PKR Youth No. 2 cries ‘double standards’ after Home Ministry raid and seizure of two books not on banned list
The Home Ministry was reported to have raided Toko Buku Rakyat, a bookstore owned by local author and educator Benz Ali last Saturday.
(MMO) – The Youth wing of ruling party PKR today accused the Anwar government of practising double standards after the Home Ministry raided a local bookstore and confiscated two books that are not in the country’s banned list.
Tyra Hanim Razali, its deputy chief, said the ministry’s actions could cause the public to see the government as intimidating small and independent bookstores.
“This confiscation also gives an unhealthy signal to the general public and provides an opportunity to the Opposition in its narrative which pictures the unity government as an authoritarian government,” she said in a statement.
She said that the confiscation can also challenge the expression of literature which can stimulate the development of civil society.
The Home Ministry was reported to have raided Toko Buku Rakyat, a bookstore owned by local author and educator Benz Ali last Saturday.
It seized two books; one titled Marx Sang Pendidik Revolusioner, a Malay translation of Karl Marx: The Revolutionary as Educator by Robin Smalls, and the second was Benz’s collection of poems in Malay titled Koleksi Puisi Masturbasi.
Neither book is currently banned in the country.
Tyra said the confiscation of books not on the banned books list is contrary to the Printing Press and Publications Act 1984, which states that any order by the minister to prohibit publication must be gazetted before it can have the force of law.
She also pointed out that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is still being sold in bookstores nationwide despite promoting Nazism, adding that this showed “double standards”.
She said the Malaysia Madani concept — espoused by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim — requires an interpretation of opposing ideas and cannot be just “lip service”.
The Home Ministry is under the purview of Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail who is also PKR secretary-general.
The ministry made international headlines recently after being sued by Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group for confiscating 172 of its watches under the Pride collections in May worth RM64,795.
