The law will remain silent on bullying if the proposed Anti-Bullying Bill 2025 does not provide for the offence of bullying — Hafiz Hassan

The law will remain silent on bullying if the proposed Anti-Bullying Bill 2025 does not provide for the offence of bullying — Hafiz Hassan


Saturday, 11 Oct 2025 8:46 AM MYT


OCTOBER 11 — The government will table the Anti-Bullying Bill 2025 during the current Parliament sitting, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced during the tabling of the Budget 2025 in the Dewan Rakyat.

Anwar called bullying a “silent crime” that must be eradicated from Malaysian society.

“Bullying is a silent crime that must be brought to an end. This scourge, whether it occurs in schools, universities, workplaces, or online, destroys potential, inflicts lasting trauma, and has even claimed lives.

“We must break this cycle of cruelty completely, through the cultivation of empathy and uncompromising enforcement,” he told the Dewan Rakyat.

If bullying is a crime, then the proposed Anti-Bullying Bill 2025 cannot mirror the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022 (Act 850).

The reason is simple: Act 850 does not criminalise sexual harassment. It provides for a right of redress for any person who has been sexually harassed, the establishment of the Tribunal for Anti-Sexual Harassment, to raise awareness and to prevent the occurrence of sexual harassment – without criminalising sexual harassment.

The proposed Anti-Bullying Bill must provide for the offence of bullying in the same way Section 507A of the Penal Code provides for the offence of stalking.


Section 507A reads as follows:

(1) Whoever repeatedly by any act of harassment, intending to cause, or knowing or ought to know that the act is likely to cause, distress, fear or alarm to any person of the person’s safety, commits an offence of stalking.



The author said that the proposed Anti-Bullying Bill must provide for the offence of bullying in the same way Section 507A of the Penal Code provides for the offence of stalking. — Unsplash pic



(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the act of harassment may include the following:

(a) following or tracking a person in any manner or by any means;

(b) communicating or attempting to communicate with a person in any manner or by any means;

(c) loitering at the place of residence or business of a person;

(d) giving or sending any thing to a person in any manner or by any means.

(3) Whoever commits the offence of stalking shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.

(4) In this section, “repeatedly” shall refer to at least two occasions.

If nothing similar to Section 507A is provided in the law, there is no offence of bullying.

In other words, bullying will not just be a silent crime. The law will remain silent on bullying as a crime or offence.