Malaysiakini reports today that the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has requested them to remove two ‘provocative’ videos relating to the cow-head protest from its website.
The two videos : the ‘Temple demo: Residents march with cow’s head‘ and ‘Hisham: Don’t blame cow-head protesters‘.
The second video captures Kerismuddin’s press con where he rises in defence of the protesters.
According to the Malaysiakini report, the request from MCMC came in a letter dated 3rd September in which monitoring and enforcement division senior acting director Abdul Halim Ahmad explained that the “videos contain offensive contents with the intent to annoy any person, especially Indians. This is an offence under Section 211/233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998″.
I can understand the request to remove the first video arising from a concern that it might cause racial agitation.
Why the second video?
To avoid ministerial embarrassment?
If so, too little, too late.
Back to the matter of the alleged offence under the CMA, 1998.
I am reproducing both sections 211 and 233 of the CMA, 1998 below, highlighting three all-important words that I think ought to be noted.
211. Prohibition on provision of offensive content.
(1) No content applications service provider, or other person using a content applications service, shall provide content which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person.
(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and shall also be liable to a further fine of one thousand ringgit for every day or part of a day during which the offence is continued after conviction.
233. Improper use of network facilities or network service, etc.
(1) A person who-
(a) by means of any network facilities or network service or applications service knowingly-
(ii) initiates the transmission of,
any comment, request, suggestion or other communication which is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person; or
(b) initiates a communication using any applications service, whether continuously, repeatedly or otherwise, during which communication may or may not ensue, with or without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person at any number or electronic address,
commits an offence.
(2) A person who knowingly-
(a) by means of a network service or applications service provides any obscene communication for commercial purposes to any person; or
(b) permits a network service or applications service under the person’s control to be used for an activity described in paragraph (a),
commits an offence.
(3) A person who commits an offence under this section shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and shall also be liable to a further fine of one thousand ringgit for every day during which the offence is continued after conviction.
With intent to.
Steven Gan of Malaysiakini was quick to latch on to these words.
In that Malaysiakini report, this is what Steven is reported to have said :
“Our intent in putting up the videos was not to ‘annoy’ anyone, but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia.”
Malaysiakini then reports that Steven, its editor-in-chief, said both the videos are news events which are of public interest and that there were no plans to take down the videos and that Malaysiakini would be seeking legal advice.
If you ever needed a reason to stop buying the NST, Star, Malay Mail and the other MSM crap and instead subscribing to Malaysiakini, MCMC has presented it to you today.
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