KUALA LUMPUR: The decision to block access to the Malaysia Today news website was not politically motivated.
Both sections provide that a website's contents would be considered an offence if it was deemed to be indecent, obscene, false, menacing or offensive with intentions to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any persons.
Minister of Energy, Water and Communications Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said although the law states that there will not be any censorship of the Internet, the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had to act as the sections were not adhered to.
"The MCMC swung into action after receiving numerous complaints about the site's contents," Shaziman said yesterday.
The decision to cut off access to the website was made on Wednesday and by late afternoon orders had been issued to all local Internet Service Providers (ISP).
"There's no specific directive from me or the government to block any website. I leave it to MCMC to run things on their own.
"I only told them that any action taken by them must be in accordance with the Act," he said.
Shaziman said this year alone, 127 blogs and websites were blocked by MCMC for contravening the Act. Among them were get-rich-quick schemes sites.
He, however, could not say if Malaysia Today, was the first political blog or website to face such action by the MCMC.
He said the commission would have studied all the implications before deciding to block access to the website.
"No point if they (MCMC) are around but they don't exercise what needs to be exercised. This action is not something new," he said.
Asked whether the commission informed him of their decision, he said it was mentioned to him.
"To be honest, I don't read the blog every day," he said.
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