{"id":27175,"date":"2007-02-22T11:43:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-22T11:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/?p=27175"},"modified":"2023-12-07T13:51:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T13:51:23","slug":"press-statement-on-the-banning-of-apa-khabar-orang-kampung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/articles\/2007\/02\/press-statement-on-the-banning-of-apa-khabar-orang-kampung\/","title":{"rendered":"Press Statement on the banning of “Apa Khabar Orang Kampung”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

Artis Pro Activ (APA) unreservedly condemns the\nMalaysian Film Censorship Unit’s decision to ban director Amir Muhammad’s\ndocumentary film Apa Khabar Orang Kampung\n(Village People Road Show)<\/em> which documents the lives of former Malay Muslim\nCommunist Party Malaya members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film was submitted to the Censorship Unit on\nJanuary 18th<\/sup> 2007 and a decision made on February 12th<\/sup>.\nIn a letter to Amir the Unit gives seven reasons for the banning of the film.\nAmong the reasons given were that the film put forth the perspective that the\nCommunist struggle was a just one, that the Malaysian government was unjust in\nnot acknowledging the Communist struggle, the film was critical of the\nMalaysian government and it compares the Communists to early Malay heroes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ban contravenes Article 10 of the Malaysian\nFederal Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. In any democracy\nthe right to a different point of view is fundamental. A country cannot call\nitself a democracy and demand that all its citizens share a singular, official\npoint of view. The Malaysian government must begin to accept that Malaysian\ncitizens have differing views on many things and they have the right to voice\nthose views. It is through healthy debate that we grow as a nation. That if 50\nyears after independence we cannot discuss our history then Malaysia is not an\nadult democracy but one still crawling out of the cradle. And it is decisions\nlike this that keep us in the cradle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore decisions like this will cripple the local\nfilm industry and stunt its growth. Local film-makers resort to unnecessarily\ndamaging self-censorship as they constantly struggle to ensure that their films\nwill be screened publicly. The Ministry of Information speaks of developing the\nlocal film industry, yet decisions such as this are a setback and a threat to a\nfledging film industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

APA calls upon the government to lift the ban on Apa Khabar Orang Kampung<\/em> and its prequel\nLelaki Komunis Terakhir<\/em>. This\ngovernment came to power on the slogan of openness and transparency. We ask you\nto honour this promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

APA believes strongly that freedom of expression, as\nstated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the cornerstone of\nevery civil, progressive and democratic society. APA also believes that\nreasoned judgment, maturity, and foresight should be used when applying this\nfreedom. We believe that Malaysians have the right to make choices about what\nthey want to see or read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

APA is a non-political group of people from the arts\ncommunity, which was established in 1998. We believe that the arts community\nneeds to come together to play a more pro-active role in developing a more open\nsociety for our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prepared by,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fahmi Fadzil, Director, Artis Pro Activ
Anne James, Director, Artis Pro Activ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Published: 22.02.2007 on Kakiseni<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artis Pro Activ (APA) unreservedly condemns the Malaysian Film Censorship Unit’s decision to ban director Amir Muhammad’s documentary film Apa Khabar Orang Kampung (Village People Road Show) which documents the lives of former Malay Muslim Communist Party Malaya members. The film was submitted to the Censorship Unit on January 18th 2007 and a decision made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3538,3540,3553],"tags":[245,723,3598,3555,712,3556,2705,867,223,3597,3554],"writer":[7602],"class_list":["post-27175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-censorship","category-film","category-press-statement","tag-amir-muhammad","tag-anne-james","tag-article-10","tag-artis-pro-activ-apa","tag-censorship","tag-communist-party-of-malaya","tag-documentary","tag-fahmi-fadzil","tag-film","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-press-statement","writer-artisproactiv"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27175"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38879,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27175\/revisions\/38879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27175"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}