Expert warns courts can use cyber sedition guidelines

The online sedition guidelines due to be released by the government soon can be used in tandem with the Act as a precedent has been set, according to law expert Azmi Sharom.

Speaking at a forum on Internet censorship on Wednesday night, the Universiti Malaya lecturer said that in 1997, High Court judge James Foong had used a ministry-provided guideline on environmental impact assessments to find in favour of three residents affected by the Bakun Dam.

"It can be used in a court of law," said Azmi (left) at a relaxed Centre of Journalism (CIJ)-hosted forum in Kuala Lumpur.

However, agreeing with fellow panelist and CIJ director Sonia Randhawa, he said that this does not mean that a judge is not compelled to take the guideline into account.

"It can be very very dangerous, or it can be ignored... But you can be sure that it won't let up more (room for) freedom of expression," he told the audience of about thirty people.

Online PPPA could help finance BN

Media lecturer and panelist Wong Chin Huat added that the guideline could fall under the Printing and Printing Presses Act 1984 (PPPA) if the government goes ahead with its proposal to extend the law to online publications.

"Section 26 reads that the minister may make rules to carry out the purpose of the Act and so the court may interpret the guideline to be a rule by the minister," said the Monash University lecturer.

Beyond curtailing freedom of expression, added Rhandawa, (right) the imposition of the PPPA on online media could help finance the BN.

Imposing restrictions on the relatively more free online media could affect their ability to attract an audience, leading to reduced advertising revenue which would return to mostly-BN party controlled mainstream media.

Mainstream media, she said, has larger resources enabling it to produce more content which allows them to attract an audience even if it does not necessarily trust the reports on political events.

"New publications challenge the advertising revenue of mainstream media like the Star which finances the MCA, thus threatening the political party's ability to finance BN campaigns," she said.

As such the PPPA is also about how level the political playing field is, not just in terms of media coverage of political standpoints, but also about advertising revenue monopoly, Randhawa said.

One bitten, a thousand terrified

The most obvious impact of an extension of the PPPA to the online sphere could bring about a "chilling effect" on the "vibrant public sphere" which Wong (left) says exists on the Internet.

He opined that while any amendment would affect media practitioners and activists, it is mainly aimed at ordinary users who could easily be cowed into clamming up.

They could be affected as the definition of publication could even include posts on blogs, microblogging site Twitter, social networking site Facebook and email mailing lists.

This could include those who joined the Anti-Megatower Facebook Group, whom a member of the audience, N Gopalan, claimed to have co-founded.

Gopalan said that Facebook had given him and others like him an avenue to express their views and that the extension of the Act to the online sphere would have an adverse impact on them.

"I don't think it will result in any imprisonment because it will make the government look bad, but all it takes is to call one person in for investigations and that would be enough to chill ordinary people.

"When people worry about the outcome and consequences, few people will act... one person gets bitten and a thousand will be terrified," Wong said.