PETALING JAYA: Bandar Utama assemblyman Jamaliah Jamaluddin has expressed disappointment over the Home Ministry’s decision to impose a prohibition order on the book Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh: Dari Awas ke Rejimen Ke-10.
“Memoir Shamsiah Fakeh has been published for more than two decades and has been reprinted several times.
“Its content is more of a narrative of her life journey and experiences,” she said in a Facebook post Thursday (April 16).
Jamaliah also warned that the drastic action by the Home Ministry could narrow the space for discourse and intellectual culture in the country.
“Moreover, it could indirectly open the door to the formation of more extreme sentiments. I urge the ministry to review this decision and withdraw the prohibition order,” she said.
Jamaliah, who is also a Selangor exco member and the granddaughter of Shamsiah Fakeh, a member of the Communist Party of Malaya’s (CPM) 10th Regiment, said the move was unfounded as the publication has been in circulation since 2004 without triggering any extremist activity.
Apart from the book on Shamsiah, enforcement action was also taken against Komrad Asi (Rejimen 10): Dalam Denyut Nihilisme Sejarah.
The Home Ministry said there had been a growing tendency for materials with communist ideology to circulate more openly in the market, prompting enforcement action against the two publications under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (Act 301).
The ministry also clarified that enforcement action is not based on the publication date of a material, but on current assessments of its content and implications.
