'Race ties will worsen if Sedition Act abolished'

 

Former Criminal Investigations Department chief Mohd Zaman Khan has expressed concern over Malaysia’s declining race relations, and warned that it would worsen even further if the Sedition Act 1948 is abolished.

“The reason I decided to be a part of those asking for the Act to be maintained is the building of hatreds...

“Things are being built to be extent that the situation may boil over and beyond what took place in May 1969,” he said, making reference to the May 13 race riots in that year.

Zaman (right), who is also chairperson of the Malay Consultative Council’s (MPM) integrity bureau, said four issues were driving some Malaysians to call for the Sedition Act to be preserved.

These are the concerns over the special privileges of the Malays; the position of the Malay language as the national language; the status of the monarchy; and the position of Islam.

“There is a strong reason why we say the Sedition Act should be retained. If you want to make improvements to it, that is a different matter.

“But if you want to repeal, we say ‘no’,” Zaman said yesterday as a panellist at a roundtable discussion on the Act, organised at Universiti Malaya by the human rights NGO Proham, which is made up of former commissioners of the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam).
                                              
Laws cannot create harmony

Another panellist, National Young Lawyers Committee chief Syahredzan Johan, argued that legal avenues were not the way to combat hatred except as a last resort. The solution is to engage directly with extremists.

Syahredzan said that laws by themselves cannot create harmony, which should come from engagement, tolerance, understanding and acceptance.

If a racist or bigot is sent to jail, he would still be bigoted when he leaves prison and be resentful about his experience, while other bigots would simply go underground to air their views.

“So, we will have this faux veneer, this faux shine of harmony, where we all sing ‘Kumbaya’ with Malays, Chinese, Indians, Iban, and Kadazan all living peacefully.

“But there are pockets of extremism within us, and because they cannot voice them out and no one is engaging with them because we can’t see them with the laws that we have; sooner or later, it is all just going to boil over,” Syahredzan (right) said.

If bigots could air their views freely, there would be enough people who would call them out, and society would become more mature in that process.

He said the problem with the Sedition Act is that it does not have the right compromise between freedom of speech and maintenance of public order, but there are other laws in the Penal Code and the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) Act that can protect against threats to public order.

If it is felt that the existing laws are inadequate, Syahredzan added, then there should be discussions on alternative legislation, such as the laws proposed by the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC).

The NUCC is formed by PM Najib Razak to recommend laws to replace the Sedition Act, which he had promised to repeal two years ago. Since then, right-wing groups have protested the move.

Harking back to 16th century

Another speaker, Proham chairperson Kuthubul Zaman, said Malaysia’s use of the Sedition Act against political dissidents has taken the use of the law in the country back to its 16th century origins in the United Kingdom.

In explaining the history of the Sedition Act, Kuthubul said it was a remnant of a UK court practice known as the Star Chamber, which was used as a tool for the Tudor Dynasty to maintain power at a time when the English monarch’s right to rule was considered divine and absolute.

Although the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641, some of it survived in English Common Law and was later codified, and then brought into the statute books of the British colonies.

Since then, Kuthubul (left) said, many of these colonies have either abolished the law, or narrowed the definition of sedition by limiting it to actions that are intended to incite rebellion or similar unrest.

In contrast, in Malaysia there is no need to prove intention or whether unrest had been caused by an allegedly seditious remark or action.

“You say it, you will be found guilty... by ignoring contemporary standards and principles and by ignoring the rights guaranteed by legislative restrictions in the Federal Constitution, Malaysian jurisprudence has returned sedition to its 1606 origins in the court of Star Chamber.

“Malaysia’s Sedition Act allows for absurdities of the kinds satirised in the children’s story ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,” lamented Kuthubul.