Malaysia intends to restrict free speech: rights group

By P Prem Kumar

KUALA LUMPUR (AA) – An international rights group warned Thursday that Malaysia is trying to “emulate” its closest neighbor Singapore in restricting free speech on the Internet by amending a crucial law in the near future.

Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) deputy director for Asia, Phil Robertson, told a press conference that Malaysia is pursuing some “worrisome" amendments to the country’s Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) as part of efforts to control the Internet and freedom of speech.

He cited amendments relating to the registration of blogs and all news portals in the country as examples.

"The government is trying to put the Internet genie back into the bottle. The proposed changes to the CMA are very worrisome,” Robertson said during the launch of an annual report.

"They will be looking into forcing websites and political blogs to register under the government. Malaysia wants to try to emulate Singapore in the way that they want to crack down on freedom of speech," he added.

Robertson warned that government action to amend the CMA would cause friction between authorities and the people, similar to what he said happened in Singapore.

"Malaysia should seriously consider abandoning this approach to emulate Singapore’s model and be at loggerheads with the people," he underlined.

"If you look at Singapore, they have used a regulatory model to really restrict what goes up there. Aggressive use of those laws in Malaysia will significantly impact online portals," Robertson added.

Media reports emerged last year that the government was looking to amend the CMA with new regulations.

There have also been rumors that the changes will resemble procedures in Singapore, where licenses are given to websites and a review is conducted every two years.

Meanwhile, in HRW's annual report, the watchdog group said the Malaysian federal government's crackdown on dissent had intensified, with more laws allegedly being used to suppress human rights.

It warned of a marked increase in reported cases of Malaysians being investigated and prosecuted using an array of laws over the public expression of dissent.

"The Malaysian authorities continue to use the overly broad and vaguely worded criminal laws identified there to harass, arrest, and prosecute those critical of the government or of members of Malaysia's royal families,” the report read.

Among the laws it said were being used against politicians, activists and everyday citizens were the Sedition Act 1948, the CMA and the Official Secrets Act 1972.