While many countries, including Malaysia, have laws on online speech crimes, lawyer Eric Paulsen said such laws are not normally used to protect the powerful.

Unlike the current practice in Malaysia, such laws are normally used to protect vulnerable communities, such as refugees, from hate speech, he said.

“Although there are similar provisions in other countries such as the United Kingdom, such provisions are not being used to protect the feelings of the people in power or the authorities.

“(This) seems to be what the law is being used for in Malaysia in the majority of cases that we know of,” Paulsen told Malaysiakini when contacted yesterday.

He was referring to the Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which criminalises the ‘improper use’ of network facilities with the intent of annoying, abusing, or threatening another person.

The law allows for a fine of up to RM50,000, a jail term of up to one year, or both, upon conviction.

Yesterday, teenager was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment after being charged under Section 233.

Amirul had pleaded guilty to 14 counts of making insulting comments against Johor Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim.

As a counter example, Paulsen pointed to the UK’s Communications Act 2003, which among others outlaws “using public electronic communications network in order to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”.

He also pointed several examples of its use in UK media reports.

In one report in The Guardian in 2012, an accountant was reported to have successfully overturned a prior conviction against him under the Act for tweeting his frustrations about an airport that had been closed due to heavy snowfall.

“You've got a week and a bit to get your s**t together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!” he reportedly tweeted. In overturning the conviction, the court found that the tweet was ‘not menacing’.

In another report in The Telegraph newspaper dated May 9, a man was arrested after he uploaded a film featuring his girlfriend’s dog, which he had taught, among others, to perform an imitation Nazi salute upon hearing the words ‘Seig Heil!’ while watching a speech video of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The video had provoked outrage and accusations of anti-Semitism.

On Feb 16, The Guardian reported that the Scotland police had arrested a man that day for making a series of offensive online postings.

The postings were about 12 Syrian refugee families that were resettled there in December last year.

“It is only in such circumstances, where vulnerable people are being subjected to hate campaigns, that such provisions are used. It is not to defend people in power from such comments,” Paulsen said.

‘Section 233 is oppressive’

Separately, Suaram project coordinator Amir Abdul Hadi criticised Malaysia’s Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 as the ‘Akta Sakit Hati’.

“It is for people who are sakit hati (offended). Because they are offended, they want to put people to jail.

“We feel this is not right. That shouldn’t be the way. It is oppressive,” Amir told Malaysiakini yesterday.

On Facebook, the lawyer Syahredzan Johan said the state has no business protecting the feelings of VIPs.

“There seems to be a trend these days where the authorities come down hard on those who 'insult' VIPs.

“Sorry, but it is not the state's business to regulate manners. It is also not the state's business to ensure feelings of important people are not hurt.

“After all, being rude is not a effin' crime,” Syahredzan wrote last night.