Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Complete Official Lists

I found - at last, and my blur fault not their's, the website of the Ministry of Internal Security and it has very clear lists linked from the sidebar of all the officially banned books from 2000 to the present.

To make it even easier the links are here so that you can have a browse:
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
And - I love this touch - you can even listen the Ministry's theme song at the same time.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

These are banned books. The list seems reasonable, at least from the titles.

What about the restricted books. Why were they restricted?

Anonymous said...

Sharon already explained about the restricted books here.. in the previous post "banned books malaysia 101"

lainieyeoh said...

re banned books: i see a lot of gay books, and i see a lot of sex books.

i wonder if the gay books are banned for the gay or sex content? I tend to be pessimistic here and assume gay, since i see books on 'gay love' are too.

hrmmm.

5xmom.com said...

Awww...I see so many 'nude photography how-to' banned. Otherwise, our bloggers will go a step beyond camwhoring. LOL. The song! ROTFLMAO.

bibliobibuli said...

thanks midnight lily - it's good to be able to just link to an entry that explain things! short answer bernard - no-one knows except the guys who confiscate them

lainie - a lot of the banned books are what you might call erotica - but quite a number of gay books there too

5X - isn't the song just darling!

annulla said...

I just found my way here through a link on the BP Bites blog.

I really had no idea that this was going on in your country, and I'm sure that many of us outside Malayia would be happy to spread the word and offer you our support.

I'm going to try to draw more attention to your efforts via the worldwide community of book lovers at bookcrossing.com.

Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help.

bibliobibuli said...

thanks so much annulla - all the support we can get from outside really helps

Anonymous said...

I just mentioned your blog on my blog: http://thebiblioholic.livejournal.com/257551.html

I often write about banned-books. See: http://thebiblioholic.livejournal.com/tag/banned-books

Anonymous said...

Banning and restricting of books always worries me, especially when it is carried out in such an arbitrary seeming way.

I am particularly concerned that books which may raise questions about religion are being banned - always an indication that those carying out the banning are afraid that people may think for themselves.

herschelian said...

Found your site through Bookcrossing.com - annulla posted about your campaign.
I grew up in a country -South Africa- which banned books,some for their so called "immoral content", some for their political or religious content. Thank god the people there are now free to read what they want. Banning books is an appalling restriction on freedom of thought, and is never successful in its aims. Free the books, free the readers. I applaud you for your blog, and will spread the word.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the Malayan government hasn't read Fahrenheit 451? Maybe it has always been banned so they never got the chance to. Sad.

Anonymous said...

Just a question - on what legal basis is KDN issuing these lists at JB? Other than the banned books which are gazetted as banned under the Publications & Printing Presses Act (and on KDN's website, what power does KDN have to create another category of books which are restricted from entering Malaysia? Is it KDN, or Customs who is doing this?