Muda moots independent group to regulate publications

Summary

• Muda vice president Dobby Chew calls for the repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984, labelling it undemocratic following the Home Ministry’s seizure of two books by the publisher Fixi.

• He proposed that an independent body comprising civil society and industry experts should oversee print regulation, criticising the ministry’s history of unjustified bans.

Muda vice president Dobby Chew has mooted that an independent body should regulate print publications, instead of having the matter left to the Home Ministry.

He denounced the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 as a “cancer to democracy” that should be abolished, after the Home Ministry seized two books from the publisher Fixi yesterday for “review”.

“While there is a need for licensing and some degree of control mechanisms, they should not be in the hands of the government, but managed through independent commissions or governing bodies that comprise industry players, civil society, and other experts.

“The continued existence of PPPA is an affront to our constitutional rights enshrined within Article 10 of the Federal Constitution and a mockery of our democracy,” Chew said in a statement today.

Fixi claimed yesterday that a group of Home Ministry officers visited its bookstore at Sunway Putra Mall in Kuala Lumpur and seized Ismi Fa Ismail’s books, “Jelik” and “Jelik: 2”, purportedly to review their contents.

It said this is not the first time Home Ministry officers have come to a bookstore to carry out such seizures.

Chew condemned the move, saying there is no justification for the act.

He said human rights groups such as Suaram have extensively monitored the ministry’s bans on publications, and said the ministry is being absurd.

“As far as I am aware, the list includes raunchy romance novels, Japanese comics, local political comics, religious books, philosophical books, colourful watches, and death metal music.

“Some of these publications are conspiracy nonsense not worth the paper they are printed on, but a good number of them are merely publications that the ministry, or more likely, a civil servant within the ministry, finds detestable or objectionable.

“Just because the person in charge within the Home Ministry fails to appreciate Malaysian death metal music or find Fifty Shades of Grey too explicit for their liking, it does not mean the government ought to waste any time or resources to ban them under PPPA,” said Chew, who is a former documentation and monitoring coordinator at Suaram.

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