Human rights advocacy groups have strongly denounced Putrajaya’s refusal to abolish a number of repressive laws that curtail freedom of expression.
During the 2022 general election, Pakatan Harapan (PH) included in its manifesto promises to scrutinize and eliminate laws that could potentially limit free speech, including the Sedition Act, the Communications and Multimedia Act, and The Printing Presses and Publications Act. PH went on to form the government’s current ruling coalition.
Despite those promises, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail disclosed yesterday that the government has no plans to revoke the PPPA, as it remains “essential for preserving public peace.”
The PPPA gives the home minister the “absolute discretion” to grant, revoke or suspend permits “to any person to print and publish a newspaper in Malaysia”. Critics argue the law gives the government the ability to restrict political discourse and silence its political opponents.
However, Saiffuddin asserted that the most recent evaluation of the law found that it is still pertinent to uphold public security and peace “at present.”
In the meantime, The Coalition for Clean and Fair Election (Bersih) has urged the coalition government to reconsider its stance on refraining from reviewing laws that restrict freedom of expression at this critical moment.
Bersih’s executive director, Ooi Kok Hin, told Coconuts that legislative amendments take time and any process to review the multiple laws that restrict freedom of expression ought to commence immediately due to the lengthy process required to change them.
He noted that Saifuddin and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Ramkarpal Singh are both leaders from the PH coalition, which promised in their election manifesto to review and repeal the PPPA, as well as Sedition Act 1948, and Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998.
“This is a long-term commitment by Pakatan leaders to their supporters and campaign volunteers, many of which have suffered consequences such as being harassed, remanded, or even charged because of these repressive laws.”
“They must not squander the opportunity to implement reforms to these colonial relics again – if the failures to amend or repeal those laws during PH’s 22 months in power were allegedly attributed to an unsympathetic Prime Minister and then Home Minister from Bersatu back then, what is the excuse now that the reformists are in power?” he added.
The Centre for Independent Journalism echoed the same opinion as Bersih.
“There should be no more delays for this government to demonstrate their commitment to institutional reforms, strengthen free speech and significantly improve both the responsiveness and responsibility of the media in upholding public interest,” Executive Director Wathshlah Naidu told Coconuts.
She argued that PPPA gives wide powers to the authorities to act, at times unilaterally, with regard to curtailing news content, including the threat to revoke newspaper licenses on insubstantial grounds.
“The law doesn’t just cover the news media, but every kind of publication. What kind of threats to national security and peace are the government envisioning exactly by keeping this law in place?”
On April 5, Malaysia’s civic space was rated as ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor, an international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the globe.
In its report, CIVICUS said that, despite Malaysia being a member of the Human Rights Council, the government continues to fall short in terms of domestic human rights protections. It noted that the aforementione laws continue to be used to silence dissent. For example, authorities have used the CMA to question and arrest several people in 2023, including two students who made a Tik Tok video criticising the history paper in a national examination.
The report details a number of other instances in which members of the public have been charged under some of these laws. You can read about more of them in CIVICUS’s full report.
