There has been a lot of clamoring for justice recently when social networks spread this article ^[1] by Robin Hemley, where he posted that local customs tax importation of books, when apparently there shouldn’t be as this is a violation of the Florence Agreement ^[2] the country signed. As a regular person, I didn’t actually know that books shouldn’t be taxed, growing in a country where almost everything is.

Here’s a link to a video ^[3] to explain the issue in less than five minutes.

Many books of most genres are greatly affected by this. And quoting my friend Alex ^[4] who summed up it well,

Administrators should let this sink in – these books are making our students read again. Deprive them of that motivation and surely, we’ll find ourselves more illiterate as a society.

For the time being, we are making a lot of noise in twitter, using the #bookblockade ^[5] hash tag, and spreading the word via other means. So far, there are already a couple of officials who heard our plea. But we still need more.

Please help spread the word.

For further reading please see: The Great Book Blockade of 2009: Timeline and Readings ^[6] and We, the People: As Readers ^[7].