Caricatures furore: NST next in the bin?
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 | 4:06 am @ SK
As what most of us know, the recent publication of caricatures on Prophet Muhammad has caused worldwide furore, where demonstrators protested allow their rallies to degenerate into riots, leaving dozens of dead and the burning of embassies in some countries.
In Malaysia, I’m truly grateful that Malaysians are civilised and tranquil enough to handle the insensitive and tasteless way of the publication with no untoward incident, good enough.
The only dismay part came from newspapers, where a 61-years-old daily Sarawak Tribune’s publication permit was suspended indefinitely since Feb 9 for reproducing the caricatures, leaving the fates of 300 employees unattended. This was followed by a suspension on a chinese press Guangming Daily for two weeks, starting from Feb 16 to Mar 1, for publishing a photo-within-a-photo of the caricatures.
But, when we Malaysians thought that this controversial issue is about to ease off, it’s far from over.
NST, national English tabloid published a full comic strip, with the title NON SEQUITUR by cartoonist Wiley Miller on Page 8 of "Coffee Break", in the "Life & Times" section. The cartoon shows a sidewalk caricaturist offering to draw caricatures of the Prophet and the accompanying caption described the man as having achieved his goal of being the ‘most feared man in the world’.
This has attracted public outcry over the controversial publication, where three non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and Opposition Party PAS, lodged their respective police reports at the Brickfields police district head office.
The three NGOs consist of The Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association (PPIM), the Peninsular Malay Students Federation (GPMS) and Malaysian Indian Muslim Congress (KIMMA), which are under the auspices of the Majlis Angkatan Permuafakatan NGO-NGO Malaysia (MAPAN). The police report on PAS side was lodged by Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub. Their say?
Kubang MP Salahuddin Ayub
"The act of publishing the cartoon could threaten national security as it is defamatory and can divide national unity."PPIM Training Director Izham Nayan
"We feel that it has bad intentions, aimed at insulting Islam as the official religion of Malaysia and insulting the Muslims. We want action to be taken against the newspaper editor."
GPMS Treasurer-General Azan Ismail
"They are seen as challenging the Prime Minister’s directive not to publish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad, and the Prime Minister had also explained in detail on the issue which touched on the sensitivities of Muslims."
The question: Will Internal Security Ministry under the purview of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who has the power to issue, renew and revoke the printing licence of newspapers and magazines, charges NST under Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984?
The exclamation: No double-standard, please!
On a side-note, PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub is calling for a press conference on the controversial publication. Details as below:
DATE: 22 February 2006 (Wednesday)
TIME: 11am
VENUE: Pejabat Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat,
Markaz Tarbiyah PAS Pusat,
Taman Melewar,
Gombak.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:46 am
There will not be any action taken against NST simply because it is UMNO mouthpiece.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:26 am
NST = most powerful, most feared tabloid in the world.
I’m gonna forward this caricature to my muslims forummers in Europe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Political affiliations aside, I hope this doesn’t lead to an NST suspension. To suspend over a cartoon whose main aim is to point out the absurdity and insanity of the whole situation is overreation at its best.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Whats next? Suspending the newspaper that published a cartoon about the cartoonist depicting a sidewakl caricaturist offering to draw caricatures of the Prophet?
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
alots iof cakap tak serupa bikin here
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Hmm NST in trouble again eh? Support NST! Support journalistic freedom!
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Why shouldn’t the goverment suspend NST? they killed sarawak tribune and suspended Guan Ming Daily(2 weeks) for the same reason, why NST should be immune from this? Oh now you wanna talk about press freedom?to hell with it.
I have no problem at all should the goverment suspend NST, this NST had got away cleanly from the "Chinese nude squat vid" issue last time ,while another chinese newspaper receive severe punishment and heavy criticism from the leaders, just bcoz it’s UMNO’s paper. It published so many rubbish now it’s pay back time.
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:29 pm
So the NST should be punished now for a crime it didn’t commit, just because of stuff that happens in the past or stuff that happened elsewhere?
QM and ST getting suspended is unfortunate. But the solution is NOT to overreact and suspend every single media outlet that even makes a mere mention of the controversy.
A bunch of wrongs do not a right make.
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
NST reproduce the cartoon to ‘insult’ its muslim readers, why are they not commiting a crime?
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:08 pm
NST DID NOT reproduce the cartoon to insult their Muslim readers - it’s NOWHERE near the same level as the earlier cartoons. Besides, NST is mainly Muslim owned anyway…
Non Sequitor is syndicated. What most likely happened is that whoever’s in charge of collecting the syndicated comics saw this one was due for publication, saw the actual message - that it’s absurd to threaten violence to an ENTIRE COUNTRY over A CARTOON - and reprinted it. Now "HAHA I HATE MUSLIMS I SHALL INSULT THEM MWAHAHA."
I grew up Muslim and found the original cartoons completely tasteless, but this one funny. I’m not insulted. I know many other Muslims (devout ones too) who are not at all insulted by this particular cartoon - they’re more insulted that random people are claiming to speak on their behalf and completely overreacting over it.
Chillax lah everyone.
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:39 am
[…] « Caricatures furore: NST next in the bin? […]
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:31 am
there are too many hipocrtes outside there whom always claimed they r fighting for freedom and justice - but they also never used their brain to think - if someone say A is sensitive, B is sentivie - cannot talk ,they also follow and
worst still they also want govenrment to ban on suspend the media.
thats very sad!!!
February 25th, 2006 at 12:55 am
[…] "But to say that somebody is sitting there and for some money, I will make a caricature (of the Prophet), that means you are saying that this is all right (when it is not)," he said of the comic strip. Enough said on this issue, my exclamation call for no double-standard was duly converted into another big question mark. […]
May 8th, 2007 at 7:30 am
January 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am
didn’t read it, since i don’t really read nst. but from the description (and really, how hard is it to describe the single-panel non sequitur!) it’s actually sort of funny in a self-reflective, ironic, irreverent way. BUT, let’s face it, this sort of somewhat satirical humour is not really understood by malaysian masses in general, and little accepted. especially unappreciated is that a foreign satirical cartoonist will be drawing an ironic view of his own country and society, and certain things may be true there even if it is not here.
and while the danish cartoons (which i think at least some were genuinely mean, and certainly many of the papers re-publishing them did so in mean spirit) are still in relatively fresh memory, adding to this lack of appreciation of irony, makes jumping to conclusions by certain groups a very, very predictable outcome. and a police report is totally unnecessary - it should suffice to write in a protest, either to nst itself, or to rival newspapers. i think the police have better things to do, like catching the child molestor and the assassin.