The Malaysian Parliment voted to repeal the Anti-Fake News ACT (AFNA) yesterday. This is the second time the Lower House (controlled by Pakatan Harapan) has voted for the repeal of the AFNA. They also voted for the repeal in August last year but was blocked by the upper house, or the senate (controlled by Barisan Nasional).
The senate cannot block what has been approved by their MPs for a second time. Therefore, the repeal has a high chance of going through now with the Malaysian King's approval left. He is also not expected to go against the repeal according to experts.
Singapore has always wanted to be first or best in everything. Now, Malaysia is the first one trying to move forward for their citizens and repeal against an act which could be abused by their ministers. What about Singapore? Two days after the introduction of our POFMA bill, they used it to target the main editor,Terry Xu, of the alternative news site The Online Citizen.
All members of the Worker's Party voted No to the bill in the parliament with all of the PAP members voting yes. Is this the road we want to go down? We definitely need more opposition members in the parliament to fight for our rights. How can we be sure that our ruling government will not abuse the law and take down any of their enemies?
Maybe we can wait to see if Singapore can do a Pakatan and take over the current ruling government. With our own Pakatan fighting to repeal against such laws unfair to us as well.
