My first column for The Sun was spiked by the editor. The reason: Hishamuddin Rais. No, it was not Hishams fault. We didnt know each other then. Indeed, it happened on his first day back in Kuala Lumpur after 20-odd years in exile.

The year was 1995 and I had just joined the newly-launched Sun .

The biggest news then was that Hisham, a former Universiti Malaya student activist who went into exile in the 1970s, had returned to his homeland from United Kingdom. How he ended up in the UK is truly the stuff movies are made of.

In the wake of a sweeping student crackdown, Hisham fled to Thailand under the cover of darkness across Sungai Golok in Kelantan and flew to Australia. He was later stopped in India for not having proper travel documents.

However, instead of being deported back to Malaysia, he was sent to Iraq. From there, he went to Lebanon and then Belgium. Eventually, he graduated from a film-making course in Britain.

Incidentally, six years ago, Hisham made a feature film Dari Jemapoh Ke Manchestee - no, it was not a personal account of his across-the-globe trek to freedom. He wouldnt be able to do that even if he wanted to  he couldnt get a passport to retrace his steps across foreign shores.

The film was really a story of four kids and their pipe dreams of travelling to Manchester to watch their favourite football team, all the way from Hishams own hometown, Jemapoh in Negeri Sembilan, in a stolen Volvo.

Return from exile

Rewind to 1995. Given news of his return from exile, I decided that my maiden column would be on Hisham. I wrote about his colourful past and his student days in supporting the starving farmers in Baling, Kedah, and the squatters in Tasik Utara, Johor. Nothing controversial really.

Well, that was what I thought. When it was done, I sent the column  entitled Welcome home, Hisham  to the editor. The word soon came back that the newspaper would not run it. I asked why. According to the editor, the police had earlier told the press not to publish anything on the ex-fugitive.

That was the first of my many battles against self-censorship in Malaysia  the lesson in this case is that editorial decisions are sometimes made not by journalists, but by the police.

Hisham left Malaysia to evade the draconian Internal Security Act, a law often used to silence political dissidents. Little did he realise that soon after his return, he would indeed be jailed under the ISA, along with five of his reformasi colleagues.

His low-budget film Jemapoh  a road movie which celebrates the power of youth  was screened in international film festivals all around the world in 1998. But it wasnt until last year that Malaysians got the chance to watch it. By then, the film maker was already incarcerated in Kamunting.

And thats the real irony of living  and working  in Malaysia. Welcome home, Hisham.

Today, April 10, marks Hishamuddin Raiss first year of incarceration under ISA. This editorial will appear as the foreword for Hishams upcoming book, Pilihan Raya Atau Pilihan Jalanraya , which contains a compilation of his columns in malaysiakini .