MALAYSIA SHOULD PASS A RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS HATRED ACT

Wouldn’t that be nice? Now why do our 222 Members of Parliament, about 90 of them from Pakatan Rakyat, not discuss this? Rather than scream about the Sedition Act, why don’t they propose a new and better law to replace the Sedition Act that will stop many of you from posting hate comments about Malays and Islam, plus comments by Malays about the others?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Britain used to have a blasphemy law that made any ‘slur’ against Christianity a crime. It is a very old and antiquated law that punished you if you insulted Jesus, Christianity, the Bible, the Church, and so on. In the old days you could be put to death for acts of blasphemy.

The issue here is, under the old blasphemy law it was only a crime to insult Christianity but not if you insulted any other non-Christianity religion. On 1st October 2007, this law was repealed and replaced with the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which received Royal Assent on 16th February 2006 after the House of Commons tabled, debated and approved it in June 2005.

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act states that its purpose is to make provision about offences involving stirring up hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds and includes, but not restricted to, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Rastafarianism, Baha‘ism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism.

On 1st January 2010, Britain also abolished the criminal defamation and sedition laws, two laws that still exist in Malaysia. If you make any allegation that is false then that person you defamed can sue you in court. If your statement is hate in nature, either against a person’s race or religion, then you can be punished under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act.

Hence Britain may have abolished its blasphemy law in 2006 and its criminal defamation and sedition laws in 2010, but there is a new law that covers all these ‘crimes’, which you can be punished under.

The House of Commons also amended the provisions of the Public Order Act 1986 on racial hatred to include religious hatred, and extended the existing provisions so that, as well as intending to incite racial hatred, an offence would have been committed if threatening, insulting or abusive behaviour was likely to stir up religious hatred.

The key here is “was likely to”. In other words, it may or it may not, but as long as there is likelihood it may, then it becomes a crime, what Malaysia’s Sedition Act calls “seditious tendency”.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is under fire for announcing at the recent Umno General Assembly that Malaysia’s Sedition Act is going to be retained. He is being accused of doing a u-turn after earlier announcing that the sedition law will be repealed.

Maybe Najib would like to consider replacing the Sedition Act with a Racial and Religious Hatred Act, like what Britain has done. I leave the provisions of this Act to those wiser in such matters but if they want they can copy what Britain has done. After all, why do you need to reinvent the wheel?

Basically, the objective here is that it is a crime to apply the use of words or behaviour, or the display of written material, publish or distribute written material, the public performance of a play, distributing, showing or playing a recording, broadcasting or including a programme in a programme service and the possession of written materials or recordings with a view to display, publication, distribution or inclusion in a programme service. For each offence, the words, behaviour, written material, recordings or programmes must be threatening and intended to stir up racial or religious hatred.

No doubt it still rests with the Attorney General as to whether you have committed any crime under this Act. But if you post a comment that Prophet Muhammad is a paedophile, like many of you have done (and comments which I did not approve), or that PAS leaders dress like the Taliban, again like many of you have done (and, again, comments which I did not approve), and so on, then you have committed a crime.

Also if you post comments such as without the Chinese developing Malaysia the Malays would still be living in trees, this too would be a crime since you are making a hate statement and insinuating that the Malays are stupid barbarians.

And if you say that without the NEP the Malays would never succeed or get to go to university, you are insinuating that the Malays are losers and too stupid, and hence this would be a crime as well.

Of course, the same would apply to those who also make hate statements against the Chinese, Indians and so on. The law cuts both ways. So you would now have to watch what you say and do. You make any statement about me on grounds of my race or religion then you go to jail.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Now why do our 222 Members of Parliament, about 90 of them from Pakatan Rakyat, not discuss this? Rather than scream about the Sedition Act, why don’t they propose a new and better law to replace the Sedition Act that will stop many of you from posting hate comments about Malays and Islam, plus comments by Malays about the others?