New law in the making.
A move by the government is trying to get bloggers to register and identifying themselves. According to this article by The Star, a legistration might be passed requiring all Malaysian bloggers to register with the authorities to curb he spread of negative or malicious content on the Internet.
The move is aimed at empowering the Defamation Act, Sedition Act and various laws within Malaysia to limits the freedom of speech and human rights. According to Ahirudin Attan of Rocky's Bru, the move is in fact a form of controlling what Malaysians were writing online. “This violates the Government's no-censorship policy with regards to the Internet,” he said.
The Malaysian Mentality
According to Marina Mahathir, Malaysian politicians are the only ones who makes such a fuss about blogs. All this is generated due to bloggers allegations of high-powered hanky-panky and instead of proving ones innocent, politicians choose to divert attention by creating doubt in people's minds about the Internet in general and bloggers in particular.
“The objective of this is possibly to allow for any allegations that surface on the Net to be pooh-poohed as just some fanciful stories, and of no need for any attention.” She said.
Already the government controls the mainstream media to a point where criticism of the government rarely shows up, its always from their perspective unless the public are aware of the problem and is vocal about it. An example of their control would be the gag order for all press to not publish any speech made by Dr. Mahathir which attacks the government. (Ooi, 2006)
Blogging Community
In a separate article of The Star, over 40 Malaysian bloggers have come together and form an alliance as the government accuses bloggers as irresponsible. “The alliance aimed to protect the rights of bloggers and promote blogging in a responsible manner.” said Ahirudin.
Former MP Datuk Ruhanie Ahmad said “The Government should not label bloggers as anti-Government because the views aired by them were mostly relevant and should be taken into consideration.”
Freedom of Speech? Rest in pieces
The move taken by the government is in directly violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19, which states the following, ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’
The government will keep oppressing our rights until, well I personally don’t see an end to it as the government is all powerful. Unlike the western countries where rights and liberties are hold at the utmost importance, here anything that threaten the governments solid grip is going to face the law. The problem isn’t with the new things and circumstances which crops out now, it’s with the solid foundation of laws that allows the government to jail people with impunity.
References
1. Ooi, J, 2006. Chief editors summoned. Viewed on 7 June 2007 at http://www.jeffooi.com/2006/06/chief_editors_summoned.php
2. Mahathir, M, 2007. A blog is no e-surat layang. Viewed on 7 June 2007 at http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/3/28/itedit/20070328165303&sec=itedit
3. The Star Online, 2007. Bloggers may have to register. Viewed on 7 June 2007 at http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/4/5/technology/20070405153418&sec=technology
4. The Star Online, 2007. Bloggers form grouping. Viewed on 7 June 2007 at http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/4/6/nation/17370655&sec=nation
5. United Nations, 1998. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Viewed on 7 June 2007 at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
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