Abolish Sedition Act, Establish Anti-hatred Law
August 23, 2007
If you missed the announcement of the Bangsa Malaysia Merdeka Get-together, click here to go to the post.
Please take note that registration for the forum / workshop is now closed as we have well surpassed our intended maximum of 30 people.
We do, however, still have invites to give out for the get-together.
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Joint statement by
Civil Rights Committee – Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH)
Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI)
Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Institut Kajian Dasar (IKD)
People’s Parliament
Sisters in Islam (SIS)
Women’s Development Collective (WDC)
Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC)
Civil Rights Committee – Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH), Writers Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI), Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), Institut Kajian Dasar (IKD), People’s Parliament, Sisters in Islam (SIS), Women’s Development Collective (WDC) and Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC) call for the repeal of the Sedition Act and the enactment of a narrowly defined anti-hatred law in its place. Suppression of free speech will not guarantee social harmony, but instead threatens it by obstructing communication, dialogue, debate and understanding. What should be curbed are only speeches and acts that promote hatred which causes or leads to violence directed to individuals on the ground of group membership.
Currently, the Sedition Act criminalizes speeches, acts and publications which is seditious or having “seditious tendency”, a term which broadly covers two types of intended effects: (a) hatred, contempt, dissatisfaction against the state, including over legal and policy matters; (b) ill-will and hostility between different races or classes.
Protection of the state against hatred, contempt and dissatisfaction by her citizens of a treasonous nature have been amply provided for by various provisions in the Penal Code and must take a back seat after citizens’ rights to legitimate criticism and grievance related to public affairs. Otherwise, our democracy will be hollow and liberties vanished. Such threat is unfortunately real under the Sedition Act as we witness now the second case within a month whereby the draconian act is to be used against bloggers. While July’s victim was Raja Petra Kamarudin, the editor of the influential Malaysia Today news site; the August pick is Wee Ming Chee, a 24-years-old who wrote a rap song “I love my country, Negarakuku” with the national anthem as its chorus.
As with the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) and Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA), the Sedition Act must go. It is time for civil society to act together as the government is stepping up its harassment of concerned citizens online on the eve of general elections.
To protect citizens and non-citizens against the propagation and incitement of hatred and violence, we call for the enactment of a narrowly defined anti-hatred law, which automatically repeals the Sedition Act and whose sole purpose is to protect citizens and non-citizens from verbal or physical harms merely on the ground of his/her membership of ethnic or religious group, gender, sexuality, belief or lifestyle. To ensure that the new law does not curb legitimate dialogue, discourse and debate, including on ethnicity, faith, ideology and state institutions, the legislation must be drafted with full consultation and the participation of civil society and the general public, under a Parliamentary Select Committee. Malaysians will then be protected from both hate crimes and the infringements of freedom of speech that are occurring under the Sedition Act.
By
Ser Choon Ing, Chairperson, CRC-KLSCAH
Wong Chin Huat, Chairperson, WAMI
Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, CIJ
Khalid Jaafar, Executive Director, IKD
Haris Ibrahim, Convener, People’s Parliament
Yati Kaprawi, Programme Manager, Sisters in Islam (SIS)
Maria Chin Abdullah, Executive Director, Women’s Development Collective (WDC)
Charles Santiago, Representative, Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC)
August 23, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Anti-hatred law? More laws and more substitute laws? You don’t know what you are getting into…. Stop it!
The sedition laws may have been used as the cover for the attacks on Petra and Wee. But those attacks have nothing to do with the laws; they have deeper and different roots. Don’t you get it?
Your intentions are well-meaning, but the road to hell is paved with such good intentions. Stop it, I repeat.
Fairuz’s latest proposal, backed publicly by the AG, is now the greater, the far, far greater, threat to all the protections you are seeking. In one swipe, you are all finished.
Related: Bangsa Malaysia is never going to be created by laws; if that was the way, all the problems you named today would have never arisen.
August 23, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Red,
I agree with you that the attacks on civil society activists and dissident voices have deeper roots, but the fact remains that these laws are repressive, outdated and lend themselves too easily to abuse by the fascist elements in UMNO-BN, who are attempting to suppress any and all dissent in this country.
These long-outdated laws (The Sedition Act, ISA, UUCA) must be urgently repealed.
The ridiculously broad application and abuse of these sedition laws and now the proposal to do away with English common law in our judicial system are symptomatic of Malaysia’s slide towards fascism and totalitarianism under the UMNO-BN government.
Following up on another reader’s post on the ‘Screenshots’ blog, I posted a checklist of 14 defining characteristics of fascism, and by my own assessment, UMNO-BN scores 12.75 out of 14, or a whopping 91%.
Please read the checklist here and make your own assessment: http://ghostline.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/umno-fascism-a-checklist/
We must do everything we can to stop this slide before it becomes irreversible, and this effort to replace the Sedition Act with anti-hatred legislation (similar to those in force in Germany) is part of a broader civil society effort to combat the increasingly totalitarian tendencies of the UMNO-BN govt.
You are right, Bangsa Malaysia is not something that can be created by legislation, but to remove repressive legislation will be to take a step towards that dream.
Help us.
August 24, 2007 at 1:23 am
ghostline:
Problem #1: Your lines are littered with contradictions. You just don’t get it, do you? Re-read the earlier comment. Problem #2: your remedy is as bad as the disease, possibly worse. If you understand, no farther explanation is necessary. If you don’t, no explanation is possible.
Endnote: your liberal piety is vomit, marinated only in name calling. If we are to prepare a checklist of your ideology and political credentials, you’ll look the mirror image of any Umno “fascist”.
Red, I’m letting this thru unedited as I think you have a right of rebuttal but please, can this end here? Ghostline?
Shall we just put this down to a difference of opinion?
Red, I am fully aware of the concerns you voiced thru your comment.
August 24, 2007 at 12:18 pm
No problem Haris, I’m standing down.
No problem, Red, a difference of opinion it is
August 24, 2007 at 7:17 pm
We are all so caught up with this act and that act that we do not realise what is most important is our chlidren.They are today subjected to a lot of name calling and dislike.Do something to promote friendship and understanding among the young.That should be our priority
August 24, 2007 at 7:47 pm
No need to argue.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/24/nation/18681665&sec=nation
August 26, 2007 at 3:46 am
.
Wow red made it sounds like the sitting pretty cj is more powerful than the constitution and the pm himself and just wonder who appointed him to be such.
At a time when the cj was exposed to be hiding behind the constitution to cloak his incompetency he is now abusing religion for this purpose.
No excuse for incompetency even for the purpose of race or religion.
And for this reason who can and should be quiet about such situation – nobody should.
.