Satire, parody no longer crimes under proposed CMA amendments

Bangi MP Syahredzan Johan said the proposed bill intends to amend Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act to clarify content that is considered ‘obscene, indecent, false, menacing and offensive’.

PETALING JAYA: Satire and parody will no longer be criminalised under the proposed amendments to the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) 1998, Bangi MP Syahredzan Johan said today.

Syahredzan said the proposed bill intends to amend Section 233 of the CMA to clarify content that is considered “obscene, indecent, false, menacing and offensive”.

“This means that if the bill is passed, posts in the form of satire or parody – like the one made by (activist) Fahmi Reza eight years ago – will no longer fall under the element of ‘falsehood’, which constitutes an offence under Section 233,” he said in a Facebook post.

Syahredzan, a lawyer, said the tabling of the bill signified the government’s recognition of both parody and satire as legitimate forms of critique or commentary, not crimes to be punished.

“If these amendments are passed, satire and parody in art and literature will enjoy greater protection – as they should,” he added.

Section 233 criminalises online content that is “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person”.

Syahredzan recalled how he had represented Fahmi when the graphic designer was charged in the Ipoh sessions court in 2016 with posting content deemed to be false with the intent to offend others.

The post in question was a parody of a notice issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), meant as a critique of the commission and the authorities at the time.

Syahredzan said the charge against Fahmi was based on the argument that MCMC had never issued such a notice, and that therefore, the post was considered “false”.

He said their primary defence was that Fahmi’s post was a form of parody and did not qualify as “false” under Section 233 or constitute an offence.

He said the sessions court judge, after finding that a prima facie case had been established, ruled that even if the post was a parody, there was no provision under the act recognising parody as a defence or an exception to the offences under the provision.

The sessions court convicted and sentenced Fahmi to one month in prison and fined him RM30,000, with a default sentence of six months’ imprisonment.

Fahmi appealed to the High Court, which eventually substituted the sentence by setting aside the prison term and reducing the fine to RM10,000. The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s sentence.

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