JULY 20 — As Malaysians celebrate a lacklustre Aidilfitri after a Ramadan filled with one depressing development after another, the censorship of online portal Sarawak Report only adds to the foreboding around the country’s immediate future.

To be sure, we Malaysians have had a long masochistic romance with censorship. And when the days of the Internet dawned upon us years ago, some saw its potential as a door out of that.

It has been that for sure. The media today has come a long way from its depressingly chained state in the immediate aftermath of Ops Lalang all those years ago. But while we would be right in celebrating the distance we have travelled, we should not lose sight of the distance yet to be gone.

The Multimedia Act Bill of Guarantees, upon which the freedom of Internet in Malaysia has hinged all these years, is no longer as sacrosanct as it used to be. Nor are the words of the government in terms of guaranteeing uncensored Internet access, it seems.

To be specific, the seventh Bill of Guarantee provides that there will be “no censorship of the Internet.” This Act, signed by the government in the 1990s, has come to be regretted by the then prime minister who signed it — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad — although he ironically found relief through it when, in retirement, he found it hard to get his views across on mainstream media.

His successors have similarly promised freedom of the Net. The incumbent, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has repeated this promise on numerous occasions. 

It is memorable in August 2009 that the current prime minister declared Internet censorship as ineffective, admitting that people will not accept imposed control over the free flow of information today. “We have no intention to (filter the Internet) because it will be ineffective.”

Two years later the prime minister repeated this promise. “When he was the prime minister, and Malaysia was developing our Multimedia Super Corridor, Tun (Dr Mahathir) made the promise to the world that Malaysia would never censor the Internet,” the prime minister said at a regional bloggers’ conference in April 2011. “My government is fully committed to that wisdom — we intend to keep his word.”

Later in the same year he went on to admit that censoring the media is an outdated concept and does not work, adding that if false stories are being published about the government, the publication in question can be sued. 

“I have decided the old ways of censorship need to be studied. It is no longer effective and should be reviewed,” The Star quoted him as saying in August 2011. “As a government, we need to change policies and act accordingly so that we are not seen as a government that does not understand today's landscape.”

But these days the prime minister may have forgotten his own words, as evidenced by the block on online portal Sarawak Report which had been publishing numerous articles containing allegations against himself and 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Make no mistake, this is censorship. The justification, as confirmed by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) itself, is that Sarawak Report publishes unverified information that may affect national peace and stability. 

And the farce lies in selective application of the same justification that had strangely overlooked numerous local blogs that also took a liking to publishing rumours and accusations unsubstantiated by hard proof.

The thing is, truth is a potent weapon to have on your side. If your enemies make up lies against you, disproving them is simple — produce specific facts, backed by hard evidence, to show the accusations for the malicious lies they are. 

Seeing the use of censorship is worrying and counterproductive. To paraphrase a renowned author, tearing out a man’s tongue does not prove that he is a liar but only that you are scared of what he might say. And a man silenced is never a man converted to your cause.

In Sarawak Report’s case, blocking access to their so-called lies will not convince Malaysians that the allegations are nothing more than malicious attacks on the integrity of our prime minister. 

The heavy hand would have the opposite effect – people would be curious. They would be drawn to seek out the accusations and see for themselves what could have put fear into the powers that be. And then the fire would spread even further.

On July 7, 2015, the prime minister told a crowd of 20,000 in Besut to be patient in respect of the swathe of allegations against his person. “The truth will prevail,” he said.

The only problem is that you can only tell the truth by telling it, never by silencing others.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.