Why I dissented to the Bloggers’ proposals on the Regulation of Hate Speech on the Internet

20 June 2008

On 18 April, a group of 13 bloggers, which included myself, submitted a paper to the Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts entitled “Proposals for Internet freedom in Singapore”.

The paper outlines the various defects in current media laws and regulations governing internet content in Singapore, such as instituting vague restrictions which gives authorities too much leeway in interpretation of the law, conferring arbitrary power on the Media Development Authority (MDA) to penalize owners of websites that in its judgment have violated MDA’s own rules, and the regulation of political content which is unjustified in principle and unenforceable in practice.

The paper proposes ways of addressing the defects in current laws and regulations with respect to 3 main areas: (a) political expression, (b) racial/religious hate speech and (c) sex & violence.

I fully agreed with the sections on political expression and sex & violence, but I did not agree with the recommendations put forth in the part on racial/religious hate speech.

The section entitled “Regulation of Hate Speech on the Internet” proposes that Sections 298 and 298A of the Penal Code be repealed and replaced with new legislation that is more specific to the act of inciting others to cause injury to another class of people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion or the absence thereof, gender and sexual orientation.

The paper explains the rationale for repealing Sections 298 and 298A of the Penal Code as follows: “Where the threat is merely of promoting hatred between different racial or religious groups, the laws become less difficult to justify. This is even more so in the case of laws that criminalise offending the racial or religious feelings of others. In these situations the threat to the community is not immediate: there is usually time to manage any fallout. In such circumstances, to allow the social goal in maintaining harmony to trump over the right to freedom of speech and expression will make nonsense of that right.”

I disagree with this analysis.

The issues of race and religion are very personal and sensitive. History has shown time and again that when people deliberately promote hatred between racial or religious groups through the use of vulgarities, propaganda, insults, or even hate speech masquerading as constructive dialogue, the reaction from the communities involved can be swift, and unfortunately, sometimes with severe consequences. This is especially true when the social climate is in a volatile period, for example, in times of economic stress or just after a successful terrorist attack. Refer to Indonesia during the Asian Financial Crisis and in the US just after Sept 11, 2001.

In my opinion, the whole point of the paper on Internet deregulation is to advocate for freedom from laws that are unjustified in principle. The regulation of political content such as Section 33 of the Films Act (Cap 107) which prohibits the making, distribution and exhibition of party political films, and Section 78A(1)(a) of the Parliamentary Elections Act (Cap 218), which regulates election advertising on the Internet, are examples of laws which are not only unjust, but which the authorities have selectively applied on political opponents in order to unfairly suppress the voices of political dissent.

The laws criminalizing the promulgation of religious and racial hate speech, however, are not unjust. That is why I dissented to the proposal to repeal Sections 298 and 298A of the Penal Code.