Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the authorities including the police, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Comission (MCMC) and the Attorney-General’s Chambers must act speedily and firmly against individuals who commit sedition in the social media.
He said the enforcement of existing laws must also be strengthened to curb the crime of sedition spreading in society so as to ensure that the prevailing racial and religious harmony is not tarnished by these irrresponsible people.
He stressed that the firmness of the government in tackling sedition was very important to ensure the people continued to enjoy peace and harmony.
“The constitution of our country not only guarantees rights that are fair to all races, but also empowers Parliament to enact laws that restrict freedom of speech to ensure that the articles contained in the constitution are not easily questioned by anyone.
“No one can say they have the right to freedom of speech to question the fundamentals in the forming of Malaysia as a multi-racial country of peace and harmony because the constitution itself does not deem this as a right,” he said when launching the ‘Celebrating unity, embracing diversity’ programme in Kuala Lumpur today….As such, he said the Sedition Act 1948 which was amended after the May 13 1969 tragedy made it clear that questioning important statutes in the constitution was tantamount to sedition and could be punished by a court of law.
Muhyiddin said in the spirit of appreciating and respecting the constitution, it was important that all Malaysians, irrespective of race, avoid doing anything that could lead to tension and threatening national harmony.
“This is very important because lately there has been a tendency among some individuals to make irresponsible statements that insult a certain race and religion.
The flood of contradictions and illogicalities emanating from Malaysia’s governing UMNO party over its recent ‘sedition’ crackdown defies serious analysis.
These BN politicians are not even trying to make sense, they are just openly seeking to bully people who exercise their right to question, disagree or oppose their control of the country.
They hope that by singling out a few individuals and punishing them under their own woolly interpretation of ‘sedition’, they will get the message across that it doesn’t pay to criticise or challenge BN/UMNO or any of its paid NGO hangers-on, who are parading under racial or religious banners.
Yet at the same time they have rightly acknowledged that this outdated and irrelevant law has no place in a functioning democracy – and have promised to abolish it.
And while they criticise people for stirring up racial and religious disharmony, it is they and their hangers-on, who are clearly and deliberately acting as the provocateurs in this respect.
The likes of Muyhiddin, Zahir, Najib and co are doing this, because they feel under a growing political threat. They are responding to a position of weakness by trying to act strong, when they are not.
So, pro-ISIS bloggers go un-touched when they call for the beheading of Dayaks, while mainstream journalists are charged for reporting complaints of police harassment. And a man who made some childish comment about Hari Raya goes to jail for a year.
This is a government deliberately stirring up racial and religious tensions in order to build a mean and ugly intimidation force against those who do not support it, as is their democratic right.
It is a stupid, dangerous and desperate move and BN will regret it if they continue to unleash violent forces they cannot control, just because they cannot stand the idea that democracy allows for change of government should the majority of the people decide it.