Refleksi : Apakah di NKRI kalau pemerintah melarang peredaran sebuah buku, maka keputusan tsb tidak dapat digugat di pengadilan? Mengapa demikian dan gambaran apa tentang hakekat negara bisa dipahami?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/asia/26malaysia.html?ref=asia Malaysian Court Ends Ban on Book By LIZ GOOCH Published: January 25, 2010 KUALA LUMPUR - Free speech advocates were rejoicing Monday after a Malaysian court quashed a government ban on a book about the challenges facing Muslim women. In a country where human rights organizations say that government censorship pervades many parts of public life, the decision was hailed as a victory for freedom of expression. "We were hoping, we were praying that this would mark a good day for all Malaysians," said Professor Norani Othman, the editor of the banned book, "Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism," a collection of essays by international scholars. "It's a good day for academic freedom." In July 2008, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned the book, published in 2005 by Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian nongovernmental organization, on the grounds that it was "prejudicial to public order" and that it could confuse Muslims, particularly Muslim women. The Printing Presses and Publications Act states that anyone who prints, publishes or distributes a banned publication can be fined up to 20,000 ringgit, or $5,900, jailed for up to three years, or both. Anyone found in possession of a banned publication without lawful excuse can be fined up to 5,000 ringgit. Sisters in Islam filed a judicial review in the Kuala Lumpur High Court in December 2008 on the basis that the ban was unconstitutional because it infringed upon freedom of speech and religion and gender equality. Justice Mohamad Ariff Yusof said Monday that he had failed to find that the facts of the case supported the decision to ban the book on the grounds that it could disrupt public order. "There are just seven pages of text which are objected to out of 215 pages in the book," he said. "The book itself was in circulation for over two years in Malaysia before the minister decided to ban it." He ordered the government to pay court costs incurred by Sisters in Islam. Noor Hisham Ismail, the senior federal counsel who represented the ministry, said he could not yet say whether the government would appeal the decision. Professor Norani, the book's editor and a sociologist at the National University of Malaysia, said she was overjoyed by the decision and hoped that it would encourage others to produce books that questioned the politicization of Islam. Authors, journalists and human rights groups have expressed concern about attempts to stifle freedom of speech in Malaysia, which was ranked 131st out of 172 countries in the 2009 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Some 397 books containing "materials that could jeopardize public order and obscenity" were banned by the government from 2000 to July 2009, according to a report last year by the national news agency, Bernama. Wong Chin Huat, chairman of the Writers Alliance for Media Independence, said the government used laws like the Internal Security Act, the Sedition Act and the Printing Presses and Publications Act to control the media and to persecute people who spoke out on issues deemed to be sensitive. Mr. Wong, a journalism lecturer at Monash University Malaysia, said the Monday court decision was "very heartening." "After the 'Allah' row, it shows for the second time that the judiciary has been bold enough to defend freedom of speech and freedom of religion," he said, referring to the Dec. 31 court decision that Christians could use the word "Allah" to refer to God. Yip Wai Fong, communications officer for the Center for Independent Journalism in Malaysia, said the decision would give writers more confidence to challenge government attempts at censorship. She said laws requiring print publications to have their licenses renewed annually by the government resulted in self-censorship. "Censorship in the newsroom is still very much alive because of these laws," she said, adding that this had prompted a proliferation of online news media sites in recent years. The High Court is due to rule on Friday whether a government ban on another book, "March 8" by K. Arumugam, was valid. The book, which was written in Tamil and sold about 3,000 copies before it was banned in 2007, is described by the author as an analysis of attacks on Tamils in a Kuala Lumpur suburb in 2001. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
