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Malaysian court overturns book ban
Jakarta Globe - January 26, 2010
A Malaysian court overturned a government ban on a book about Muslim women that authorities claimed was a misinterpretation of Islam and a threat to public stability, a lawyer said Tuesday.
The verdict marks a rare occasion that a publisher has successfully challenged the Home Ministry's power to block books considered as inappropriate.
Dozens of books have been banned in the last few years, often because they contained too much sexual content or were deemed to misrepresent Islam, Malaysia's official religion.
The Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled Monday that "Muslim Women and the Challenge of Islamic Extremism" did not pose any threat to national security, said Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a lawyer for Sisters in Islam, the Malaysian women's advocacy group that published the book.
The Home Ministry had banned the compilation of essays in 2008, two years after it went into circulation, saying it could undermine people's faith and disrupt public order.
According to a 2008 ministry letter to Sisters in Islam, the book mainly went too far in questioning whether Islamic family laws discriminate against women in issues such as polygamy and divorce.
Sisters in Islam insisted the 215-page book was a purely academic work in which Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Iranian, Egyptian and Filipino female activists and scholars studied the challenges they face in promoting women's rights in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The group estimates 3,000 copies had been sold before the ban, including as university textbooks.
High Court Judge Mohamad Ariff Mohamad Yusof said the ban was irrational because there was no evidence of any threat to public order in the seven pages to which the Home Ministry objected, Malik Imtiaz said.
"The reaction to ban the book is wholly disproportionate to the concerns expressed," Mohamad Ariff was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper.
Government lawyer Noor Hishamuddin Ismail said he was still awaiting instructions on whether to appeal the ruling.
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