KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 (Bernama) -- It is not true that the government had
blocked the communication system during the Bersih 3.0 gathering on April 28 as
claimed by some quarters.
Information, Communications and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim
said the cellular communication system usually did not have the capacity to bear
an extra heavy load of phone conversations and data transfer as what happened on
that day.
"Blocked calls will occur if too many calls are made at any one time, to the
extent of causing the transmission cells being unable to cope with the heavy
load of calls.
"When the cells are full, the system will reject the calls, causing
communication disruption and calls cannot be made," said Rais in his written
reply to Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) which was distributed to the press at the
parliament lobby, here, today.
Fong wanted to know the disruption in communication via mobile phones during
the Bersih 3.0 rally and whether it was deliberately done to block communication
between the rally participants.
-- MORE
PARLIAMENT-COMMUNICATION 2 (LAST) KUALA LUMPUR
On another matter, Rais said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia
Commission (MCMC) had received 2,789 complaints against bloggers and online news
portals since 2005 until May this year.
He said the ministry and its agencies were always carrying out programmes to
explain government policies to avoid public confusion which could arise due to
wrong information disseminated by bloggers while also considering the use of
mainstream and new media.
The MCMC also received 126 complaints regarding blogspots, and what appeared
on Facebook, Twitter and websites throughout 2009 until 2011, Rais said in reply
to a question from Tian Chua (PKR-Batu).
-- BERNAMA
NAN MOK MO