and threatened the artist, and demanded that he remove
some of his cartoons, which they deemed “offensive” for
insulting their leaders. They also vandalised his artwork.
Zunar, a pen name for Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque,
was forced to call off the exhibition. The police offered
him no protection. Instead, they later confiscated 20 of
his drawings and took him into custody. A month later,
Zunar was arrested again while selling books to recoup
financial losses from the exhibition’s cancellation.
Zunar has also been locked up for “sedition” twice
before. Several of his books have been banned, his
staff arrested, his office raided and his publisher warned
not to publish more books.
Despite this, Zunar has not put down his pen.
His tagline is: “Even my pen has a stand.” Instead, the
leading dissenter uses the Internet to share his cartoons
freely, without copyright. His bold cartoons ridicule
controversial laws like the Sedition Act, censorship,
the US$700 million corruption scandal that has
embroiled Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, and
the US$17 million ring that the prime minister’s wife
allegedly bought.
Although he receives little local media attention, he
has drawn wide international interest, winning the 2015
International Press Freedom Award and the Cartoonist
for Peace Award. His defiance was captured in a self-
portrait where he is bound in chains, with the text:
“I will keep drawing until the very last drop of my ink.”
Asked about his upcoming court case, he says:
“I don’t want to think so much about the outcome.
I want to concentrate on drawing cartoons. If I think
about it then it will affect my output. I will start to
practise self-censorship.” He adds: “We’re not a
culture to confront the government. Some people don’t
want to be in the front row, but they do support me.”
When he was charged in 2015, his USD12,000 bail
money was raised overnight through crowdfunding.
Another Malaysian artist who has found a space
online is Fahmi Reza. He is facing charges that could
land him in jail for two years for painting clown lips
on a picture of the prime minister and sharing it online.“I don’t want to think so much about
the outcome. I want to concentrate
on drawing cartoons. If I think about
it then it will affect my output”
Zunar
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES