“It is not just the opposition politicians but also those in the Barisan Nasional (BN). In fact, anybody at all... bloggers and so on,” he told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.
The de facto law minister said this was because the existence of the new media like blogs, Facebook and Twitter had forced the government to relax its control over an individual’s right to free speech.
“We cannot practise selective persecution. So if we were to act against Ibrahim, then we have to act against bloggers or newspapers or Twitter users. And yet, these people are also protected by the Bill of Guarantees (BoGs),” he said, referring to the government’s pledge not to censor the Internet under the 10-point BoGs of the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor.
Nazri stressed, however, that this did not mean he backed Ibrahim, whom he previously clashed with in the media, and called on all Malaysians to judge wisely statements made by any individual.
“The landscape has changed. Sensitive matters are now being discussed in the open.
“When something is mentioned all the time, it becomes less sensitive and this is a good thing because then things can be mentioned but people will not take offence to it,” he said.
Nazri pointed out that if Ibrahim had made a similar statement 40 years back, he would have likely triggered a riot among the country’s various races.
“But it has been days since he made the statement and yet, we do not see any riot on the streets. People are no longer as sensitive as they were before.
“Now, people just laugh at Ibrahim and call him a clown,” he said.
“So you cannot even say that Ibrahim’s words have caused the Malays to rise against the Christians.
No comments:
Post a Comment