My useful advice


Career advice: don’t do anything book-related in Malaysia. They bust people for managing bookstores that distribute Irshad Manji’s book.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Borders bookstore manager in Malaysia has been charged with distributing a Canadian writer’s book that was banned as being against Islam.

The government in the Muslim-majority country regularly bans books it considers threats to religious stability. “Allah, Liberty and Love” was banned in late May.

Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz could face a two-year prison sentence and fine if convicted of the charge that was filed Tuesday.

For managing a bookstore that distributes a book, a decent book, a hopeful book, a book by a Muslim. She’s a progressive, liberal, reformist Muslim, yes, but she is nevertheless a Muslim. Managing a bookstore that carries that book doesn’t seem like a crime worthy of a two-year prison sentence. Well it doesn’t seem worthy of any sentence, or of being charged.

So don’t go into the book trade in Kuala Lumpur.

 

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