A kangkung leaf covering the nakedness of censorship

(Wiki commons)

IN my previous column, I explored the idea of the government restricting or entirely locking Malaysians out from social media and the Internet. It seemed like a fortuitous article in light of the events to date, specifically the kangkung incident.

In early January, kangkung memes lampooning Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak hit social media. This prompted a BBC Trending article that resulted in a firestorm when DigitalNewsAsia broke a story about how certain ISPs were blocking users from accessing the article. The cabinet at that point reportedly contemplated strong action to stop the lampooning of the prime minister but decided instead to affirm the MSC Bill of Guarantees (BoG).

But the cabinet did not issue an official statement to the above effect. And lets not forget, the BoG isnt really law, its the equivalent of a mission statement or service commitment at best.

In this column, I want to float a provocative suggestion: that the cabinet has it wrong and the BoG cannot be used as a basis, legal or otherwise, to justify access to Internet content that is satirical or parodic in nature.

Back to basics: The MSC

In the United States, satire and parody are clearly protected under the First Amendmentand, accordingly, are not subject to legal impediment except in limited circumstances.

Malaysia does not have a Bill of Rights and has a restricted free speech provision in the constitution. This means Malaysia is using the BoG provision on no Internet censorship as a stand-in to protect access to the Internet and, to a lesser degree, freedom of speech and the right to create parody and satire.

Yet, the origin of the BoG is very different from that of the US Bill of Rights. The BoG is inherently linked with the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC), which was created in 1996 as a Special Economic Zone. The MSC is a strategic economic initiative, not a political one, and its BoG was designed with the economic emphasis in mind.

The preamble of the BoG states that it reflects the governments intention to provide an environment in MSC Malaysia that is conducive to the development of MSC Malaysia Status entities. Aside from BoG #7, which relates to Internet censorship, the other nine relate to corporate or economic guarantees, from the freedom to source capital and workers to tax-free status and infrastructure commitments.

See the article here:
A kangkung leaf covering the nakedness of censorship