A fine of 45 million VND was imposed for "transforming" a "coconut skull" into a "human skull".

The Publishing Department fined private enterprise Nguyen Hai Uyen 45 million VND for publishing and distributing a comic book containing a "human skull" instead of a "coconut skull".

In recent days, public opinion has been outraged by the discovery in Ho Chi Minh City that parents who bought a book for their children found an inaccuracy in the Vietnamese fairy tale "The Coconut Shell Boy." According to the book, the main character was born after his mother drank water from a human skull, instead of a coconut shell as the fairy tale has traditionally claimed.

Cover of the book "Coconut Shell" - a book verified by the Publishing Department as an illegal publication (Photo: Tuoi Tre).

Furthermore, the book is poorly printed with numerous spelling and grammatical errors that have not been edited. The book bears the name of Hong Duc Publishing House and the release date of 2013. However, Hong Duc Publishing House later stated that their name was being used for fraudulent purposes. The publishing house did not authorize the publication of the aforementioned "Coconut Shell" comic book.

The Department also noted that Nguyen Hai Uyen's business had mitigating circumstances because it had "seriously admitted its गलती and actively assisted the authorities in detecting the administrative violation."

Mr. Chu Van Hoa, Director of the Publishing Department, stated that the Department will also issue a document to all provincial Departments of Information and Communications nationwide to recall and destroy this book due to its poor quality, including the aforementioned inaccuracies, and because it is a pirated book that "should not exist in people's lives."

According to Vov.vn