THERE are concrete grounds to ban the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) comic, Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said today.

He also denied that the move was made because of the sentiments of certain quarters.

Its content, said Muhyiddin, is inappropriate for schools.

“We have gazetted it (the ban). If it is still being distributed, then the next course of action is to confiscate,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby.

“The decision was made after thorough scrutiny and based on solid grounds, not due to sentiments or to side with any quarters. It is a serious issue to distribute the book with contents inappropriate for schools,” he said.

“Hence, I had to act on it.”

The Home Ministry banned the comic book authored by former DAP member Superman Hew or Hew Kuan Yau after complaints that it promoted communism.

The ban was immediate for three versions of Belt and Road Initiative for Win Winism, published in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese.

Hew was called in by police for questioning yesterday. – October 24, 2019.