Are Madani principles incompatible with a free press?

Are Madani principles incompatible with a free press?

S Thayaparan
Published: May 6, 2024


“There is a lot that needs to be examined because not all of them match the Eastern values or manners we practise in Malaysia but we will carefully implement the improvements (press freedom) that we want to see and practise in Malaysia.”

 - Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil

COMMENT | What is Fahmi Fadzil babbling about? Defending his regime’s drop in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index Report published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), he said improvements in press freedom had to be considered in the context of “Eastern values or manners” we practise in Malaysia.

What does this even mean? Whenever Malaysian political operatives talk about Eastern values, what this really means is that the rights of the citizens are going to be curtailed on religious or cultural grounds.

No Malaysian political operative has ever said or will ever say that because of Eastern values, we are going to expand the rights you have.

Political operatives can never really define what they mean by Eastern values except by pointing to liberal elements (normally egalitarian) in Western political and social landscapes that they claim are anathema to Eastern values, which are normally bigoted or discriminatory.

I wish Fahmi (above) would define what he means by Eastern values or manners in Malaysia that would be incompatible with universal ideas of press freedom.

What exactly are these values, which are so important to the social fabric of this country that it means disregarding universal ideas of press freedom?

I never bought into that cliché of “free press” believing that such a state is heavily reliant on context and generally those who advocated this ideal rarely practised it themselves.

This doesn’t mean I don’t subscribe to the concept of a “marketplace of ideas”, which depends on the freedom of expression that has always been constrained here in Malaysia; the press is the prime example.

What happened to repealing the Sedition Act?

When Harapan political operatives were not in power, they demonised the BN and Perikatan Nasional regimes about various laws, like the Sedition Act. Indeed the best summation of why this act is so vile is in an opinion piece in 2023 by Madpet, which laid out the existential threat to free speech and expression:

The Sedition Act criminalises seditious tendency - intention is irrelevant, truth is no defence, and freedom of expression is sidelined.

It makes it an offence to do or say things that ‘have a seditious tendency to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against…’. Hence, it does not matter if what was said was even the truth or a justified opinion, for all that matters is whether it had a seditious tendency or not.

Whether the maker of the statement had the intention of doing this act that caused a seditious tendency is irrelevant.

To give you an example of how disingenuous Harapan is when it comes to the Sedition Act, here is DAP’s Ramkarpal Singh in 2018 berating the Harapan regime under Dr Mahathir Mohamad for continuing to use the Sedition Act - “It is not difficult to repeal the Sedition Act as such a move will likely be supported in Parliament the way the goods and services tax (GST) was abolished.”

The Bukit Gelugor MP also said then-deputy home minister Mohd Azis Jamman’s announcement that the Sedition Act will continue to be used until it is amended or abolished misses the point that such laws ought not to be used on anyone, regardless of political affiliation, as Harapan had promised to repeal the act in its election manifesto.

And then Ramkarpal in 2023 reminded everyone that the Anwar administration would not repeal the Sedition Act saying: “We have many more engagement rounds to go, and I hope we can complete them in the next few months and come up with recommendations on how the law can be improved.”

From virulently condemning the law, now some people want to improve it. Is something like the Sedition Act part of our Eastern values or manners of how things are done in Malaysia?

Take this whole 3R issue. When Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh started this KK Mart issue, why didn’t the state gag him using instruments like the Sedition Act? Why wasn’t he sanctioned by the political class using the various 3R laws to stop this incitement which led to terrorist attacks on private property?

The answer is simple. These 3R laws are generally meant for non-Malays. After all, various Malay political operatives, preachers and religious leaders have insulted the non-Malays, insulted non-Muslim religions, and yes, insulted and defied the royalty, but no action was taken against them beyond chats with the state security apparatus, which amounted to bupkis.

Insults against Islam

It is only the most disingenuous Harapan supporter who would gaslight you into believing that these laws are needed to stop the extremists from the opposition.

Don’t believe me? Well, take a look at the new Islamic Development Department (Jakim) hotline where the rakyat are encouraged or are enabled to report insults against Islam. This is not some sort of half-baked attempt at populist religious appeal.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Religious Affairs) Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, reminds us “…the initiative is a collaboration between Jakim, state religious departments, police, and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.”

“So it has to be collaborative. This means complaints can be made immediately and Jakim with the relevant agencies can take urgent action,” he said.

Why do you think that a federal-controlled initiative does not have a hotline where anyone can lodge a complaint of insults against any religion? Do you think any instrument like this encourages or discourages freedom of expression and a free press?

Now every journalist in this country, every public commenter, would be in the crosshairs of anyone who thinks that Islam was insulted and a report would be made against them. This would include where the religion of the state intrudes into the domains of non-Muslims and of course, anyone pointing this out would theoretically be insulting the religion of the state.

It also lays to rest the rather dumb argument put forward by some Harapan supporters that laws that restrict free speech are there to curtail religious and racial provocations.

Last week, controversial blogger Chegubard’s lawyer Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali pressed the government on when it would abolish the sedition laws and criticised the regime for weaponising the MCMC. He asked, “If this is not intimidation, what can we call it?”

Eastern values or manners that we practise in Malaysia, perhaps?



S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”