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their blurb ..
Lately, Sedition Act 1948 has been central in the controversies involving blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin and student musician Wee Meng Chee, or "Namewee", who produced a rap video featuring the national anthem. The broad power vested under the Sedition law inevitably raises question about the protection for freedom of expression and whether such stringent limit could limit healthy dialogue among different communities. Do we need the Sedition Act, a product of the postwar Emergency Period, to protect our nationhood and social harmony? Has it made our nation stronger or weaker? We invite an eloquent human rights lawyer, Haris Ibrahim, an acclaimed movie director, Yasmin Ahmad and two articulate political think-tankers, Khalid Jaafar, Dr. Dzulkifli Ahmad to share their thoughts."
Everyone agreed the law is used in a bad way like no jury, no independent juries and against trivial matters. It's a catchall law . Haris argued that it's an archaic law that should be abolished.
But I can understand in wartime it's a convenient tool, in WW2 if a German sympathiser was praising Nazis etc without lying he could be arrested . 40 people max .. What are these people thinking of it's a Friday night ! still a lucky privilige for me to see all those big brainers (and the sentimental one).
The point they missed is that governments like to use the fear factor and particularly in MY the domino effect ie one little thing will cause the whole civilisation to collapse. This keeps the public on edge and in fear of change ..so let's stick with the government. So it maybe a stupid law, unfairly applied, but unless the really good guys in the government carry more weight than the self interest guys then it won't change .
Haris Ibrahim logical tried to show it's an archaic law.
Yasmin Ahmad : scatty, sentimental helpd up her hands and said "there's nothing I can do"... showed new ads showing schoolkids are not racist, and we should all help each other.
She said her friends were horrified by a video a student put on youtube. She said it was insulting cos it shows muslim girls then a piece of shit.
Well I suggest that she has never seen the video and gets her opinion from hysterical newspapers as it doesn't appear sequentially as she says in any version. It cuts from police violence to the singer to a piece of shit to a promo for a shopping center etc. In fact it is critical of corrupt police, early mosque calls and slow government working. It is racist as it uses the word "them" throughout, but since the government allocates resources by race it is also racist.
Controversial video with English subtitles ... moderates who seem well briefed said this actual video of his is not offensive, but ones he has made in the past seem to be racistly offensive.
Khalid Jaafar spoke only in very clear Malay .. I could understand 40%, but not sure what he said
Dzulkifli Ahmad : PAS guy was supermoderate .. Maybe cos of audience
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