KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 — Malaysia’s civic space is still being rated as “obstructed” for the seventh consecutive year, under the unity government led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim‘s administration, with the continued use of restrictive laws to criminalise expression, according to findings from an international civil society alliance report released today.
In the “People Power Under Attack 2023” report by international research collaboration Civicus Monitor, which tracks fundamental freedoms in 198 countries and territories, Malaysia is one of five countries in the Asia region rated as having an “obstructed” civic space.
The “obstructed” category is the mid-grading for how well a country respects the freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association. The full range of ratings is from open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed.
Besides Malaysia, the other regional nations falling in the same “obstructed” category for 2023 are Bhutan, Indonesia, Maldives and Nepal.
Malaysia has been in the “obstructed” category since Civicus Monitor started releasing its annual report in 2017.
According to Civicus Monitor, Malaysia’s “obstructed” rating was attributed to the continued use of restrictive laws to criminalise expression, ban books and justify raids.
In a statement, the report listed Malaysia’s use of the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) and the Sedition Act to charge opposition politicians as a reason.
It also said the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 (PPPA) was used to ban books that may be critical of the government, with raids on bookstores such as Toko Buku Rakyat and Gerakbudaya last month, where authorities seized books.
“The law (Section 7) was also used to justify the raid on outlets belonging to the Swiss watchmaker Swatch and seized over 100 colourful watches from their Pride Collection,” read the report, referring to the Home Ministry’s seizure of 172 Swatch Pride collection watches worth RM64,795 in May this year.
Civicus Monitor said censoring and blocking online portals that published articles critical of the government had also taken place.
“In June, the news portal MalaysiaNow was inaccessible to some users and blocked by some internet service providers. In July, the blog of a political commentator based in the UK and a website of a government critic were restricted. In August, the government blocked some internet users accessing another news site, UtusanTV.com as well as news website TV Pertiwi,” it said.
Civicus Monitor said Anwar’s unity government has yet to address the restrictive provisions in the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) which prohibits spontaneous assemblies and denies the right to protest by children and non-citizens, which is discriminatory.
“In addition, the authorities continued to harass protesters for organising and participating in peaceful protests, especially around International Women’s Day and International Labour Day,” it said, adding that police had also tried to block the ‘Save Malaysia’ protest organised by the Opposition coalition.
In addition, Civicus Monitor said the police have also failed to bring to justice those involved in targeting human rights defenders, including lawyer Siti Kasim, after an improvised explosive device (IED) was found under her car in July and those behind the disappearance of Myanmar refugee activist Thuzar Maung and her family in the same month.
The incidents listed in the report had taken place during the current Anwar-led unity government administration.
The report listed intimidation to silence human rights defenders and journalists as the most widespread civic space violation in the Asia-Pacific region for this year.
