Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Can the BN gov't administer the Law with no double standards?

Dear ER, lease read the following post -- courtesy of the Malaysian Insider, thanks -- in conjunction with the previous post which reported a court sentencing a Blogger to THREE MONTHS' JAIL, a first such punishment on BUMmers in NegaraKu. Rais Yatim should either shut his BIG MOUTH or resign from the ministry that oversights the Internet as part of Communications portfolio. -- YL, Desi

AG urged to act against UMNO Youth's attempt to "stoke religious hatred" online


August 21, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — The Attorney-General must prosecute Umno Youth for attempting to stoke racial and religious hatred online to prove he is impartial in enforcing a “presumed-guilty-until-proven-innocent” clause in the controversial Evidence Act — a law that is widely seen to shackle freedom of speech and dissent on the Internet — the DAP’s Lim Guan Eng said today.

A controversial anti-Christianity poster that was uploaded on a Facebook page that shares the same name as the political wing’s official site but which Umno Youth says is “unauthorised” has spotlighted the weaknesses in the recently-passed section 114A of the Evidence Act — a clause that, among others, presumes that the named owner of a website is the publisher of the statement.

The poster, which was uploaded last Saturday and taken down the same day, appeared to suggest that votes for federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will cause Islam to be replaced by Christianity as the country’s official religion.

“We call the A-G, since he defend (sic) 114A of the Evidence Act, to prosecute and charge Umno Youth because of this post
,” Lim (picture) told a news conference in George Town today.

“Because the burden of proof now goes to the accused, not to the prosecution because this is now turned backwards, this is now flipped backwards.

“It is not an indication of my support for the amendment but just to show, now this thing happened, isn’t this a gross injustice?” he said.

An audio clip of the news conference was made available to The Malaysian Insider.

Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, said government lawyers must take legal action against Umno Youth to show they do not practise double standards.

“So if that is the case, Umno Youth is presumed guilty for making this type of inflammatory statements — they say their web page is hacked and all that — inflammatory statements to create hatred among Christians and Muslims especially during Hari Raya, they are presumed guilty. They must prove themselves innocent.


“So if they do not charge Umno Youth, this shows there are double standards,” he said.

The DAP secretary-general said unless the prosecutors act on the ruling party’s youth wing, it would show section 114A “is intended to clamp down on freedom of the Internet, freedom of information and to muzzle the voices of freedom and dissent and to silence dissent against the Barisan Nasional government.”

Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has denied his team was responsible for uploading the poster he described as “offensive”. A representative of the wing, Ibdilillah Ishak, filed a police report yesterday asking for an investigation to be carried on the perpetrators.

The controversial poster had read: “Jika anda setuju untuk jadikan KRISTIAN sebagai agama rasmi persekutuan Malaysia, teruskan sokongan anda kepada Pakatan Rakyat. (If you agree to make CHRISTIANITY the official religion of the federation of Malaysia, continue supporting Pakatan Rakyat.) ‘God bless you my son’.”

Critics and lawmakers from both sides of the political divide are lobbying for the law that could curb Internet freedom to be repealed after it came into force last month.

The amendment to the Evidence Act sparked an uproar in April when it was passed as it introduces a presumption of publication of online content on the publisher or registered owner of a network, and in essence shifts the burden of proof onto the accused.

Khairy and Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah had added their voices to the call to repeal the clause, joining opposition lawmakers already clamouring for the same.

Yesterday, PKR’s Nurul Izzah Anwar said she awaited “the authorities’ speedy action to charge the person held responsible for any posts on the Umno Youth FB Page”, noting that section 114A would be the relevant law.

The prime minister had on Twitter last week said his Cabinet would review the law after several organisations ― including the Malaysian Bar ― chose to black out their websites to signal their opposition to the law.

A day later, however, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim announced that the law will stay. ~~ MI

DESIDERATA:
The sections in the report above highlighted (THUS BOLDED) are done by Desi, not UMNO Youth, not any other BUMmer but Desi! ~~ YL Chong, newsdog about 40 years olde.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Desi sympathises wit this BLOGGER, it's Rais Yatim's "selective" persecution!

BELATED but IMPORTANT FOR THE RECORD! From mysinchew.com:) ~~ YL, Desi

Blogger gets 3 months for contempt of court

News 2012-08-10 14:42
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- The High Court here today sentenced blogger Amizudin Ahmat to three months' jail after finding him guilty of contempt of court by further publishing 11 articles defaming Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

Judge Datin Zabariah Mohd Yusof, in her ruling, said that Amizudin had breached a court order prohibiting him from publishing such articles on Rais in his blogsite.

"This is a serious contempt case. The court imposes a custodial order of three months jail, effective today," she added.

After Zabariah read her judgement, Amizudin, who was outside the dock, rose and said, "I admit my mistakes. I apologise. I don't understand."

To this, Zabariah said that had Amizudin not understood the court order, he should have asked his lawyer.

On Nov 21 last year, Rais, 70, was granted leave to commence committal proceedings against Amizudin in relation to a suit filed by Rais.

On July 19 last year, Rais won his suit and the blogger was ordered by the High Court to pay RM300,000 in damages and RM100,000 in costs to the minister.

Rais filed the suit on Jan 31, 2011, against Amizudin, 42, who is a Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Youth Committee member, for defamation over an article posted on the latter's blog site, sharpshooterblogger.blogspot.com, on or about Dec 28, 2010.

Earlier in mitigation, Amizudin's lawyer, Ahmad Nizam Hamid, asked the court to not impose the jail sentence on his client by taking into account his client's apology.

However, counsel Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, representing Rais, said Amizudin had breached the court order not once, but by posting 11 more articles.

"If once, we can regard it as an error, but 11 times, and in the defamatory articles, the contemnor wrote clearly that he was aware of the court order prohibiting him from doing so.

"Perhaps this is the worst and bad contempt proceedings using words which I can described as 'jijik' (disgusting)," he added.

DESIDERATA: I say "selective" BECAUSE THAT MINSISTER HAS NO BALLS to go after the BIG BOYS like rockybru.com and other BUMmers who broke the news story! So dear fellow BUMmers. take care OK, Some UMNO ministers are pretty discriminatory, and they don't have balls for a great debate with BLoggers wit' the gumption and the guts to fight wit' WORDS, and like the Bee Gees, Desi can only console wit':

And WORDS are all I have, To take your heART away...