Malaysia threatens detention-without-trial for bloggers

Jul 25, 2007, 2:35 GMT

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.