You hear about a burglary in the neighbourhood. Three days later, you learn that four houses in the area had been broken into within a week. The occupants file police reports.
Weeks pass. Nothing changes. No updates, no progress. Fear settles in like a second shadow.
Now imagine you have a skill - making videos that people actually watch.
So, you film a short clip: not inciting violence, not naming names, just voicing the frustration of a community abandoned by those meant to protect it. You post it online, hoping to remind the authorities to keep the residents updated.
That act of civic desperation turned 54-year-old Shahril Abdul Rani into a criminal - in the eyes of the law.
Acting on a complaint, the MCMC prosecuted him under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act.
The section is a legal dragnet. It criminalises sending “obscene, indecent, false, menacing, or grossly offensive” content with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass. The penalties? Up to RM500,000 in fines and jail time.
But Shahril is not a hero or a vigilante. He is a former press photographer who used the only tool he had - a camera and a social media account - to say what the police would not hear. For that, he faced the full weight of the state.
In February 2024, the Kajang Sessions Court imposed a fine of RM20,000, a penalty upheld by the High Court last June.
Let that sink in: with the intent to annoy. Not to incite riots. Not to threaten public order. To annoy.
The law does not distinguish between a malicious troll and a desperate neighbour. It does not ask whether the police genuinely failed the public.
It only asks whether someone felt annoyed or harassed by your words - and whether the content could be labelled “grossly offensive”.
That phrase, “grossly offensive”, has no fixed meaning. It means whatever the MCMC or a judge wants it to mean. And in a country where break-ins go unattended but critical videos draw swift prosecution, the message is clear: protect institutions, not citizens.
Judges’ ruling
Last week, the Court of Appeal brought clarity. A three-judge panel led by Noorin Badaruddin, together with Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz and Radzi Abdul Hamid, unanimously overturned the High Court’s ruling and acquitted Shahril.
Delivering the judgment, Noorin said that proving intent is a fundamental requirement in offences involving online communication. She said such intent must be supported by clear, credible evidence and cannot be inferred merely from how the content is perceived.
“The purpose of the communication was legitimate and cannot be equated with an intention to annoy or offend,” she said, adding that the context of the message must be considered as a whole.
“In this case, the evidence, particularly from the seventh prosecution witness, showed that the primary purpose of the appellant’s communication was to inform residents about the progress of a police report and to request that the investigation be expedited.
“The purpose of the communication was legitimate and cannot be equated with an intent to annoy or offend,” she said.
Rare crack in armour
When break-ins echo unanswered, but a neighbour’s plea is prosecuted, the law itself becomes the crime scene.
Section 233 is not a shield for citizens; it is a gag for dissent. Its elastic language - “grossly offensive”, “intent to annoy” - is less about justice than about convenience for those in power.
Shahril’s acquittal is a rare crack in that armour, a reminder that intent matters, evidence matters, and legitimacy cannot be criminalised. Yet the larger truth remains: in Malaysia, it is easier to punish a camera than to protect a community.
The police can ignore shattered windows, but the state will not ignore a video that shatters its image.
The law does not ask whether citizens are safe; it asks whether officials are annoyed.
It does not measure the failure of institutions; it measures the discomfort of those who run them. And in that transposal, justice is not blind; it becomes blinkered.
Shahril’s case should have been a turning point, a moment to admit that laws written to muzzle trolls are now muzzling citizens.
Instead, it exposed the deeper rot: a system where “grossly offensive” is whatever the authorities say it is, and “intent to annoy” is whatever they feel it to be. That is not law; that is discretion masquerading as justice.
The acquittal offers hope, but hope tempered by reality. For every Shahril who fights back, countless others will not risk the weight of the state. Fear settles in like a second shadow, and silence becomes the third.
Until institutions learn to protect citizens rather than themselves, Malaysia will remain a country where crime is tolerated, but criticism is punished. And that is the real offence - an offence against the very idea of justice. - Mkini
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who strives to uphold the ethos of civil rights leader John Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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