Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has
instructed cabinet to "discuss" about the controversial amendments to the
Evidence Act 1950 following a major online protest, dubbed as Internet Blackout
Day.
Najib said this in a tweet from Saudi Arabia, where he is attending
the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, that the people must come
first.
"I have asked cabinet to discuss Section 114A of the Evidence Act
1950. Whatever we do we must put people first," wrote Najib.
Najib's tweet comes almost after dozens of
websites adopted the Centre of Independent Journalism's campaign against Section
114A, which they argued would put innocent Internet users at risk of
persecution.
The campaign is heavily discussed
on social networking websites and has attracted
wide
coverage from international news organisations.
Earlier today, some BN leaders such as MCA
vice-president Gan Ping Sieu has urged the federal government to review Section
114A of because it will cause hardship to innocent Internet users.
In a
press release today, Gan described the law as imposing a “presumption of guilt”
among Internet users and service providers who may be victims while the real
offenders are at large.
“As an alternative and perhaps a compromise to
meet the needs to tackle Internet abuse, a legal duty should be imposed instead
so that any innocent agents or Internet service providers must provide full
cooperation to enforcement agencies to assist investigations into these cases of
Internet abuse,” said Gan.
Gan is among a small group of BN leaders to
have expressed concern over the law. Others include Umno Youth chief
Khairy
Jamaluddin and
Saifuddin
Abdullah.
In a tweet this evening, Khairy stated he will be meeting de facto law
minister Nazri Abdul Aziz on Thursday to ask the government to have another look
at Section 114A.
"We must not be oblivious to the voices of many Msians,"
he tweeted.
The trio, who are frequent
Twitter users, appeared to have slowed
down with their tweets today as thousands of Malaysian Internet users observe
Internet Blackout Day, a campaign initiated by the Centre of Independent
Journalism against Section 114A.
The campaign called on Malaysians to
attach a black pop-up on their websites to educate visitors about the law and
register their protest. Some
Twitter and
Facebook users have
chosen to refrain from posting today, as their sign of protest.
Punishing the innocent
Gan said the new law can
cause problems for innocent Internet users if there are subject to hacking or
identity theft while other service providers such as cyber cafes, coffee shops
and shopping malls may be affected by the law as well.
"For example, if an irresponsible individual comes to my
Facebook page and post defamatory messages or hatred remarks, but I wasn't able
to keep track of all the comments on my page, am I to be held responsible in
events of such comments are quoted even though it did not originate from me?" he
asked.
"To extrapolate such a scenario even further, private companies
providing free Internet services such as shopping malls or even Federal and
state governments intending to provide free WiFi services to the public could be
a victim of this law.
“It is expected that once free services are
provided, there will be irresponsible individuals or groups who will take
advantage of such a platform to abuse these services,” he said.
However,
Gan said that it was necessary for the government to come up with proper
measures to combat hate speech on the Internet as users are anonymous.
“However, at this point in time, Section 114A of the Evidence Act does
not seem to be able to fulfill this purpose completely,” he said.
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