10,000 books and counting: Meet the team behind Buku Beyond Bars, a project giving prisoners access to quality books

Razali shared how prisoners on death row spend 23 hours confined to their cells. Reading fills the time, and some inmates read the same battered book repeatedly like it is a lifeline.

For Effa, the revelation demanded action. “We wouldn’t have known any of this had Razali not told us. And knowing this information, we couldn’t just stand by and not do anything about it,” she says. “As activists, we humanise groups that are dehumanised in society. We know that [prisoners] are a group that have been dehumanised the moment they step into a police station, the moment those handcuffs go on and they enter prison. But knowing something and really seeing it are two different things.”

What began modestly—a bucket of book donations at the Human Rights Festival in Kuala Lumpur—became Buku Beyond Bars, a campaign that has collected almost 10,000 books, 2,000 of which were delivered to Sungai Buloh prison in July 2025.

The learning curve proved steep. “In the past, our work focused on training young lawyers and visiting universities to train youth on advocacy. This was a totally different world,” admits Mazni Ibrahim, Chief Human Rights Strategist and CEO at MCCHR. “But Malaysians are good-hearted people who respond to charitable initiatives. One lady wanted to drive from Johor Bahru just to drop the books here,” she recalls. “We never expected it to become this big. I hope this encourages more people to do the same in their own states and towns. We’re just a power starter, really.” 

Every platform was put to use. The team used social media and online platforms to spread the word about Buku Beyond Bars, rallying public support. They created donation guidelines, which some people ignored.

Some dropped off beautiful books, from coffee table collectables to academic publications. Others had more bizarre donations, from pornographic materials (“We had to get rid of two boxes!”, says Effa) to photo frames and unwanted school exercise books.

The team became, as Janice puts it, “the first line of defence,” sorting through everything that arrived.

Their first delivery to Sungai Buloh prison filled 2,000 empty shelf spaces where half the library had recently been cleared.

What emerged most powerfully was civic education quite by accident. “I think people have this cartoonish misconception that prison inmates are these evil, violent gangsters,” Effa says. “But the truth is, they’re human beings just like us, with a curiosity and desire to learn. They have a right to knowledge, to express themselves and to education.”

Slowly, the campaign dismantled assumptions about an invisible population society prefers to forget.

The evidence of reading’s impact on inmates is substantial. Pannir Selvam, a Malaysian sentenced for drug trafficking in 2017 and on death row in Singapore, has spent years absorbing books and transformed that knowledge into an entire poetry manuscript, the launch of which Janice and her team at ADPAN recently hosted.

“The Buku Beyond Bars campaign served as a tool to bridge myself even closer to those behind bars,” Janice says, who worked with Pannir’s sister here in Malaysia. “I think that sometimes a disconnect exists when you’re in this field, in our offices surrounded by other NGOs. At times I want to be where our help is most needed. Obviously, we’re not directly there in prisons, but Buku Beyond Bars was a way to build a bridge between us and those behind bars.”

The team realised the bulk of books donated were in English, while prison officials recommended more Malay literature in order for more inmates to benefit. That’s when MCCHR project officer Zhafir Amin stepped up to meet with publishers at Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair, turning an encounter with Buku Fixi’s Amir Muhammad into a meaningful partnership that saw publishers donating the needed books in bulk. “Some donated books were badly damaged and we needed new books for the inmates. Local publishers were our only hope of getting new, quality books,” he says. 

See also: Her legacy is literacy: why this Malaysian lecturer is instilling essential reading skills in vulnerable communities

In our world of phone screens and short reels, it’s hard to imagine that print books aren’t merely entertainment. To those behind bars, books represent rehabilitation, mental health maintenance and access to knowledge that prisoners deserve as a basic human right.

Mazni Ibrahim recalls Razali’s cell, once overflowing with books brought by family members. “It’s a prized possession,” she explains. Inmates warn each other: keep books pristine, no folding, nothing torn. For those without family members, the used and worn books in the library are the only links they have to the outside world.

The response to Buku Beyond Bars has been extraordinary. Mazni and the team now envision something more sustainable: a toolkit enabling others to replicate the model in prisons across Malaysia.

“Unless you have a friend or family member in prison, you won’t think twice about those who are inside,” Effa says. “We don’t see them with our own eyes and there’s very little information about them in the news. So we forget them; they’re invisible to society. But I’m hopeful that this campaign has changed that, if even a little bit.”

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