Bookstore Raids Raise Concerns about the Rule of Law in Southeast Asian State

by Kate Mayberry @http://www.aljazeera.com

The 3 officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, improved well well known by the Malay denunciation acronym JAWI, were courteous though brought with them twenty alternative men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves as well as taking pictures upon their mobile phones.

The officers asked the employees either the emporium was sellingAllah, Liberty as well as Love,the newly expelled book by New York-based Canadian academic Irshad Manji.

Understandably, the staff, dealing with the raid by the eremite authorities for the initial time, was nervous. They lead the group to the shelf where the offending book was upon display. After confiscating the integrate of copies, the officials asked for the manager.

Stephen Fung, the Malaysian Chinese as well as non-Muslim, who buys the books as well as distributes them to the six Borders branches in as well as around the capital, was the initial to speak to the men. But afterwards they asked to see the most comparison Muslim partial of of staff. The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, the 36-year-old Malay lady planning for her wedding as well as in the surrounded by of the marriage course during her internal mosque, happened to be upon shift.

Accusations

"They singled out the Malay women as well as asked them if they were married,"Borders Books' Chief Operating Officer Yau Su Peng (right) told Al Jazeera. "Those who pronounced they were! single were afterwards accused of being the lesbian. Some were in tears.

"Nik Raina as well as Fung were afterwards systematic to crop up during JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so, Nik Raina's counsel was incited away, denying her the right to counsel that's enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.

All this happened even though during the time, upon May 23,Allah, Liberty as well as Lovewasn't essentially banned.Some groups had expressed fluster about the book as well as Borders had been forced to terminate the "meet-the-author" event with Manji earlier in the month following threats of violence, though no fatwa had been issued. Borders pronounced it had been given no indication that there was the complaint with offered the book.

Indeed, it was upon sale during alternative shops in the same offered complex.With the Muslim Malay majority as well as large communities of non-Muslim Chinese, Indian as well as inland people, Malaysia has long prided itself upon the racial farrago as well as eremite tolerance.

For decades, Shariah courts, with office over the personal lives of the country's Muslims, have operated to the single side the polite complement with the Federal Constitution as the country's autarchic authorised document. But as Islam has become increasingly politicised as well as the eremite authorities some-more assertive, the complement has come under increasing strain.

Religious authorities 'emboldened'

The box "is symptomatic of an alarming trend in that eremite authorities have become increasing emboldened by the miss of correct oversight as well as the secular 'leash'", Azrul Mohd Khalib, who writes the mainstay for the online newspaper theMalaysian Insiderand functions upon HIV/AIDS issues, told Al Jazeera. Nik Raina is charged with distributing the book that's descent to Islam, even though her job doesn't engage selecting the books for the store or stacking the sh! elves.

Due in justice upon Tuesday (August 7), she faces not usually the prospect of the 3,000 ringgit fine ($ 1,000) as well as the two-year prison term, though the criminal record. "There was no fatwa, no communication, not even so most as the phone call," Yau said. "Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's the Muslim.

"The Borders raid took place nearly 3 weeks prior to the Home Ministry's Publication as well as Quranic Text Control Division published the ban, dogmatic the book "prejudicial to morality as well as open order". JAWI, that in conclusion reports to the Prime Minister's Office, says it doesn't need the justice order to raid the bookshop similar to Borders if it suspects it's offered "un-Islamic" material.

It's the view that's echoed by Jamil Khir Baharom (left), Minister in the Prime Minister's Department as well as the man responsible for Islamic affairs in the government.Lawyers acknowledge that laws governing the eremite authorities in particular states have been quite broad. But there is questioning about the charges that have been brought.

"It seems the eremite authorities have had to find someone who is the Muslim inside of the Borders organisation to be charged," pronounced counsel Andrew Khoo, the co-chair of the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee. "The subject is either the suitable person has been charged or either she's the oblivious scapegoat of people trying to make the unenforceable."

As the association Borders can't be charged, as well as neither can Fung. JAWI's officers admitted as most as they handed Fung the summons. After Nik Raina had been charged as well as the date set for the Shariah hearing, Borders learned it had cumulative the authorised examination to challenge the raid in the polite ! court. T he conference was set for the integrate of weeks prior to the Shariah case. But afterwards JAWI asked to have the conference brought forward, the pierce it pronounced was in the open interest. JAWI did not respond to emails or phone calls requesting criticism upon the raid as well as the aftermath

Book seizures

It's not usually Borders, the association controlled by racial Chinese commercial operation tycoonVincent Tan, that has incited to the polite courts. The publishing house of the Malay denunciation book of the book, ZI Publications as well as the owner/director Ezra Zaid (right), additionally sought the authorised review.

As with Borders, during slightest twenty people incited up during ZI's offices seeking to seize the book. "The regard for me, as well as generally for my staff, was the authorised office in that they were operating," he said.

Raman Krishna has run Silverfish Books in the Kuala Lumpur suburb given 1999. It's the tiny operation specialising in Malaysian books as well as the kind of essay that isn't upon the bestseller lists. JAWI visited Silverfish upon June 1. While the dual officers were respectful as well as showed Raman the bulletin of the soon-to-be published anathema when he asked to see it, they warned him that if he had any Muslim staff upon the payroll they would be during risk of charge if the book were discovered.

"The alternative partial of this is censorship by harassment," Raman (left) pronounced in an talk during his shop. "We have t! he name for it, 'budaya samseng' the culture of gangsterism. It's absurd. No courteous society would endure this. we don't understand why Malaysians do."

After JAWI's visit, Borders wrote to the suitable ministers to demonstrate their regard over the resources of the raid as well as the continued charge of Nik Raina. It's not only Nik they're concerned about.The company, that bought the rights to the Borders' name when the US parent association folded, employs 150 people, 77 per cent of them Muslim.

It has nonetheless to receive any response, although the consequence of Nik Rainabeing found guilty could have critical implications for all Malays simply trying to consequence the living; either an racial Malay crew partial of serving wine to the non-Muslim passenger upon the Malaysia Airlines moody or the waiter serving food to non-Muslim Malaysians during Ramadan fasting hours.

"We have the government rhetoric of Malaysia being the on-going democracy as well as the centre for moderate Islam, though afterwards you have the domestic action upon the ground, the miss of domestic will to tackle issues similar to this as well as the decline in to medieval times," pronounced Imtiaz Malik Sarwar (right), the inherent expert as well as counsel who's representing ZI Publications as well as Ezra. "It's unequivocally worrying."

Change in focus

Borders' try to delay Tuesday's record in the Shariah Court until the completion of the authorised examination was unsuccessful. Citing the Constitution, High Court Judge Rohana Yusuf pronounced the polite courts didn't have the authority to meddle in the Shariah case. But she additionally noted the seeming "lack of great faith" upon the partial of JAWI as well as pronounced she was ! assured the Shariah Court itself would accede to the stay of proceedings.

A delay would assistance ease the little of the confusion surrounding the box as well as uncover the kind of authorised co-operation that lawyers such as Khoo contend is required for the twin complement to work effectively. But the subject of office remains the difficult one. Where alternative countries have found the twin complement unworkable, Malaysia has persevered, mostly by steering divided from difficult debates over where office in conclusion lies.

A integrate of decisions during the finish of July, the single of them backing an earlier ruling to lift the anathema upon the book about women as well as Islamic law, have raised hopes that the polite courts have been becoming some-more assertive. What started off as the surprise raid by the eremite authorities upon an gullible bookshop might eventually force the discussion few have been peaceful to risk.

There "needs to be the little confirmation of how the order of law functions in this country", pronounced Ezra. "There's the anarchy in that they have been operating. All you wish to know is where the polite liberties finish as well as where they begin. And, if I'm the Muslim, where does Shariah intercede.

This unequivocally is the litmus test of the sincerity of the authorised system."Irshad Manji is not the usually bard to find her functions criminialized in Malaysia. Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran, Booker Prize-winning bard Salman Rushdie, polemicist Christopher Hitchens as well as Peter Mayle, the British bard best well well known for his tales of ostracise hold up in France, have all had books criminialized in the past 4 decades.

Since 1971, the little 1,517 books as well! as alte rnative publications have been added to Malaysia's criminialized list. Along with magazines as well as newspapers, books have been additionally monitored for content. Pictures have been sometimes blackened out with coop pen or pages removed altogether.

Operating under the Printing Presses as well as Publications Act 1984, the Publication as well as Quranic Text Control Division is in charge of the process. It decides that publications have been authorised to be sold as well as that have been deemed too dangerous for the Malaysian open to see. As Malaysia battled the Communist insurgency, early bans focused upon Communism as well as politics. In the 1980s as well as 1990s, as well as the predicted bans upon adult magazines, kung fu held the censors' attention. These days, sex as well as religion have been the most sensitive subjects.

Un-Islamic' book hearing opens in Malaysia "There was no fatwa, no communication, not even so most as the phone call. Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's the Muslim."- Yau Su Peng BANNED BOOKS

Irshad Manji'sAllah, Liberty as well as Loveis the fifth to be added to the list this year. Peter Mayle's sex preparation bookWhere did we come from?was removed from bookshops in Feb as well as criminialized the following month. The book, written to assistance parents discuss it their young kids the contribution of life, has sold some-more than dual million copies around the universe given it was initial published nearly 40 years ago.

Text Control Division cabinet member Abdul Aziz Nor says his team usually acts following the complaint from the public, that was apparently the box with Mayle's book. But they additionally guard imports during key entry points, including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where twenty officers have been stationed.

"We cannot read every book that comes in to Malaysia so you demeanour during the topic," Abdul Aziz told Al Jazeera. "We might pick up the single or dual based upon that."

On that basis, Hitchens' bestsellerGod is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everythingreally didn't stand the chance. It was criminialized in 2009.

"All you wish to know is where the polite liberties finish as well as where they begin. And, if I'm the Muslim, where does Syariah intercede. This unequivocally is the litmus test of the sincerity of the authorised system."- Ezra Zaid

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