Even South Africa’s apartheid laws were clearer in defining what constituted an offence, the former de facto law minister said in a recent blog posting.
"However, as offensive as apartheid was, it was at least clear-cut and precise about what constituted an offence," Zaid said.
"But in Malaysia, the recent speech by Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi lacked clarity about what constituted as an offence to the four topics he listed."
Zahid had listed the national language, the royalty, Islam and Malay special privileges as four sacred topics in the social contract.
"Zahid said Umno would use all the available laws to punish those who questioned the four sacred topics," Zaid noted in his blog, adding that it would be most unfair to punish Malaysians for talking about them when they did not know what exactly their offences were.
"It is already clear that if you make Umno angry or feel insulted, it’s an offence. This is pernicious and unfair, and far worse than the laws that were in place during the apartheid era."
As an example, Zaid said, if the prime minister were to speak in English during a press conference, would this mean he had insulted the national language?
"Must Malaysians speak in Bahasa Malaysia at least once a day so as not to be seen as opposing the national language?" he wrote.
Zaid said laws must be clearly defined to make it clear what exactly constituted an offence to the national language.
"If we do not have clarity and definition, then Umno will always be able to trump up charges as only they know what constitutes an offence."
On offending the royalty, Zaid said it must be clear what Malaysians could or could not do against a ruler.
"At the very least, Malaysians will not be lulled into thinking they had the right to ask questions of a ruler's actions only to face criminal charges later.
"Malaysia cannot pretend to be a regular democratic country when it is actually semi-apartheid in reality," Zaid said.
Likewise on the topic of Islam, the circumstances must be clearly spelt out to know what was insulting to the religion, or else the religious authorities would get away with questionable actions.
"Any questioning of the action by authorities may be construed as insulting Islam," Zaid said.
He cited as an example the disciplinary action faced by Syariah lawyer Rosli Dahlan, who is defending Muslim thinker Kassim Ahmad in the Syariah Court against a charge of insulting Islam. Rosli is alleged by the religious authorities to have interfered in the Islamic judicial process.
Another example was the Selangor Islamic Religious Council’s (Mais) defiance of the Attorney-General’s order to return seized Malay and Iban bibles to their owner, The Bible Society of Malaysia.
"At the rate things are going in Malaysia, Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail might also be charged for insulting Islam," Zaid remarked.
Zaid also questioned whether former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad could be hauled up for saying that Malays were lazy and lacked integrity.
"We should list out all the situations where we are prohibited from talking about the Malays,” he wrote.
MsianInsider
In Malaysia, those who is in power said anything wrong is becoming right and vise versa.
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