Big hoo-hah over ‘missing’ addresses?
Posted: December 5, 2008 Filed under: Politics, Society | Tags: Crime, Media, Society 2 CommentsThat day, I wrote HERE about Farish Noor’s books being taken off the shelves in Kinokuniya, KLCC. Apparently, according to Nutgraph HERE, it was because the book did not carry the publisher’s address. Silverfish Books had this to answer:
“In the 10 years since [Silverfish Books] opened, we have shifted addresses three times,” Krishnan said.
“Instead, we have our website and email address on our books,” he said. “These are permanent. We have not changed them since we started. If you want me to put in my street address, I will, but it doesn’t make any sense anymore.”
In a totally unrelated incident, I just wrote HERE about a volunteer for Jerit who was arrested while distributing leaflets. According to Anil HERE, the arrest was because the leaflets that were being distributed did not carry Jerit’s office address. Anil goes on to say:
The Jerit leaflets only displayed the Jerit website address, the Jerit email, and the Jerit office phone number.
But the Jerit website shows the Jerit office address.
If it’s the law, it’s the law. And the law states that all books and leaflets are to carry the publisher’s address. From the same Nutgraph article:
The first clause of Section 11 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 stipulates that “Every publication printed or published within Malaysia shall have printed legibly in Bahasa Malaysia or the English language on its first or last leaf the name and address of its printer and publisher.”
But surely to seize ALL copies of Farish’s books from off the shelves at Kinokuniya was too much? If it was merely about the missing address, they should have contacted both the author and the publisher, which incidentally, the Home Ministry did not. Farish and Silverfish Books only found out about the removal of From Majapahit to Putrajaya from shelves after a couple of months.
And to arrest a person for distributing leaflets because it didn’t carry the office address? Surely the police could have just asked for the distribution to stop while they make contact with the publisher? Was this done?
I’m not sure how fair this parallel is, but while an average of 12 in every 100,000 people are being raped, and 98 in every 100,000 are being robbed (statistics from Parliament today), surely the police force can, and should be better utilised?
I Am Malaysian 
The first time I got a ticket for stopping alongside broken yellow lines to let off my kids at school, the police officer, a lady told me, “just follow the law”!
A great reminder it was about living in New Zealand!!! Does not matter how illogical it is!
_______
My dad got a ticket for not stopping at a junction with a stop sign, although there were no cars. I know exactly what you mean.
Now that you too know what it is I mean, you can imagine where my sympathies would lie!
Funny thing is when you follow the law, what counts is the truth that is at the moment in time that would matter.
So, if Silverfish was going to shift out on the 1 January 2009 and it was going to publish something on the 25th of December, just put down the address on the date of publication of the book. They would have followed the law. Who cares if the law is a donkey!
Now, it makes me wonder. Is it more important to follow the law or to abide by it? As in what I suggest, it would be easy enough to follow the law, but then to abide by it, wouldn’t that require a continued conforming to the expectations of the law or what ever it was that the law had envisaged?
Does that law requiring the address to be printed envisage that at anytime after the publication, the publisher must be expected to be found in that same address? If not, then what?