Zunar: Why ban cartoons during elections?

June 1, 2012

By : Patrick Lee

Free Malaysia Today

Reference :  http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/06/01/zunar-why-ban-cartoons-during-elections/

A political cartoonist has attacked the ban on political caricatures during the next election as a case of shooting the messenger.

PETALING JAYA: A decision to ban caricatures in the next general election was nothing short of hilarious, says a political cartoonist.

Zulkiflee Anwar Haque (popularly known as Zunar) criticised Election Commission (EC) deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar’s May 30 call, who claimed that political caricatures were inappropriate.

“[The drawing of cartoons] is a legally-practised medium in Malaysia and therefore the EC does not have the right to forbid its use,” he said in a press statement.

He said that instead of attacking the medium, the EC should have gone for the message itself.

Political personal attacks, he added, could have come in any shape and form.

According to a Bernama report, Wan Ahmad said that the 2011 Sarawak state election saw “too many” examples of “inappropriate” political caricatures.

“The election is a serious matter and we cannot allow political parties to display campaign materials which put down any person,” he said at the time.

The EC, he added, would remove any banners bearing political caricatures during the election campaign period, speculated to begin a few months from now.

Wan Ahmad’s call left Zulkiflee, well-known for his unflattering depiction of the Malaysian government (especially of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor), wondering.

He said that instead of banning cartoons, the EC should have spent its time fulfilling Bersih’s eight electoral reform demands (which include cleaning the voter rolls and free and fair media access).

In defiance of the EC’s call, Zulkiflee said that he would be leading a group of cartoonists known as Kumpulan Kartunis Independen (KKI) during the coming election.

“We will be opening our own cartoonist operations room and will be moving as a group in a van while campaigning for the coming election,” he said.

Focusing on government scandals, the KKI’s cartoons would be distributed to the public.

Pak Samad raih gelaran Seniman Rakyat

From : Malaysiakini

Reference: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/197082

By Abdul Rahim Sabri

9.06AM Mei 6, 2012

Sekumpulan seniman bebas menyampaikan penghargaan kepada pengerusi bersama BERSIH, Datuk A Samad Said atas pengorbanan yang ditunjukkan Sasterawan Negara itu dalam membela hak rakyat.

Pemimpin utama Kumpulan Kartunis Independen, Zunar (foto)berkata anugerah Seniman Rakyat itu diberikan atas pengorbanan tenaga, minda, bakat dan titik peluh oleh A Samad.

"Hari ini kami, Kumpulan Kartunis Independen mengiktiraf seorang seniman, budayawan yang mengabdikan karya-karyanya demi membela rakyat, demi membuka mata rakyat dan sentiasa berjuang di garis depan membimbing rakyat.

"Beliau tidak mengharapkan darjat dan kebesaran malah sanggup menempuh rintangan biar berdepan dengan kekuasaan dan hujung senapang demi sebuah prinsip dan kehormatan sebagai manusia," katanya.

Zunar atau nama sebenarnya Zulkiflee SM Anwar ulHaque berkata tidak memadai sekiranya seorang seniman hanya berjaya menghasilkan karya seni demi keuntungan peribadi tetapi mengabaikan penderitaan rakyat di sekeliling.

Seniman seharusnya mengabdikan karya "untuk kepentingan rakyat terbanyak, membela rakyat tertindas dan perakam denyut nadi rakyat," katanya dalam ucapan di satu majlis KKI di Kuala Lumpur semalam.

Perhimpunan BERSIH 3.0 untuk menuntut pilihan raya bersih dan adil yang dipimpin A Samad menarik kehadiran sehingga 100,000 orang pada 28 April lalu.

Dalam ucapannya selepas itu, A Samad turut memberikan semangat kepada kartunis dan seniman supaya terus memperjuangkan kebebasan dan menjaga hubungan dengan tuhan.

"Kalau ada halangan, rempuhlah kerana itulah maruah seorang seniman," katanya yang turut menceritakan pengalaman beliau mengadakan protes 'duduk bantah' di Kuala Lumpur.

Majlis ringkas itu turut diserikan dengan persembahan lagu Mentari Kuning, Menyalalah yang turut disertai Pak Samad dengan isterinya.

 

Kumpulan Kartunis Independen cabar "kartunis hantu" berdebat

Zunar | Apr 23, 2012 03:24:58 pm 

From :  Merdeka Review

Reference :  http://www.merdekareview.com/bm/news_v2.php?n=12987

SEJAK akhir-akhir ini semakin banyak muncul kartun-kartun yang dihasilkan dalam bentuk risalah dan diedarkan di tempat-tempat awam seperti di masjid dan di sekolah-sekolah.

Kandungan di dalam kartun-kartun ini menyerang peribadi pemimpin-pemimpin Pakatan Rakyat dan pemimpin-pemimpin BERSIH.

Sementara kami menghormati hak setiap kartunis untuk bebas berkarya, kami juga berpendirian bahawa setiap kartunis mestilah bertanggungjawab terhadap setiap mesej yang mereka terapkan dalam karya-karya mereka.

Tetapi didapati di dalam karya-karya tersebut, kartunis-kartunis berkenaan menyembunyikan identiti dengan tidak menandatangani atau meletakkan nama mereka di dalam lukisan tersebut.

Dengan bersikap begini, kartunis-kartunis berkenaan mempamerkan sikap tidak bermoral, tidak bertanggungjawab, perlecehan etika serta merendahkan martabat mereka sebagai seorang artis.

Etika kartunis ialah bagi setiap karya mesti ditandatangani atau diletakkan tanda pengenalan sebagai membuktikan kartunis benar-benar tahu apa yang dilukis, bertanggungjawab terhadap mesej dan bersiap menghadapi risiko atas lukisan tersebut sekiranya berbangkit.

Kartunis-kartunis hantu ini mencemarkan nama baik kartunis Malaysia dan ia perlu dihentikan.  Kami dapati juga semua kartun-kartun tersebut menyokong Barisan Nasional yang mengamalkan budaya rasuah seperti dalam kes NFC dan Scorpene, misalnya.

Sehubungan itu, kami mencabar kartunis-kartunis ini supaya mengambil pendekatan bermoral dan tampil memperkenalkan diri serta indentiti mereka.

Kami juga ingin mencabar kartunis-kartunis tersebut supaya membuat kenyataan terbuka apakah mereka mempertahankan idealisme menyokong rasuah yang mereka terapkan dalam karya-karya mereka.

Kami juga mencabar kartunis-tersebut supaya berdebat dengan ahli-ahli Kumpulan Kartunis Independen mengenai idealogi dan etika melukis kartun politik di mana dan bila-bila masa jua.

*Zulkiflee SM Anwarul Haque (Zunar, gambar kanan) selaku pemimpin Kumpulan Kartunis Independen.  Turut menandatangani, kartunis-kartunis:

1. Nor Azlin Ngah (Jonos)
2. Azmie Md Taha
3. Johnny Ong
4. Azman Md Noh (AMN)
5. Mohd Afendi Ramli (Ronasina)
6. Abdullah Jones
7. Amier Hamzah Hashim (Ibnukaduk)
8. Azhar Saad (Art)
9. Azlan Isa (Orang2)
10. Sham Saimun Ezil (Along)
11. Lili Zam (Haili)

**Kumpulan Kartunis Independen (KKI) adalah sebuah kumpulan kartunis yang mempertahan hak kartunis berkarya dan kepentingan kartunis untuk berkarya secara bertanggungjawab.  Kami juga menolak budaya rasuah.

Kartun Zunar gambar Rosmah pakai botok menghasut - saksi polis

Dari Harakah

Mahkamah Tinggi Kuala Lumpur gamat apabila pegawai polis, ASP Zaihairul Idrus menyatakan kartun Zunar yang menggambarkan isteri Perdana Menteri Rosmah Mansor menggunakan botok adalah bersifat menghasut. 

ASP Zaihairul berkata demikian 6 April lepas ketika menjadi saksi dalam kes saman Zunar terhadap polis dan kerajaan kerana 'tangkapan berniat jahat' yang dibuat beberapa jam sebelum pelancaran buku kartunis itu, Cartoon-O-Phobia" pada September 2010. 

Dalam kejadian itu, Zunar turut ditahan di bawah Akta Hasutan dan 66 naskah buku tersebut serta sebuah lukisan kartun dirampas. 

Ketika soal balas oleh peguam N Surendran, Khairul berkata semua kandungan buku kartun Zunar atau nama sebenarnya Zulkiflee Anwar Haq itu adalah bersifat menghasut. 

"Setiap muka surat buku itu mengandungi gambaran kartun yang merujuk kepada pemimpin negara, pasukan polis, badan kehakiman, SPRM dan sebagainya boleh atau cenderung untuk menghasut rakyat dengan cara menimbulkan rasa benci, silap faham dan kehinaan."

"Ia juga menyebabkan masyarakat keliru dan hilang kepercayaan terhadap pihak-pihak yang dirujuk serta mempunyai niat jahat bagi tujuan permusuhan kaum dan agama," kata ASP Zaihairul.  

Bagaimanapun, beliau terperangkap apabila peguam N Surendran menunjukkan salah satu kartun dari buku itu yang menggambarkan isteri bekas Perdana Menteri memakai batik dan isteri Perdana Menteri sekarang memakai botok.

"Botok adalah produk kecantikan. Adakah melukis Rosmah memakai botok boleh menghasut?" tanya Surendran.

"Mungkin," jawab ASP Zaihairul setelah terdiam beberapa minit. 

Sebelum itu, ASP Arikrishnan dan ASP Marina Hashim turut memberi keterangan bahawa kartun-kartun itu bersifat menghasut. Kesemua saksi-saksi kedua-dua pihak telah selesai memberi keterangan dan Hakim Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera menetapkan 23 Mei depan untuk membuat keputusan. 

Selain Surendran, Zunar juga diwakili peguam Fadiah Nadwa Fikri.

Kartunis terkenal itu juga menuntut gantirugi, perintah supaya buku-buku yang dirampas dikembalikan kepadanya dan perintah supaya lukisan kartun dikembalikan.

Lukisan kartun Zunar yang dipetik dari buku "Cartoon-O-Phobia" yang disifat polis sebagai menghasut!

No joke: Malaysian cartoonist stands up to government

CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator  

Reference :  http://www.cpj.org/blog/2012/02/malaysian-cartoonist-zunar-stands-up-to-government.php

Zunar with copies of banned cartoon collections. (AP/Lai Seng Sin)

Tuesday marks the next step in a legal faceoff between Malaysian authorities and the well-known political cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, also known as Zunar. Hearings will resume in civil lawsuit filed by Zunar that challenges the legality of his arrest and detention in September 2010. Malaysian police arrested him hours ahead of the scheduled launch of a new book of political cartoons, Cartoon-o-phobia. He was held until the next day on the accusation that his book violated the country's repressive Sedition Act. Although he was released without being formally charged, police served a search warrant at his office and seized dozens of copies of his book. 

Zunar's work, exuberant and sharp, goes after all political sides. At age 50, he doesn't feel he has to spare any political figure, from former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to current Prime Minister Najib Razak to oppositionist Anwar Ibrahim. In a 2010 interview, Zunar said his inspiration comes from Thomas Nast, the 19th American cartoonist who took on the corrupt politicians of his day.

In his current lawsuit, Zunar is seeking reimbursement for loss of earnings, along with unspecified damages that he hopes will deter officials from pursuing similar cases. But in a country where it is far more common for the government to be the complainant in press cases, challenging authorities in court takes some measure of courage. At the most recent hearing, in January, the arresting officer testified that Zunar's work "could have created hatred, misunderstanding, confusion, and loss of trust."

This is not the first time Zunar has gone to court in defense of his work. In June 2010, under the Printing Presses and Publishing Act (PPPA), the Home Ministry banned severalcompilations of his cartoons. The government asserted the cartoons, many of them critical of Razak's administration, were "prejudicial to public order," according to news reports. The compilations included cartoons that appeared on the independent news website Malaysiakini from 2005 to 2009 and in Isu Dalam Kartun, a monthly magazine. Zunar and Malaysiakini filed for a judicial review, but the High Court in Kuala Lumpur upheld the ban in July 2011 and threatened to revoke printers' licenses if any dared reproduce the volumes.

Malaysian governments have long leveraged the Printing Presses and Publications Act's many arbitrary provisions, including Home Ministry discretion over the issuance of publishing permits, to stifle press freedom. In a September 2011 speech, Prime Minister Razak promised to amend the PPPA by doing away with the legal requirement for news publications to renew their publishing licenses on an annual basis. Five months later, even that modest reform has not been made into law.

Yet were that reform to be implemented, the minister of home affairs would still retain broad authority to refuse permission to publish any materials he unilaterally determines "likely to be prejudicial to public order, morality, security ... or national interest" and to revoke permits without the legal recourse of judicial review, according to the law.

Journalists may still be jailed or fined for spreading "false news" under the Printing Presses and Publication Act. And if the Sedition Act doesn't further dampen criticism, officials can also resort to the Official Secrets Act or the  Internal Security Act, which carry potential jail terms for guilty convictions, to curb media criticism and encourage self-censorship among journalists.

And that leaves Zunar, seriously, contemplating his next move.