KUALA LUMPUR: The trend of suing bloggers in the country will not intimidate them or affect the country's blogging community, National Bloggers Alliance president Datuk Ahirudin Attan said.
In light of the appellate court's Jan 18 decision to uphold a High Court ruling for a blogger to pay RM300,000 in damages to Information, Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, Ahirudin said the minister's case was only the latest in a series of lawsuits against bloggers.
"As someone who has been on the wrong end of the stick, I feel disturbed by this trend where politicians and those higher up use lawsuits to clear their names," said Ahirudin, whose political blog Rocky's Bru has been a centre of numerous debates over recent years.
He said the threat of a lawsuit was an exclusive one for bloggers, but newspapers were also at risk.
"While I am all for the rights of the public to get rightful and truthful reporting, at the same time, they do not have to waste the court's time.
"Newspapers and bloggers are always prepared to give the aggrieved side of the story," he said.
Ahirudin said this particular case was special because of Rais' position as the country's Information, Communication and Culture Minister.
"For him (Rais) to sue a blogger or a newspaper is quite a disturbing thought," he said.
Ahirudin said the minister should use better communication channels as he has the tools at hand to deal with attacks directed at him.
"If he cannot deal with one posting using these channels, how can he deal with lies against the government?"
On the other hand, Ahirudin pointed out bloggers should be mindful and stick to the truth, recognising they do not exist in a vacuum and are liable if they were to report wrongful information.
He said members of the political divide should not use blogs to defame each other and politicians should be more tolerant with bloggers and newspapers.
"We need to bring back sanity and be more open to use communication channels," he said.
On Dec 28, 2010, Amizudin Ahmat, a PKR Youth committee member, wrote a post on his blog (sharpshooterblogger.blogspot.com) concerning an alleged incident of rape involving the minister and an Indonesian maid.
Rais sued Amizudin in Jan 31 last year for defamation.
On July 5, High Court judge Datin Zabariah Mohd Yusof found Amizudin liable over the defamatory article and on July 19, ordered the latter to pay the minister RM300,000 in damages.
Amizudin appealed against the ruling on Aug 1 last year but was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday.
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