Cahaya’s Rants

MALACCA: Bloggers who smear politicians’ names and incite racial sentiments should be punished severely, said Umno vice-president Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam.

“Irresponsible statements and lies by bloggers cannot be tolerated,” he said yesterday.

Mohd Ali was responding to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s statement on Tuesday that webmasters and web journalists were not above the law.

Source: The Star

This is one of the main problems with politicians in Malaysia. Why can’t politicians who feel their names have been smeared or defamed, use the courts and sue for damages from whomever have defamed them? Instead they want to use laws like the Sedition Act, or the Internal Security Act and lock up bloggers for good.

There are no laws that I know of that politicians can use against bloggers who publish their writings on the internet. The current laws regulating publications do not include publications on the internet. That is why the general Sedition Act or Internal Security Act has been brandished about by the politicians.