Stay bold, don’t self-censor despite sedition fear, academics urged
After Putrajaya’s use of the Sedition Act against a University of Malaya (UM) law lecturer turned members of the academia here skittish, the country’s oldest tertiary institution’s academics urged their fellow scholars not to bow to their fears and to continue airing their opinions boldly in order to keep the space for public discourse open.
Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said that academics “should not be fearful” and “self-censor” themselves in Malaysia, which he described earlier as a “quasi-democracy” or an “electoral authoritarian society”.
“The Sedition Act is creating a climate of fear, we cannot succumb to this fear. We cannot let it affect us to the point we self-censor,” the political economist from UM’s faculty of economics and administration told a forum here last night.
He expressed his concern that the “stifling of academic freedom” in UM and other universities would impair the academics’ scholarships as they would begin self-censoring and carefully guard their words when delivering their lectures.
“That is no way to run a university, that is no way to debate ideas if we ourselves self-censor,” said Gomez.
Fellow panellist Dr Surinderpal Kaur said Malaysians are living in an “intolerant society”, which has led to a lack of liberalism and in turn, a self-censorship of opinions that “do not jive” with the dominant group’s opinions.
But public and legal discourse is a “very fertile ground for discussion and debate” and sharing of opinions that, “unfortunately is being narrowed” in Malaysia, Surinderpal said.
“That is something we need to question, we need to push the boundaries of that particular ground.
“The more silent we keep, that ground is going to get narrower and narrower until the point we really will be unable to speak up or say anything,” the senior lecturer from UM’s faculty of language and linguistics warned.
Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar noted the “chilling effect” of the use of the Sedition Act where students feel they need to “shut up” while academics may “self-censor”, but said all these results from a “vicious cycle” where scholars had previously failed to defend academic freedom.
Earlier, Gomez also described Malaysia as a “quasi-democracy” or “electoral authoritarian society” before underlining the need to defend academic freedom.
“If we have elections every four or five years and that is why we are called a democracy, that is not enough. We have no freedom of speech, we have no freedom of assembly and now very soon we will have no academic freedom,” he said.
The forum panellists called on academics and scholars to lead the way in striving for academic freedom, with Gomez citing Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea where students had driven efforts for democracy in the 1980s.
“We need to get back into the forefront, be in the forefront of bringing about change,” he later said.
University of Malaya Student Union (PMUM)’s elected representative Fiona Lim Cho Ching, a final year law student who is also Azmi’s student, also spoke at the forum last night.
The forum titled “Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression” was jointly organised by PMUM and UM Academic Staff Association (PKAUM).
On September 2, UM’s Associate Prof Dr Azmi Sharom was charged with sedition for merely giving his academic opinion on the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis and saying that the events then was “legally wrong”.
If convicted under either the first charge of Section 4(1)(b) or the alternative charge of Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act, the 45-year-old law lecturer will face a maximum fine of RM5,000 or a maximum jail term of three years or both.
Two others – Muhammad Safwan Anang and Adam Adli Abdul Halim – have been convicted of sedition this month and given a 10-month jail term and 12-month jail term respectively.
The duo were prominent student leaders when they were charged last year with sedition for allegedly calling for the changing of government through unlawful means.-MMO
Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said that academics “should not be fearful” and “self-censor” themselves in Malaysia, which he described earlier as a “quasi-democracy” or an “electoral authoritarian society”.
“The Sedition Act is creating a climate of fear, we cannot succumb to this fear. We cannot let it affect us to the point we self-censor,” the political economist from UM’s faculty of economics and administration told a forum here last night.
He expressed his concern that the “stifling of academic freedom” in UM and other universities would impair the academics’ scholarships as they would begin self-censoring and carefully guard their words when delivering their lectures.
“That is no way to run a university, that is no way to debate ideas if we ourselves self-censor,” said Gomez.
Fellow panellist Dr Surinderpal Kaur said Malaysians are living in an “intolerant society”, which has led to a lack of liberalism and in turn, a self-censorship of opinions that “do not jive” with the dominant group’s opinions.
But public and legal discourse is a “very fertile ground for discussion and debate” and sharing of opinions that, “unfortunately is being narrowed” in Malaysia, Surinderpal said.
“That is something we need to question, we need to push the boundaries of that particular ground.
“The more silent we keep, that ground is going to get narrower and narrower until the point we really will be unable to speak up or say anything,” the senior lecturer from UM’s faculty of language and linguistics warned.
Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar noted the “chilling effect” of the use of the Sedition Act where students feel they need to “shut up” while academics may “self-censor”, but said all these results from a “vicious cycle” where scholars had previously failed to defend academic freedom.
Earlier, Gomez also described Malaysia as a “quasi-democracy” or “electoral authoritarian society” before underlining the need to defend academic freedom.
“If we have elections every four or five years and that is why we are called a democracy, that is not enough. We have no freedom of speech, we have no freedom of assembly and now very soon we will have no academic freedom,” he said.
The forum panellists called on academics and scholars to lead the way in striving for academic freedom, with Gomez citing Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea where students had driven efforts for democracy in the 1980s.
“We need to get back into the forefront, be in the forefront of bringing about change,” he later said.
University of Malaya Student Union (PMUM)’s elected representative Fiona Lim Cho Ching, a final year law student who is also Azmi’s student, also spoke at the forum last night.
The forum titled “Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression” was jointly organised by PMUM and UM Academic Staff Association (PKAUM).
On September 2, UM’s Associate Prof Dr Azmi Sharom was charged with sedition for merely giving his academic opinion on the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis and saying that the events then was “legally wrong”.
If convicted under either the first charge of Section 4(1)(b) or the alternative charge of Section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act, the 45-year-old law lecturer will face a maximum fine of RM5,000 or a maximum jail term of three years or both.
Two others – Muhammad Safwan Anang and Adam Adli Abdul Halim – have been convicted of sedition this month and given a 10-month jail term and 12-month jail term respectively.
The duo were prominent student leaders when they were charged last year with sedition for allegedly calling for the changing of government through unlawful means.-MMO
