MAY 29 — The Evidence (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2012 will come
into operation in a few days on June 1. The impact of this hastily and
stealthily rushed legislation could be devastating.
De facto law minister Nazri Abdul Aziz denies that amendments to the
Evidence Act were a means for the government to curb online dissent by
making Internet anonymity more difficult to maintain or ignorance to be
used as an excuse.
Instead Nazri claims that the law was tightened because “we don’t
want [anonymous or pseudonymous] people to slander or threaten others,”
according to a report in the Sunday Star.
However opposition leaders such as DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng are unconvinced.
Lim said that the amendments, which were passed during the last
sitting of the Dewan Rakyat and the Dewan Negara, “will make it easier
for the government to launch selective prosecutions of members of the
opposition and civil society”.
According to him, a person is traditionally presumed innocent until
proven guilty but the Evidence Act 2012 reverses this truism. Lim
illustrates with a personal example: “In other words, I am responsible
for anything posted on my website and the burden is on me to prove my
innocence, not on the prosecution to prove my guilt.”
Lim also believes that the BN government would practise double standards in exercising the provisions of this legislation.
His misgivings are not entirely without basis, bearing in mind the
several occasions when Malaysian authorities have been accused of
filtering politically sensitive sites and most recently interfering in
the Astro rebroadcast of BBC and Al-Jazeera’s live coverage of the
Bersih 3.0 rally.
Nazri’s statement, “Under the amended Act, we shift the burden to the
owner of the laptop or account so that we can get to the source [of the
slanderous or seditious comments]”, prompted the Malaysian Bar to also
express concern with regard to the presumption of guilt contained in the
Act.
Internet Society Malaysian Chapter chairman Julian Vincent has
pointed out that the amendments could be open to abuse by the
investigators.
“In the Internet environment where the websites even of the largest
organisations are susceptible to hacking and manipulation, it is
dangerous to have this presumption [of guilt] in place.
“The society expresses its hope that the Cabinet will revise the
current text and work to address privacy considerations and protect
citizens’ rights and civil liberties in any future cyber security
legislation,” he said.
Internet users across the board have criticised the amendments as
unfair, concurring with the expert views that websites and social
networking accounts (Facebook, Myspace, etc) or even e-mail could be
easily hacked to post defamatory comments.
Despite the assurances by Nazri, an outspoken minister in the Prime
Minister’s Department, the Netizens active on chat forums — as well as
those who frequently forward chain mail and are addicted to Facebook or
Twitter — harbour deep reservations about this newly revised law.
As it is, bloggers, such as Mohd Nur Hanief Abdul Jalil and Chan
Lilian (Lim Guan Eng’s aide), have not been spared investigation by
state officers for lese majeste and sedition respectively.
The public unease plays against the backdrop of reader participation
in the relatively more free-wheeling news portals as compared with
traditional media which has been subjected to pervasive state control.
Centre for Independent Journalism executive officer Masjaliza Hamzah
has termed the amendments as a threat to freedom of expression and media
freedom.
“The amendments are clearly an indirect way to control online content
as it makes online sites responsible for comments posted by readers;
forget about disclaimers on the comment section.
“This may force some sites to stop the comment feature because having
to vet comments themselves may become untenable, and if this happens,
it has a huge impact on the interactive nature of online media favoured
by readers,” she is reported to have said.
Furthermore, Malaysia suffers the ignominy of appearing on the list
of countries under surveillance as Enemies of the Internet, i.e. where
authoritarian governments have employed censorship or filtering
circumvention methods as well as systematic repression of Internet
users.
The international watchdog body, Reporters Without Borders, had rated
Myanmar, China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and seven other
countries as Enemies of the Internet in its RSF 2012 report.
The bottomline is that any repressive piece of legislation which can
be misused by the powers-that-be to prohibit or curtail legitimate
freedom of expression by its opponents is, in essence, a bad law.
Should ever Pakatan Rakyat successfully occupy Putrajaya, they could
just as easily turn the tables on Barisan Nasional politicians and
supporters by abusing this same law.
A lawyer-cum-blogger-cum-Tweeter, Foong Cheng Leong, dissects the
presumption of fact relating to criminally libellous or seditious
publication, explaining why repercussions for Internet users are indeed
grave.
On the controversy surrounding the Act, Foong writes:
“In summary, the new amendments force an innocent party to show
that he is not the publisher. Victims of stolen identity or hacking
would have a lot more problems to fix. Since computers can be easily
manipulated and identity theft is quite rampant, it is dangerous to put
the onus on Internet users. An Internet user will need to give an alibi
that it wasn’t him. He needs to prove that he has no access to the
computer at that time of publication and he needs to produce call
witnesses to support his alibi.”
His article can be read in full at the Loyar Burok website.
Finally, it is necessary to ask the Prime Minister Najib Razak the
question as to why he has reneged on his word. Only last year he had
repeated the Mahathir era promise made when Cyberjaya and the Multimedia
Super Corridor were launched — that Malaysia will never censor the
Internet.
* CPI is the Centre for Policy Initiatives, a non-profit policy reform organisation.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and
does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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