Half a year after being selected as the first Malaysian to join Amnesty International's Write for Rights (#W4R) campaign in 2015, political cartoonist Zunar has received nearly 250,000 words of support from across the globe.

Amnesty International-Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshini presented a small part of the support – 17,419 letters, cards, drawings and messages – to the jovial Zunar, who was present at the conclusion of the campaign in Subang Jaya this afternoon.

The 17,419 hardcopy support messages from 26 countries – in which the top three came from the Netherlands, Italy and Canada – are part of 241,639 messages, with the rest being online petitions. These were collected between December 2015 and April 2016.

Zunar happily received the hard copies, threw up some of the letters and picked up the letter bag to thank the public support for their support for him against the nine sedition charges that he has been slapped with by the Malaysian authorities for nine tweets he made.

“It's unbelievable to get so much support from colleagues, and by Twitter and email from so many artistes and singers, all of whom are creative persons,” he said.

'Please respect my cartoons'

Zunar also lamented on the heavy-handed measures from the government authorities to suppress his cartoons.

“If you don't like my cartoons, it’s okay, but do not suppress my work. Please respect my cartoons,” he said, adding that he would be launching his latest comic, dubbed 'Wasabi' – Wa Sapu Billion – this Saturday.

The comic is focused on the donations into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's personal bank accounts, worth RM2.6 billion, and the 1MDB scandal.

Last October, Zunar became the first Malaysian to take part in the #W4R campaign, Amnesty International’s biggest global campaign that attracts hundreds of thousands of activists to act on behalf of those being persecuted.

Zunar was detained by the police twice, in 2010 and 2015, on grounds of sedition.

He is currently facing nine sedition charges and up to 43 years in jail for his critical comments on the jailing of then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in February last year.

His cartoon books that are critical of the government were banned and confiscated before that.