KUALA LUMPUR – The Home Ministry has lifted the ban it imposed in 2019 on the comic book “Belt and Road Initiative for Win-Winism,” authored by controversial former DAP member Hew Kuan Yau, popularly known as “Superman Hew.”
The decision to revoke the ban was documented in a federal government gazette dated August 12, following an order signed by Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail on August 6.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by subsection 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 [Act 301], the Minister revokes the Printing Presses and Publications (Control of Undesirable Publications) (No. 3) Order 2019 [P.U. (A) 288/2019] which was published in the Gazette on 23 October 2019 and which prohibited the printing, importation, production, reproduction, publishing, sale, issue, circulation, distribution, or possession of publications specified in the Schedule,” said the gazette.
The revocation comes two years after the Federal Court’s 2022 ruling that dismissed the Home Ministry’s attempt to appeal the appellate court’s quashing of the book ban earlier that year.
The comic book, co-authored by Hew and published in 2019 by the Asia Comic Cultural Museum, was available in three languages – Malay, English, and Mandarin.
It was released to commemorate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia.
The comic book was criticised by several quarters, who accused Hew of racism by labelling those who sympathised with the plight of the persecuted Uighur minority in China as “extremists.”
The Home Ministry banned the book in October 2019 on grounds that it promoted communism and socialism and confiscated copies of the books.
Hew then challenged the ban through a judicial review at the high court, which ruled in April 2021 that the ministry has the right to ban the book and keep all the seized copies. – August 13, 2024