The recent public statement by the
Attorney-General giving his reasons for not prosecuting Ibrahim Ali for
sedition has not in any way allayed the discontent of many people including
even a cabinet minister.
They cannot understand, and rightly so, why this man is
being protected from prosecution.
On the contrary the reasons given by
the AG is nothing but mitigation for the man whose outburst was a call to
Muslims in this country to commit a serious crime under the Penal Code.
If indeed the story given in the AG’s
Statement is true that there was an attempt by a non-Muslim student to
distribute Bibles to students including Muslim students, the AG should know
very well that if the act constituted an offence, it was an offence by the
student or students concerned.
The offence does not extend to the
Bible or to the millions of people in Malaysia who use the Bible as their holy
book.
Would not those millions of Christians
be troubled and offended by the call of that man to seize and burn Bibles?
Does
not such a call constitute a “seditious tendency… to promote ill will and
hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia”
within the meaning of Section 3 of the Sedition Act?
It was reported in a news portal on
October 27 that Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said, “It is up to the
Attorney-General.
My personal opinion is when one says they want to burn the
holy book of another, that is seditious.”
The AG gave two reasons why he chose
not to prosecute Ibrahim. One was that, taken in its overall context, the man’s
call to seize and burn Bibles did not have a seditious tendency.
The other was that the man had “no
intention to offend or to provoke”. Both those reasons are flawed
in law because they are not defences recognised by the Sedition Act.
On the contrary Section 3(3) of the Act has made it
abundantly clear that “intention” (however good) of the person uttering the
statement, is irrelevant if the statement has a seditious tendency.
It boggles my mind how the AG could excuse the man on grounds
of his good intention when the law says otherwise.
It also boggles my mind how burning the Bible would defend
the sanctity of the Islamic religion.
In such a prima facie blatant case of sedition as this, the
AG would have done well to let the court decide if Ibrahim was entitled to the
defence of “context” and “intention” as given by him.
Now, what about the many others who in a swoop, were
recently charged for sedition?
Were the considerations of “context” and
“intention”, even though not valid considerations, not applied to them also
before they were charged?
I think not.
Stanley Isaacs is the former Head of Prosecution,
Attorney-General’s Chambers Malaysia.
Source : http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/highlight/2014/10/31/ags-statement-on-bible-burning-boggles-the-mind/
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