By Ida Nadirah Ibrahim
SHAH ALAM, Oct 29 — The Education Ministry will continue to monitor the distribution of the "Belt & Road Initiative For Win-Winism" comic book in schools through various mechanisms to ensure that it does not penetrate into schools and bring a negative impact, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Its minister Maszlee Malik said his ministry will also enhance the implementation of the Civic and Moral Values Awareness Manual for the school pupils.
He said the distribution of reading materials to schools have to also comply with the guideline on the Selection and Assessment of Additional Reading Materials as references in school libraries, which was issued by the education ministry in 2007.
“I would like to emphasise that the education ministry advocates the freedom of information, but it must be backed up by facts. Schools are not supposed to be a place for the spreading of political propaganda,” he said during the Ministers' Question Time (MQT) in Parliament, today.
Maszlee said that state education departments and district education offices has been instructed to ensure that no schools are receiving or distributing the comics from any parties or suppliers.
On October 23, the Home Ministry had banned the comic book in all three languages — Bahasa Malaysia, English, and Chinese — as it was said to be promoting communism and socialism and that its content could cause confusion.
The prohibition order gazette under Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 specifies that “the printing, importation, reproduction, publication, sale, production, circulation, distribution or possession of the publication is strictly prohibited in Malaysia”.
Any individual perpetrating the act could be jailed no more than three years or slapped with a fine not exceeding RM20,000 or both if found guilty as stipulated under Section 8(2) Act 301.
