Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia has warned web bloggers not to write
on 'sensitive issues' relating to religion or politics, threatening
to arrest wrongdoers using a security law that allows detention
without trial, official reports said Wednesday.
Minister in the Prime Minister's department, Mohamed Nazri Abdul
Aziz, said the government would not hesitate to use the draconian
Internal Security Act, as well as the Sedition Act, against
irresponsible bloggers. Both laws allow for indefinite detention.
'I want to issue a warning that the time has come for us to take
action against them (bloggers).
'We have the right and we will do it. We have been very patient,'
Mohamad Nazri was quoted as saying by the official Bernama agency.
The ISA is a security law drafted more than five decades ago to
stop a communist insurgency. Critics have called for the abolishment
of the law, saying that the government is using it to clamp down on
freedom of speech.
Mohamad Nazri's comments, which came in parliament late Tuesday,
were in response to several articles on a local blog which the
government claims contained disparaging comments against the king as
well as Islam, the country's official religion.
He said that the government planned to draft an act to enable it
to monitor and act against bloggers who committed offences through
their online writings.
'This is not aimed at eliminating the freedom of speech but to
wipe out the freedom to cheat, defame and hurt people so that blogs
can really be a source of correct information and sincere views and
not a platform to hurl abuses at people,' he said.
The article on Malaysia Today, a popular and widely-read blog site
dedicated to anti-government political articles, prompted the ruling
United Malay's National Organisation party to lodge a police report
against the writers.
Police have yet to comment on action to be taken against the
blogger.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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