Zunar Arrested, Detained In His Home Over A Tweet

The Malaysian cartoonist Zunar is apparently being held in his home overnight in anticipation of his giving a statement about a tweet he made early this morning (way early for the US; it's a significant part of the world away) -- an escalation in a kind of spiraling conflict between the artist and police authorities that I wasn't sure could spiral more impressively than it had been lately. This news story characterizes the tweet and gives Zunar's lawyer's reaction.

From this remove it clearly seems that some sort of personal or institutional vendetta is involved here. Zunar was left pretty much alone until he won what must have been an embarrassing decision for the authorities involved about their asinine, bullying behavior towards the artist in 2010. Since then it's been a renewed cycle of arrests, visits, confiscations and general harassment that seem characterized more by petulence than sense. Zunar is by nearly the entire world's understanding a forceful but nowhere near radical or strident cartoonist; his mode and tone are pretty mainstream, all things considered, and clear of shock tactics or anything upsetting in terms of invective. Zunar's content may change some minds, or may draw attention to political realities people would rather have ignnored, but to portray him as some sort of social danger is ludicrous. All power to him, and shame on those giving him a hard time.
 
posted 2:55 am PST | Permalink
 

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