“Watch your blogs, warns PM” was the headline of Sunday Star on the warning by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in Kuantan on Saturday that bloggers are not immune from the law, whether their websites are hosted overseas or otherwise.
Does this warning apply to the Prime Minister himself, in view of disclosures on the blogosphere that the Prime Minister’s official website had hosted a very incendiary and seditious article inciting racial hatred, ill-will and animosity among the Malays and Chinese in the country?
This article, written in Bahasa Malaysia and purported to be by one “DR. NG SENG”, clearly an “agent provocateur” camouflaging as a Chinese, had been on the Prime Minister’s Office website for more than 20 months since Nov. 14, 2005 on the “ucapan takziah” for the late Datin Paduka Seri Endon Mahmood archive.
Blogger Ronnie Liu will be lodging a police report on the seditious and inflammatory “DR. NG SENG” article today.
Although the seditious article, together with the entire “ucapan takziah” archive, has been removed from the Prime Minister’s Office website this morning, the fact remains that the seditious article had been publicly available on the website for over 20 months and a grave crime had been perpetrated.
Who must be held responsible for the seditious article on the official website of the Prime Minister?
Is Abdullah strictly liable for seditious postings on the Prime Minister’s Office website to the extent that he could be charged and tried for sedition?
This would appear to be the implication from the comments of Abdullah, who appears to be declaring the principle of strict liability for bloggers and website principals. Is this the position of the Prime Minister and the government?
Will the Police haul up Abdullah to record a statement following Ronnie’s police report? I am not suggesting that Abdullah should be arrested, charged and tried in court for the seditious “DR. NG SENG” article on the website of the Prime Minister’s Office, although these would be the logical results if under the law there is the principle of strict liability for the seditious materials which are posted on the official website of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Apart from the Prime Minister, is there anybody else who should be held liable under the principle of strict liability which seems to have found favour with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and Umno leaders who have made public statements in the current “blog war” between Umno and Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s Malaysia Today news portal.
Or shouldn’t there be different degrees of responsibility between articles posted by the webmaster and principal of the blogs and websites, and comments left by visitors — with a mechanism allowing inflammatory and seditious comments to be removed when they are brought to the attention of the webmaster/principal so as not to dampen the robustness and vibrancy of Malaysian blogosphere?
Or will Ronnie’s police report just be ignored completely — in contrast to the police report of the Umno Information chief, Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib against Raja Petra, which saw the police swinging into action within 48 hours — subjecting Raja Petra to eight hours of questioning without asking a single question about his articles?