Twenty copies of the newly released book in Singapore, Faces of Courage , were seized by custom officers on the causeway in Johor Bahru last Friday.

Faces of Courage , a historical exploration of the legendary WWII heroine in the Kinta Valley, Sybil Kathigasu ( left ), is published by the Singapore-based Media Masters.

The book incorporated the original wartime memoirs of Sybil Kathigasu's No Dram of Mercy , a short essay written by communist veteran Chin Peng and an investigative report by veteran Australian editor Norma Miraflor and journalist Ian Ward.

The seized copies, carried by this writer, were intended to be given to book reviewers attached to alternative media in Malaysia, including malaysiakini . The pro-government New Straits Times had reviewed the 240-page book earlier in two full pages on May 7.

Although the book has been submitted by the publisher to the Home Affairs Ministry for approval to be released for sale in Malaysia on March 31 this year, no decision has yet been made. The book, however, is not officially banned.

According to Ian Ward, publisher and co-author of Faces of Courage , the executive censors at the Home Ministry have long completed screening the book and found no objection to its contents but no one has made the final decision to release it for sale in Malaysia.

Faces of Courage is available for sale in Singapore.

Media Masters was also the publisher of the controversial memoirs of communist veteran Chin Peng My Side of History in 2003.

Missing copies

An initial print-run shipment of some 900 copies of My Side of History was seized by Malaysian custom at the causeway on August 29, 2003.

A substantial number of copies were reportedly missing from this consignment when it was eventually returned. A few days after the causeway seizure, 17 copies of the Chin Peng book were confiscated from a leading KL bookstore by Home Ministry officials.

According to the publisher Ian Ward, none of the seized copies has since been returned despite special subsequent notification by the Home Ministry that the title, My Side of History , was not banned and that there were no restrictions on its distribution in Malaysia.

Within days of the Home Ministry's announcement the publishers, responding to extraordinary public demand, sent a truckload of over 1,000 books valued at more than RM50,000 north to Kuala Lumpur from the distributor's Singapore warehouse.

However, that entire consignment was promptly "stolen" before it arrived at its intended KL. A police report was lodged by the shipping agent.

Police maintained at the time that a man had been arrested for the theft. Nothing more has been heard of the arrest and the books remain unreturned and missing.