ADUN SPEAKS | As Malaysia’s Covid-19 situation gradually improves, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s government has become increasingly restless by taking a series of actions aimed at suppressing dissent and trampling freedom of expression.
Just this week alone, former deputy women, family and community development minister Hannah Yeoh as well as human rights lawyer and activist Siti Kasim were called up by the police for questioning.
Yeoh was called up over her anti-child marriage remark while Siti was called up likely over a social media post she made about PAS.
Besides that, Attorney-General Idrus Harun filed an ex-parte application to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief Steven Gan over readers’ comments in Malaysiakini’s comment section.
Coincidentally, former youth and sports minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman also said that he is being investigated by the police under the Sedition Act, following an interview he gave to Al Jazeera on March 6 in which he criticised Muhyiddin and the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.
Clearly, the purpose behind the backdoor government’s series of actions that targeted the civil society, the media, and the opposition was to create white terror that deters people from speaking up.
Since the change of government in 2018, the Pakatan Harapan government had put substantial efforts into safeguarding freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution.
Within the two short years, Harapan was willing to listen to public opinion and allowed civil organisations, social activists and even political opponents to criticise the government in order to improve its governance.
According to the 2019 Democracy Index released by the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Malaysia was ranked 43rd, jumping up nine places from 52nd in 2018.
It jumped up 16 places when compared with the 59th position in 2017 under the Barisan Nasional (BN) regime.
In addition, the BN regime was notorious in suppressing freedom of expression and press freedom for 60 years, evident by persistently low press freedom rankings.
After Harapan formed the government in 2018, Malaysia’s position in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom ranking rose rapidly from 145th in 2018 to 123rd in 2019 and, in 2020, climbed up 22 rungs again to be ranked 101st.
Various achievements have proven that the Harapan government had been constantly improving and expanding freedom of expression for all citizens, while encouraging more public supervision of the government and active participation in various social and national issues in order to build the country’s future together.
Regrettably, in order to stabilise its crisis-ridden regime, Muhyiddin’s government has abused state apparatus to investigate remarks made by social activists, the media and opposition members, one after another.
Such actions taken by the PN government that has been in power for only several months to suppress dissent and freedom of expression have completely brought Harapan government’s efforts of improving freedom of expression and press freedom to naught.
As a backdoor government formed by different factions through a seizure of power, the PN government has been widely criticised due to a lack of legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Muhyiddin is also facing a shaky situation whereby strong allies such as Umno and PAS are lurking and waiting for opportunities.
He might have therefore chosen to suppress freedom of speech and tried to create white terror in order to achieve the purposes of silencing dissent and stabilising the regime.
It is only by replacing the PN government can we put a halt to the abuse of power by Muhyiddin’s government that suppresses freedom of speech and press freedom.
Also, only the Harapan government is able to protect the freedom of speech practised by the civil society, to encourage citizens to freely express their opinions, and at the same time to allow the media as the fourth pillar of democracy to report freely without interference in order to ensure effective checks and balances.
CHIONG YOKE KONG is the Tanah Rata state assemblyperson. - Mkini
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