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COMMENT When Najib Abdul Razak became prime minister he promised to open up democratic space. Now seven years later, he has done a U-turn.

In short, he has become a false prophet. Press freedom in Malaysia is all but dead.

While he had promised to reform the country’s printing and publication laws, it is these very same laws he has recently relied on to punish newspapers that annoyed him. The puny mosquito press in Malaysia has no chance against his sledgehammer approach.

He has also reversed the government’s longstanding commitment that there would be no internet censorship which is backed by a legally binding Bill of Guarantees.

In an extreme censorship exercise, the Najib regime has recently shut down or blocked influential and independent online news portals, notably the closure of the highly popular and independent The Malaysian Insider.

Najib had also promised to abolish the country’s sedition laws. But in 2015 alone, Amnesty International reported at least 91 individuals were arrested, charged or investigated for sedition - almost five times as many as during the law’s first 50 years of existence.

Even a cartoon of Najib as a clown is deemed seditious, just as dropping yellow balloons with the words “justice, media freedom and democracy” near the prime minister and his wife is considered equally mischievous or insulting.

More ludicrous still is that the country’s apex court has ruled that the government has the right to use printing and publication laws to ban people from wearing yellow T-shirts in support of electoral reforms.

Consider also this. Political cartoonist Zunar, whose full name is Zulkiflee SM Anwarul Haque, had nine charges against him for allegedly making seditious remarks on Twitter. If convicted, Zunar can be jailed up to 43 years.

More worrying is the move by the newly-minted attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali to amend the Official Secrets Act 1972, to include life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the cane as punishments.

Remind Najib of the promise he made

If we thought we have seen the worst in the 22 years under the Mahathir Mohamad regime, in the seven years under Najib as prime minister, we have degenerated from an unfree country into a fascist state.

By fascist, I mean a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control, and being extremely proud of country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed, and characterised by extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.

As we gather to celebrate yet again World Press Freedom Day, let it not come and go and we crawl back into our cari makan syndrome. Let’s do something meaningful.

We need to remind Najib of the promise he made within days of becoming PM on April 3, 2009, in a policy speech to the Malaysian Press Institute:

“I firmly believe that there is a vital place... for a vibrant, free and informed media... If we are truly to build a democracy that is responsive to the needs of all the people, we need a media - both old and new - that is empowered to responsibly report what they see, without fear of consequence.”

Allow me to table this petition before this forum:

  • Revoke the printing and publication laws and allow free access to information;
  • Revoke the sedition and security laws that trample on freedom of expression;
  • Drop all on-going investigations for sedition;
  • Grant a general amnesty for all convicted of sedition;
  • Unblock all news portals and social media; and
  • Restore the guarantee that there will be no internet censorship

Lest we forget, fundamental freedoms are God-given rights that are inalienable to human dignity.

Thus, no one or government, however powerful, must be allowed to violate such rights.

They do so at the risk of incurring the wrath of both we, the people and God Almighty.


BOB TEOH is a freelance columnist and formerly secretary-general of the Confederation of Asean Journalists (1985-87). This is his presentation at a World Press Freedom Day 2016 forum at Universiti Selangor, Malaysia.

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