Zunar: No government ban can stop my cartooning

18 Jun 2012 | Asia and Pacific

Although the political situation in Malaysia has been very tense since 1998, now the majority of Malaysians are beginning to show defiance against the ruling party Barisan Nasional, which has ruled the country for 54 years. People cannot accept the widespread corruption and high inflation with people living in economic hardship anymore.

The current Prime Minister, Najib Razak, is involved in the corruption scandal of the purchasing of Scorpene submarine. This is further scandalised by the murder of a Mongolian model by the name of Altantuya who was also involved in the submarine deal.

She was killed in Malaysia by those close to the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the Barisan Nasional still stays in power from the bountiful of deceits throughout the election. Since all local newspapers, television and radio are controlled by the BN government, the people had to use alternative media such as the Facebook and Twitter to criticise and vent their frustrations.

As a political cartoonist, I use cartoons as a way to criticise the government. Not surprisingly, my cartoons are banned from being published in the government media. I produce cartoons for Malaysiakini.com, my own website, and on Facebook and Twitter.

I also publish cartoon books, but my seven books are banned on the grounds that the contents were “detrimental to national security.” Printers who printed my books and stores that sold them are constantly threatened by the authorities.

In 2010, I was arrested under the Sedition Act when my then new book, Cartoon-O-Phobia, was about to be launched. I challenged the book-banning and the unlawful detention. For this, the Kuala Lumpur High Court will decide on the 27 June.

No matter, I continue to draw, with my work now being followed by a bunch of young cartoonists. As a result, the government-controlled Election Commission recently decided to ban the use of cartoons in the coming general election (to be called before the current term ends in March 2013).

The banning of cartoons during the election is comical and ludicrous. This is because cartooning is a legally-practised medium in Malaysia and therefore the Commission does not have the right to forbid its use. Moreover, this is contradicting the freedom of expression provided to all citizens in the Malaysian Constitution.

I call for the Commission to withdraw this rule or it will become another Malaysian product of jokes to the global community. Recently, Malaysia has become a laughing stock due to the action on cartoonists such as banning of comic books and the detention of cartoonists under the Criminal Act.

I would like to announce that I will be leading a group of cartoonists, the Kumpulan Kartunis Independen (KKI) and will be actively involved before and during the next election campaign.

We will be opening our own Cartoonist Operations Centre and will be moving as a group in a van while campaigning for the coming election.

Our focus is to expose fraud and corruption and misuse of public funds by the current government, such as Scorpene Scandal or the domineering of the PM’s wife. The message-laden cartoons will be distributed in various forms: brochures, posters, banners, videos, to name a few.

I am ready to face the consequences! And I will keep drawing until the last drop of my ink!

Zunar is the foremost Malaysian political cartoonist.  Last year, he has been conferred “2011 Courage In Editorial  Cartoon” award by Cartoonist Rights Network International in Washington

Nine-year-old school dinner blogger gagged

15 Jun 2012 | News and features

UPDATE 1.35pm : Argyll & Bute Council have lifted the ban on Martha Payne’s school dinner photography.

Photographs included in the blog of a primary school student’s school dinners have been banned by her local council.

Martha Payne, from Argyll in Scotland, started her blog Never Seconds, “one primary school pupil’s daily dose of school dinners”, to document the food served at her school, and rate them with marks out of ten.

In a blog post entitled “Goodbye” yesterday evening, Martha, known as Veg, explained how she had been taken out of her maths class by the head teacher, and told that she could not take any more photos of her dinners after a headline in a newspaper.

Since she began blogging Martha has used her blog to raise money for charity Mary’s Meals, who set up school feeding projects in communities struck by poverty. The young blogger asked readers to join her “in helping give lunch to children that really need it.”

Martha explained that she was sad that she would no longer be able to take pictures, and receive pictures from followers, and added “I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.”

Prior to the final post on her blog, which had been backed by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Martha had blogged daily, detailing what she had eaten, and marking her lunches in categories including “number of mouthfuls”, “health rating” and “pieces of hair”. In response, users from around the world shared images of their school lunches, which Martha also published on the blog.

The young journalist and activist’s father took to the blog to provide readers with a little more detail on the day’s developments. He wrote:

“Martha’s school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I’d like to thank them all. I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha’s photography.”

It is a shame that a blog that today went through 2 million hits, which has inspired debates at home and abroad and raised nearly £2000 for charity is forced to end.”

Photographer Paul Clarke questioned what issues the council may have been troubled by, adding:

“If I may, I’ll just park the “obvious” one – that they don’t want to be criticised publicly. The relevant issues to my mind are some old favourites in relation to images and technology: place, control, liability and of course precedent.”

Since posting her Goodbye, interest in the blog has spiked, with 425 people commenting on her post, and a massive increase in donations to her JustGiving page. At the time of posting, the activist’s Just Giving page had shot up to a massive £10,819.70 in donations.

One photo published on the blog showed an “alright” pizza, while another blog post added “the good thing about this blog is Dad understands why I am hungry when I get home.”

Argyll and Bute Council have confirmed that they have asked the schoolgirl to stop taking photographs of her lunches. A strongly worded statement released today said:

“Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

“The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

“There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha’s father however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

Twitter users have taken to the microblogging site in support of the blog. Jamie Oliver tweeted:

Conservative MP Louise Mensch tweeted:

while Daily Telegraph Editor Tony Gallagher dubbed Argyll and Bute “the most stupid council in Britain” and described the decision as “the daftest own goal in a long time.” #Neverseconds was also trending on Twitter before 10am.

Councillor Mike Harris, also Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship said:

“Councils often seem to forget they have the duty to protect freedom speech. When you get absurd cases like this, or the example of South Tyneside Council suing one of its councillors for libel, it shows that local government isn’t up to speed on its legal obligation to protect and promote free speech.”

As the website’s stats hit 2382060, and continue ticking over, it seems Argyll and Bute Council have created themselves a bigger PR disaster than an innocent blog from a young girl ever would have. Food for thought, if nothing else.

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