought the rights to the Borders' name when the US parent company folded,
employs 150 people, 77 per cent of them Muslim. It has yet to receive any
response, although the consequence of Nik Raina being found guilty could have
serious implications for all Malays simply trying to earn a living; whether
an ethnic Malay crew member serving wine to a non-Muslim passenger on a
Malaysia Airlines flight or a waiter serving food to non-Muslim Malaysians
during Ramadan fasting hours.
"We have the
government rhetoric of Malaysia being a progressive democracy and a center
for moderate Islam, but then you have the political action on the ground, the
lack of political will to tackle issues like this and a backsliding into
medieval times," said Imtiaz Malik Sarwar, a constitutional expert and
lawyer who's representing ZI Publications and Ezra. "It's very
worrying."
Change in focus
Borders' attempt to
delay Tuesday's proceedings in the Shariah Court until the completion of the
judicial review was unsuccessful. Citing the Constitution, High Court Judge
Rohana Yusuf said the civil courts didn't have the authority to intervene in
a Shariah case. But she also noted a seeming "lack of good faith" on
the part of JAWI and said she was confident the Shariah Court itself would
grant a stay of proceedings.
A delay would help
ease some of the unease surrounding the case and show the kind of legal
co-operation that lawyers such as Khoo say is necessary for a dual system to
work effectively. But the question of jurisdiction remains a difficult one.
Where other countries have found a dual system unworkable, Malaysia has
persevered, often by steering away from difficult debates over where
jurisdiction ultimately lies.
A couple of decisions
at the end of July, one of them backing an earlier ruling to lift a ban on a
book about women and Islamic law, have raised hopes that the civil courts are
becoming more assertive. What started off as a surprise raid by the religious
authorities on an unsuspecting bookshop may finally force a discussion few
have been willing to risk.
There "needs to
be some acknowledgement of how the rule of law works in this country",
said Ezra. "There's a lawlessness in which they are operating. All we
want to know is where our civil liberties end and where they begin. And, if
I'm a Muslim, where does Shariah intercede. This really is a litmus test of
the veracity of our legal system."
Irshad Manji is not
the only writer to find her works banned in Malaysia. Lebanese-American poet
Khalil Gibran, Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie, polemicist
Christopher Hitchens and Peter Mayle, a British writer best known for his
tales of expatriate life in France, have all had books banned in the past
four decades.
Since 1971, some 1,517
books and other publications have been added to Malaysia's banned list. Along
with magazines and newspapers, books are also monitored for content. Pictures
are sometimes blackened out with marker pen or pages removed altogether.
Operating under the
Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, the Publication and Quranic Text
Control Division is in charge of the process. It decides which publications
are allowed to be sold and which are deemed too dangerous for the Malaysian
public to see. As Malaysia battled a Communist insurgency, early bans focused
on Communism and politics. In the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the predictable
bans on adult magazines, kung fu caught the censors' attention. These days,
sex and religion are the most sensitive subjects.
Peter’s Comment
Malaysia’s claim to
star status as a model of democracy and racial and religious tolerance seems
to be fading.
When I visited
Malaysia briefly in the nineties I believed the propaganda. To me country and
people appeared friendly to tourists and the diverse cultures seemed to be
co-existing in harmony. Everywhere I went I found smiling faces.
However, since the
nineties I have come to realize that all may not be as it seems in Malaysia.
I can recall a political trial that went through the courts a few years ago
that, to the rest of the world, was a farce that was stage-managed to
eliminate a political threat. In a true democracy the courts are totally
independent of politics.
Now as I read of this
latest witch-hunt by religious zealots, I am reminded of another vital facet
of democracy; the state must be completely free of any kind of religious
dominance. A religion dominated state cannot be a democratic state.
It would seem that
Malaysia must be about the last country in the world to discover the real
effect of banning books; a ban will only serve to guarantee more sales all
around the world and even more sales to Malaysians.
This blog is sponsored by Gypsy Books
Will our books now be banned in Malaysia
for speaking out?
PO Box 110, Ngatea 3541, New Zealand
Print books: http://www.gypsybooks.co.nz
For E-readers: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search
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The Asker Trilogy, Highway America, The New Zealand Tour Commentary, The Life and Times of Freddie Fuddpucker
Monday, August 6, 2012
MALAYSIAN CENSORSHIP
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