Zulkiflee Anwar Haque

Background

Zunar was born on 15 May 1962, at Bukit Junun, Gurun, Kedah. He previously worked as a laboratory technician and during his pastime delved in drawing cartoons. He was also a secretary to the Association of Selangor and Federal Territory cartoonists. Quite often he held workshops for individuals wanting to venture into cartoon business.

Zunar often likes to bring along a pen and notebook inside his travel bag during his drawing excursions, from which he will record ideas from all walks of life and would translate them into caricatures or cartoons.

Career as a cartoonist

Zunar produced his first works as early as 1973 which were published in the magazine Bambino. Upon the encouragement of family and friends, his drawings were also published weekly in newspapers and magazines such as the Kisah Cinta magazine and issues of Gila-Gila, a publication by Creative Enterprise Sdn Bhd.

In Gila-Gila, from time to time his cartoons began attracting the attention of readers and publishers as well as due to their cynical and political nature. This gave him an advantage for his work to be published in issues of the Chili Padi magazine (part of the Gila-Gila magazine) under the title Gebang-Gebang.

Zunar then began producing work in a daily-news comic strip called Papa. Zunar's name became well-known when he got himself involved in the Reformasi movement following the sacking of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the then-deputy prime minister in 1998. His involvement in the movement led to his detention along with several other activists.

After his release, he concentrated on political cartoons. He produced several books of cartoons touching on many reform movements that he had previously participated.

To date he continues to draw political cartoons, namely for politically owned newspapers, including Harakah.

Arrest in 2016

At 9pm on 10 February 2016, he was arrested at his home in Kuala Lumpur, and detained for three days without charge. He was later charged in relation to nine political images he had posted online, with a potential penalty of up to 43 years in prison. Five of his books have also been banned on the grounds that their contents are “detrimental to public order”. He is currently out on bail, awaiting his court date of 6 November.

Technical work

Zunar uses a lot of pen and brush work with adventurous line techniques. He uses simple strokes with economical lines. His initial strokes in his works then differ from the latest works ~ the lines mature hand in hand with the maturity of his drawings.

His lines and hatching techniques in cartoons is seen more towards the style of editorial cartooning, similar to the works of Mike Peters and Frank Cammuso. In fact, his drawing style combines a bit of both of these two cartoonists' techniques as seen in their drawings.

Description of his work

Zunar is a cartoonist who always employs sharp satirical humor in his drawings.

Banning of books

On 24 June 2010 "1 Funny Malaysia", a book of his published works from the Malaysiakini website (published by Malaysiakini), and "Gedung Kartun", "Perak Dalam Kartun" and "Isu Dalam Kartun" which were a series of magazines about political and recent issues in Malaysia and Perak (published by his company Sepakat Efektif Sdn. Bhd.) were banned and prohibited by the Malaysian Home Ministry to be sold in public.

He stated that the bans were illegal and contrary to the rights of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution of Malaysia. On 27 July 2010, he and his employer Malaysiakini filed two separate suits in the Kuala Lumpur High Court to challenge the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs in banning his books.

Arrest for sedition

On 24 September 2010, Zunar was arrested by the police and charged for sedition, 3 hours prior to the launching of his just-published book "Cartoon-O-Phobia" and jailed for one day. He faced possible charge under the Sedition Act which carry a maximum three years imprisonment. During the arrest the police seized 66 copies of the book. The clamp-down may have been due to reasons that the book contains 'sensitive' issues such as the Altantuya murder, the conspiracy against Anwar, the prime minister's wife Rosmah, the loss of fighter jet engines, the Scorpene submarine that cannot dive, issues in Sarawak, racism, corruption, waste of public funds, among others.

People's Uprising Rally, 2013 @ #HKR112

On 12 January 2013, Zunar together with other opposition leaders and supporters organized a demonstration against the government. The rally was organized by Mohamad Sabu to show support for the Opposition change agenda.

Zunar was also referred to as the Commander during the HKR rally with a group of cartoonist who claim that they are from the independent cartoonist group. Zunar was the leader for the Brickfields and KL Central group.