1977–present
Fahmi Reza
Fahmi Reza, a Malaysian graphic designer and documentary filmmaker, posted a portrait of Prime Minister Najib Razak in clown make-up in January 2016, captioned “in a country full of corruption, we are all instigators”. The image spread across the country, and its author was taken to court. Earlier he had made the film “Ten Years Before Independence”, which won an award at the Freedom Film Fest.
Biography
On Saturday, 4 June 2016, Fahmi Reza was arrested by police at a shopping complex where he was selling T-shirts bearing the hashtag #KitaSemuaPenghasut (“We are all instigators”). Three others were arrested with him: the event organiser Pang Khee Teik, the community activist Lew Pik-Svonn and the comic artist Arif Rafhan Othman. They were investigated under the Sedition Act of 1948. Malaysia’s National Human Rights Society (HAKAM) condemned the arrests.
The image that started it all appeared on 30 January 2016. Reza painted clown make-up onto a black-and-white portrait of Prime Minister Najib Razak and noted in the caption that the Sedition Act had been used 91 times in 2015. Najib was then under suspicion over billions of dollars missing from a state development fund he oversaw. The police warned the artist that his account was under surveillance. The warning had the opposite effect: other graphic artists began making their own versions of the clown under the same hashtag. Reza himself said that the charges only confirmed the effectiveness of the image, and that young people wore the T-shirts gladly.
On 6 June 2016 he was charged under Section 233(1) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which forbids online content that may “annoy, abuse, threaten or harass” others. He pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. A second charge followed: on 8 February he had posted a fake warning in the name of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, “cautioning” the public against offensive images of leaders, and attached the same clown. The Commission denied having sent anything of the kind. On 20 February 2018 the Sessions Court in Ipoh sentenced him to a month in prison and a fine of 30,000 ringgit. Execution was stayed pending appeal. On 11 October 2018 the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court acquitted him on the charge of uploading a caricature to Instagram. On 12 November the High Court in Ipoh set aside the prison sentence; according to some reports, the fine was also reduced to 10,000 ringgit.
Reza trained as an electrical engineer and in 1999 received a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University. He was born on 7 June 1977 in Kuala Lumpur. He taught himself graphic design from around 2002, in order to make materials for civic campaigns. He took part in the “Occupy Dataran” protest (the occupation of Independence Square) and in the student movement Kuasa Siswa (“Student Power”), and gave lectures on the history of student activism in the 1960s. The University of Malaya has repeatedly refused to let him address students. Together with Lew Pik-Svonn he ran the community project Chow Kit Kita, in which children of the Chow Kit district were taught and drawn into the arts.
His first documentary, “Ten Years Before Independence” (Sepuluh Tahun Sebelum Merdeka, 2007), is about the general strike of 20 October 1947 in Malaya. Through oral testimony Reza reconstructed how the united left-wing forces, AMCJA and PUTERA, put forward the “People’s Constitutional Proposals” against British colonial rule. At the Freedom Film Fest in 2007 the film won the prize for Most Outstanding Human Rights Film. In 2008 came a second film, “Revolusi ’48”, about the left-wing anti-colonial movement, also built on oral history.
His other work includes illustrations for Amir Muhammad’s book “Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things 2” and the installation “Najib’s Head Stolen From Billboard”. He says that his satire targets Najib along with all other sides of Malaysian politics. He has been written about in The New York Times, VICE and Le Figaro.
On 23 April 2021 Reza was arrested on suspicion of insulting the Queen of Malaysia, Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah. The occasion was his Spotify playlist “This is Dengki ke?” (“This is Jealous?”) with the queen’s portrait as its cover: 101 songs, nearly all about jealousy, the first being “Jealousy” by the band Queen. The phrase “Dengki ke?” came from the queen’s reply on Instagram to a question about a COVID-19 vaccination at the palace. He was investigated under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act and Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act, and released on bail the next day.
On 31 December 2024 Reza was detained in the state of Sabah over a painting about the state’s governor, Tun Musa Aman. On 29 May 2025 he was officially banned from entering Sabah.
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