It was a quiet Wednesday evening towards the end of May when Malaysia's
religious authorities paid a surprise visit to the Borders bookshop in
one of Kuala Lumpur's more upscale shopping malls.
The three officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, better known by its Malay language acronym JAWI, were courteous but brought with them 20 other men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves and taking pictures on their mobile phones. The officers asked the employees whether the shop was selling Allah, Liberty and Love, the newly released book by New York-based Canadian academic Irshad Manji.
Stephen Fung, a Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslim, who buys the books and distributes them to the six Borders branches in and around the capital, was the first to speak to the men. But then they asked to see the most senior Muslim member of staff. The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a 36-year-old Malay woman planning for her wedding and in the midst of a marriage course at her local mosque, happened to be on shift.
Accusations
"They
singled out the Malay women and asked them if they were married,"
Borders Books' Chief Operating Officer Yau Su Peng told Al Jazeera.
"Those who said they were single were then accused of being a lesbian.
Some were in tears."
Nik Raina and Fung were then ordered to appear at JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so, Nik Raina's lawyer was turned away, denying her a right to counsel that's enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.
BANNED BOOKS
BANNED BOOKS
Irshad Manji's Allah, Liberty and Love is the fifth to be added to the list this year. Peter Mayle's sex education book Where did I come from? was removed from bookshops in February and banned the following month. The book, designed to help parents tell their children the facts of life, has sold more than two million copies around the world since it was first published nearly 40 years ago.
Text Control Division secretary Abdul Aziz Nor says his team usually acts following a complaint from the public, which was apparently the case with Mayle's book. But they also monitor imports at key entry points, including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where 20 officers are stationed.
"We cannot read every book that comes into Malaysia so we look at the topic," Abdul Aziz told Al Jazeera. "We may pick up one or two based on that."
On that basis, Hitchens' bestseller God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything really didn't stand a chance. It was banned in 2009.
The three officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, better known by its Malay language acronym JAWI, were courteous but brought with them 20 other men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves and taking pictures on their mobile phones. The officers asked the employees whether the shop was selling Allah, Liberty and Love, the newly released book by New York-based Canadian academic Irshad Manji.
Stephen Fung, a Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslim, who buys the books and distributes them to the six Borders branches in and around the capital, was the first to speak to the men. But then they asked to see the most senior Muslim member of staff. The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a 36-year-old Malay woman planning for her wedding and in the midst of a marriage course at her local mosque, happened to be on shift.
Accusations
|
"There was no fatwa, no communication, not even so much as a phone call. Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's a Muslim." - Yau Su Peng |
Nik Raina and Fung were then ordered to appear at JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so, Nik Raina's lawyer was turned away, denying her a right to counsel that's enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.
BANNED BOOKS
BANNED BOOKS
Irshad Manji's Allah, Liberty and Love is the fifth to be added to the list this year. Peter Mayle's sex education book Where did I come from? was removed from bookshops in February and banned the following month. The book, designed to help parents tell their children the facts of life, has sold more than two million copies around the world since it was first published nearly 40 years ago.
Text Control Division secretary Abdul Aziz Nor says his team usually acts following a complaint from the public, which was apparently the case with Mayle's book. But they also monitor imports at key entry points, including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where 20 officers are stationed.
"We cannot read every book that comes into Malaysia so we look at the topic," Abdul Aziz told Al Jazeera. "We may pick up one or two based on that."
On that basis, Hitchens' bestseller God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything really didn't stand a chance. It was banned in 2009.
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