KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 03 – The National Heritage Department has announced that certain newspapers that played key roles in Malaysia’s history and have made significant contributions to protecting the heritage of the communities they served have been placed under the protection of the National Heritage Act with immediate effect.
“The Heritage Department is very disturbed over the recent ill-treatment of newspapers by provocateurs who seek to disrupt the papers’ exercise of their constitutional right of free speech. We wish to remind would-be rabble-rousers that under the provisions of the National Heritage Act 2005 , the destruction or obstruction of property under protection shall make the offender liable of an offence punishable by imprisonment of up to five years as well as a fine of up to RM 50,000,” the Heritage Commissioner Professor Emeritus Datuk Zuraina Majid told the press yesterday.
“It also means that these newspapers cannot be used in any other way than what is considered fair public use – one can only choose whether to read or not to read them.”
In one of the first raids conducted by PDRM to enforce the new Heritage status of certain newspapers, at least 60 people in Selangor have been caught yesterday afternoon misusing their newspapers for purposes other than to obtain news and have been subjected to a warning as well as a summary fine of RM 100. They include a pisang goreng seller who was using pages from Utusan Malaysia to wrap his product for customers, a rag-and-bone man who haphazardly threw a bundle of assorted newspapers that he was planning to send to the recycling company into his lorry, as well as a glassware retailer who wrapped his wares in newspapers as a precaution against breakage.
The guidelines laid down by the National Heritage Department also mentioned other unorthodox uses for these newspapers that have been forbidden, including using pages as rough paper for jotting down notes as well as the use of newspapers as emergency toilet paper. Even the disposal of the papers in a “less than respectful” manner is verboten.
Lamented a long-time Star reader: “I have piles and piles of Star papers that I have neglected to dispose of since 6 months ago, and now what am I to do with them? I can’t keep them forever!”
The newspapers that have been granted Heritage protection include Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, The New Straits Times, The Star, The Malay Mail, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau, Tamil Nesan and Makkal Osai.
The Petai cannot help but observe that the newspapers’ Heritage statuses have been granted not too long after the insulting actions of Malays burning Utusan Malaysia have been brought to the public’s attention by a Member of Parliament.
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