Officers from the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) have again visited independent news portal Malaysiakini today to further investigate the “ deemed offensive” cow-head videos.
The seven-member MCMC team, which included three digital forensics experts, demanded Malaysiakini to hand over the original tapes of the two videos.
The team, led by Mohd Syukri Jamaluddin, has also sought to copy certain parts of the hard disk from two Malaysiakini computers used to edit and upload the videos.
This is to establish a 'digital trail' from the original video footage to the final uploading of the two videos.
"It has been an exhausting," said Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran.
"Since everything is in digital formats, it has been tedious process to come to an agreement on what constitutes a 'digital trail' from source to final product. Our technical staff have given their utmost cooperation in assisting the investigation."
Editor-in-chief Steven Gan said that Malaysiakini was not challenging the fact that it was responsible for uploading the videos.
"We are however disputing that the videos were uploaded to fan the flames of racial and religious hatred."
MCMC officers also interviewed Malaysiakini cameraperson Mohd Kamal Ishak, who covered the press conference held by Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein following his controversial meeting with cow-head protesters.
They were at the Malaysiakini office for about six hours.
Third visit to Malaysiakini
This is the third time MCMC officers have visited the Malaysiakini office in Bangsar Utama, Kuala Lumpur.
The first was on last Saturday where a three-person team recorded a statement from Gan.
On Tuesday, eight MCMC officers interviewed the online daily’s 12 staff in a marathon session lasting eight hours.
Among those questioned were CEO Chandran, editors, journalists, video team members and one technical staff.
Except for Chandran and the technical staff, all the others were involved in the process of news gathering, editing and publishing two stories and videos related to the cow-head protest in Shah Alam on Aug 28 and the press conference by Hishammuddin on Sept 2.
They were journalists Rahmah Ghazali, Jimadie Shah Othman, Andrew Ong, cameraperson Amir Abdullah, editors K Kabilan, Nasharuddin Rahman, Fathi Aris Omar, video editors Shufiyan Shukur, Ng Kok Foong and Lydia Azizan.
The investigation by MCMC centres on two video clips published by Malaysiakini - one on the protest and the other on Hishammuddin's press conference - which were deemed offensive.
The videos cited were the 'Temple demo: Residents march with cow's head' and 'Hisham: Don't blame cow-head protesters'.
On the same day, MCMC officers have also taken a statement from Malaysiakini’s server hosting company.
‘Videos to stay online’
Malaysiakini is accused of contravening the Communication and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998 by putting up the two video clips.
The commission had sent a letter last Thursday requesting the independent news portal to take down two 'provocative' videos from its website.
According to MCMC monitoring and enforcement division senior acting director Abdul Halim Ahman, in his letter, the display of both videos on the news portal "is an offence under Section 211/233 of the CMA".
Under the Act, any individual found guilty of publishing content "which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person" is liable to a fine of up to RM50,000 or a jail sentence.
Gan has said that Malaysiakini would not take down the videos.
“Our intent in putting up the videos was not to 'annoy' anyone, but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia."
MK
10/09/09
The seven-member MCMC team, which included three digital forensics experts, demanded Malaysiakini to hand over the original tapes of the two videos.
The team, led by Mohd Syukri Jamaluddin, has also sought to copy certain parts of the hard disk from two Malaysiakini computers used to edit and upload the videos.
This is to establish a 'digital trail' from the original video footage to the final uploading of the two videos.
"It has been an exhausting," said Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran.
"Since everything is in digital formats, it has been tedious process to come to an agreement on what constitutes a 'digital trail' from source to final product. Our technical staff have given their utmost cooperation in assisting the investigation."
Editor-in-chief Steven Gan said that Malaysiakini was not challenging the fact that it was responsible for uploading the videos.
"We are however disputing that the videos were uploaded to fan the flames of racial and religious hatred."
MCMC officers also interviewed Malaysiakini cameraperson Mohd Kamal Ishak, who covered the press conference held by Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein following his controversial meeting with cow-head protesters.
They were at the Malaysiakini office for about six hours.
Third visit to Malaysiakini
This is the third time MCMC officers have visited the Malaysiakini office in Bangsar Utama, Kuala Lumpur.
The first was on last Saturday where a three-person team recorded a statement from Gan.
On Tuesday, eight MCMC officers interviewed the online daily’s 12 staff in a marathon session lasting eight hours.
Among those questioned were CEO Chandran, editors, journalists, video team members and one technical staff.
Except for Chandran and the technical staff, all the others were involved in the process of news gathering, editing and publishing two stories and videos related to the cow-head protest in Shah Alam on Aug 28 and the press conference by Hishammuddin on Sept 2.
They were journalists Rahmah Ghazali, Jimadie Shah Othman, Andrew Ong, cameraperson Amir Abdullah, editors K Kabilan, Nasharuddin Rahman, Fathi Aris Omar, video editors Shufiyan Shukur, Ng Kok Foong and Lydia Azizan.
The investigation by MCMC centres on two video clips published by Malaysiakini - one on the protest and the other on Hishammuddin's press conference - which were deemed offensive.
The videos cited were the 'Temple demo: Residents march with cow's head' and 'Hisham: Don't blame cow-head protesters'.
On the same day, MCMC officers have also taken a statement from Malaysiakini’s server hosting company.
‘Videos to stay online’
Malaysiakini is accused of contravening the Communication and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998 by putting up the two video clips.
The commission had sent a letter last Thursday requesting the independent news portal to take down two 'provocative' videos from its website.
According to MCMC monitoring and enforcement division senior acting director Abdul Halim Ahman, in his letter, the display of both videos on the news portal "is an offence under Section 211/233 of the CMA".
Under the Act, any individual found guilty of publishing content "which is indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person" is liable to a fine of up to RM50,000 or a jail sentence.
Gan has said that Malaysiakini would not take down the videos.
“Our intent in putting up the videos was not to 'annoy' anyone, but to do our job as journalists to draw attention to the protest and to ensure action is taken so that incidents like this will not happen again in Malaysia."
MK
10/09/09
2 comments:
Malaysiakini should quickly start up operations from outside the country to avoid being shut down by umno led gov.
Both my parents are Indian and Hindu; and I am an evolutionist.
In September 2009, some people in Malaysia paraded a cow's head. The media has the right to highlight it. What is news? When a dog bites a man, it is not news worthy. But when a man bites a dog, it is news worthy. The media makes news judgement. The media must be given freedom to decide what is news worthy or not. Please leave the media alone.
Some people decided to carry a cow's head. So what? They can carry a cow's head if they want. Nobody should be offended by it. The best thing to do is to play down on it and ignore it. The main thrust for Hindus should and must be in giving a good education to their children. The world will become more competitive. It is the duty of all Hindus in Malaysia to take care of their own families. Please do take care of your own family. If you can, please do work at two jobs so that you can get extra money.
Parading a severed cow's head should not perturb you. If it does perturb you, then you have only yourself to blame. Those people parading a cow's head look like comedians any way. Why are you perturbed by comedians? They say that laughter is the best medicine. It is good to have some comedy.
Some people carry a handbag, some people carry a shopping bag, some people carry a mango, and some people carry an umbrella. Different people carry different things. Similarly, people do have the right to carry and parade a severed cow's head, or for that matter, chicken wings, pig's ears, goat's feet, turtle shell, cat's tail, etc.
If the intention of the Muslim protesters is to encourage beef consumption, then I can assure you that more Hindus in Malaysia do consume beef and pork nowadays. If the Muslim protesters regularly parade a severed cow's head, it may encourage beef consumption, which is a good thing. I hope the Muslim protesters promote beef consumption by parading a severed cow's head regularly. Cattle farmers will be supportive of the idea of increasing beef consumption. If fact, you can even persuade the cattle farmers to pay the Muslim protesters.
Incidentally, there are many Hindus in Malaysia who eat pork and beef. After you see a cow's head being paraded several times, then you would get used to it and it would no longer perturb you any more. The human mind has the capacity to de-sensitize. It may help to increase beef consumption. Wait a minute. Beef has high cholesterol but not as high as crustaceans.
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