KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — The Court of Appeal dismissed today
Putrajaya’s bid to challenge a lower court’s decision that overturned a ban on
the Malay translation of a book by Canadian author Irshad Manji on Islam.
News portal The Malaysian Insider reported the appellate
court as saying that it was illogical to ban the book titled “Allah, Kebebasan
dan Cinta”, which is a translation of Manji’s “Allah, Liberty and Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom”, because the original English-language
book had been in circulation for a year before the Malay translation was
published. “There is no evidence to show that there was disruption to public order,” Datuk Baliah Yusof Wahi, who led the three-man bench, was quoted saying.
The High Court here lifted the ban on Manji’s book in 2013
and ruled that ZI Publications had the legal right to challenge the ban as the
publisher had been affected by the government order. High Court judge Datuk Zaleha Yusof had questioned why the government ban was made only when the book was translated into the national language.
She had also questioned if banning the Malay translation meant that only Malay-speaking readers would be confused while English-speaking readers would not, in response to the government’s claim that the book would cause religious confusion.
The Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) had raided a Borders bookstore in May 2012 for the “Allah, Liberty and Love” book and its Malay translation, which was only banned by the Home Ministry three weeks later.
Source: The Malaysian Insider
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