A former Free Malaysia Today journalist Rex Tan was recently arrested under Section 4(1) of the Sedition Act and Section 505 (c) of the Penal Code and in turn remanded for one day.
He is also being investigated under the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA).
He was alleged to have uttered seditious words which purportedly carried racial overtones during a public lecture in Kuala Lumpur featuring UK politician George Galloway, titled “Gaza Exposes the Complicity of International Actors”.
In justifying Tan's arrest, the home minister reportedly said that while he respects freedom of speech, it also comes with responsibility. To be fair, the minister was not alone in employing and repeating such a mantra.
Another popular and oft-cited mantra is that freedom is not absolute as if there exist human beings who aspire for absolute freedom.
With the greatest respect, the minister's statement implies that in exercising a constitutional freedom of speech or expression it is always a matter of “balancing” the public interest in freedom of expression and the public interest in maintaining peace and security.
Truth be told, there are merits to such a proposition. Nonetheless, the demerits of such a proposition seems to outweigh its merits.
Unwarranted arrest
It is submitted that more often than not Malaysians are faced not with a choice between two conflicting principles but with a principle of freedom of expression duly enshrined in our apex law that is subject to a number of exceptions which must be narrowly interpreted.
While people are free not to agree with Tan when he expressed his view in the aforesaid public lecture, such a disagreement should have not led to his unwarranted arrest let alone being subjected to a remand.
In public forums, the default setting should be an open market for people to air their views and comments, therein, without any fear of reprisal.
Anyway, a freedom of speech which is punished - let alone being punished under any obnoxious legislation - is no longer called a true, real and authentic freedom of speech.
It renders such a noteworthy freedom ineffective, meaningless and illusory. - Mkini
MOHAMED HANIPA MAIDIN is a former deputy law minister.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.