DEJA-VU, MALAYSIA BACK ON THE ROAD TO DICTATORSHIP AGAIN? - WHEN 'PEL****' & 'T** K*****' ARE TABOO - BUT WHO DECIDES WHAT NEWS IS 'MISLEADING OR INACCURATE OR DISRESPECTFUL?'

DEJA-VU, MALAYSIA BACK ON THE ROAD TO DICTATORSHIP AGAIN? - WHEN 'PEL****' & 'T** K*****' ARE TABOO - BUT WHO DECIDES WHAT NEWS IS 'MISLEADING OR INACCURATE OR DISRESPECTFUL?'

KUALA LUMPUR (Politics Now!) - In a sign of how fearful the Anwar Ibrahim government may be of losing power, blind loyalists in the Communications ministry helmed by PKR's Fahmi Fadzil and DAP's Teo Nie Ching may have overextended their  hand.

If the two ministers refuse to do anything to stop the oppressive trend and methods being used to 'safeguard' Anwar's position, then Malaysia is well on the way to becoming a  dictatorship all over again.

“Who decides what news is misleading or inaccurate or disrespectful? To allow the government to decide this would set us on the road to dictatorship,” Nabila Khairuddin, coordinator of watchdog group Lawyers for Liberty, said in a statement.

Indeed as minister and deputy minister respectively, the buck stops with Fahmi and Nie Ching and they should take rap if the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), which is directly under their control, starts to ignore the law to justify ham-fisted actions to muzzle critics.

“For MCMC to arbitrarily talk of restricting ‘disrespectful’ or ‘misleading’ news shows a complete lack of regard for the law and lack of respect for the Constitution," said Nabila.

In a move that critics say reeked of hypocrisy or was perhaps a blatant play by certain quarters to curry favor with Anwar, the MCMC had tried to defend itself from rising public outrage. It called on the press to practice responsible journalism and not spread “manipulative content”.

According to Nabila, the MCMC had used whimsical excuses  to justify past enforcement of the law for content that were deemed in the MCMC’s own words,  “disrespectful and divisive”, “manipulative”, “misleading” and “disinformation”.

In case it has escaped Fahmi and Nie Ching's notice, this itself is a threat to freedom of expression and in violation of Article 10(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution, warned Nabila.

“That right can only be restricted as provided by the law to the necessary extent as stated in Article 10(2)(a) such as in the interests of security, public order, or morality,” she said.

'PELIWAT' OR SODOMISER NOT ALLOWED?

On Sept 22, the MCMC issued a statement to justify its Sept 20 decision to demand that news portal Malaysia Now retracts or amends an article that reported Putrajaya MP Radzi Jidin as calling Anwar a "sodomiser" or "peliwat" in Parliament. 

According to the MCMC, the article in question had reported Parliamentary proceedings out of context with the intent to “spread hatred or incite provocation”. It expressed concern that some media organisations were “weaponising” news to “fuel disrespectful and divisive narratives” and “spread disinformation”.

Yet the facts or elephant in the room the MCMC has chosen to ignore is that Anwar has indeed been convicted of sodomy and even spent time in jail for it. Not surprisingly, MalaysiaNow has at the time of writing still ignored the request.

'TIN KOSONG' ALSO NOT ALLOWED?

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The MCMC also blocked the website of the Malaysia Chronicle blog without detailing reasons. However a post in the blog had criticised Anwar for being a 'Tin Kosong' or empty vessel.

"I am not sure if the Little Napoleons are trying to curry favor with Anwar or if a signal has been given that he should be treated like an Emperor Dictator or Emperor with no clothes or what," said the operator of the Malaysia Chronicle blog. "

"But this definitely takes Malaysia back to the dark days of the Najib regime where independent media and bloggers were not only blocked but routinely summoned by the cops. In the Najib days, he was desperate to hide his kleptocracy. I hope the Anwar regime, which is still very new, is not already trying to hide something too! In the old days, PKR and DAP would rush to join in to criticize the Umno-BN government for gagging dissenters and whistleblowers. Now just look at their hypocrisy, it's really stunning!" 

"Obviously this is a very undesirable and dangerous situation for Malaysia to be in, where critics who speak up, whether to criticize or to disagree or to expose something are straightaway hauled up on the grounds of being 'disrespectful' or 'manipulative'. But who is actually manipulating who? Why not let an industry body decide?"

According to Malaysiakini, Putrajaya is currently working on a bill that will see the establishment of a media council that will act as a self-regulatory body for the media industry. The bill is expected to be tabled next March.

Politics Now!