Amid concerns over fairness, Ambiga calls for hate speech laws

Malay Mail
by BOO SU-LYN

KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — Malaysia should consider enacting laws prohibiting hate speech, former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said today amid controversial remarks by Muslim groups attacking the minority Chinese and Christians.

The activist, however, expressed reservations on whether new legislation governing free speech, or the National Harmony Act which is set to replace the Sedition Act, would be implemented fairly.

“Going by the Sedition Act, it’s so obvious — the blatant abuse of the Sedition Act,” Ambiga told The Malay Mail Online today.

DAP leader Teresa Kok was charged with sedition last Tuesday over a satirical video clip that purportedly mocked the education system and the Sulu terrorist intrusion in Lahad Datu.

The late Karpal Singh, then the national chairman of the DAP opposition party, was also convicted with sedition last February for saying that the Perak sultan’s actions in the 2009 state constitutional crisis could be questioned in a court of law.

After Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) sparked public outrage by saying that the influx of Chinese immigrants into Tanah Melayu was a “mistake” that must be “rectified”, the police announced yesterday a sedition probe against the Islamist group.

Ambiga stressed today that free speech should only be made a criminal offence if it incites violence.

“Isma came pretty close to that,” said the lawyer.

Amid controversy over Isma’s remarks, Muslim speakers at a seminar on Christianity in Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) claimed last Tuesday that the Gospels in the New Testament were “fake” and that Jesus Christ was simply a “human slave to Allah”.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia said in response that the seminar amounted to “hate speech” that threatened interfaith harmony in the country.

In January last year, the police also said they would investigate Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali for sedition after the Malay rights group leader called for Malay-language bibles containing the word “Allah” to be burned.

The outcome of the probe has yet to be announced.

The National Harmony Act, which was meant to replace the Sedition Act as announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in 2012, has yet to be tabled in Parliament, while the 1948 sedition law is still in force.

Then de facto law minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz said in 2012 that the National Harmony Act would allow criticism against the government to protect the constitutional right to freedom of speech.

He was reported by national newswire Bernama as saying, however, that freedom of speech was not absolute, and that the new law would protect racial harmony and the royalty.