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KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -- Malaysia's prime minister said he would
review a legal amendment that critics claim threatens free expression online
after they staged a one-day "Internet blackout" on Tuesday.
Prime
Minister Najib Razak, facing mounting pressure ahead of looming elections, said
on Twitter that he had asked the cabinet to discuss the controversial new
section of the Evidence Act.
"Whatever we do we must put people first,"
he tweeted late Tuesday.
NGOs, bloggers and opposition politicians
staged the protest earlier in the day by replacing their homepages with black
screens featuring messages attacking the amendment, which went into effect in
April despite widespread opposition.
Critics say under the amendment any
web host, provider of a wifi network, or ordinary user of a computer or mobile
device can be found liable for any defamatory or harmful content sent via its
systems.
Activists have called it an attempt by the ruling coalition
government, which has been in power for more than five decades, to clamp down on
the Internet.
Najib, who recently pledged to uphold a promise not to
curb the web, must call elections by next year against a formidable opposition
that gets most of its message out via the Internet due to a government
stranglehold on traditional media.
The government promised in the 1990s
not to censor the Internet in a bid to draw in foreign high-tech investment,
although authorities are accused of blocking some sites.
The protest
effort has been spearheaded by Malaysia's Center for Independent Journalism
(CIJ), which calls the amendment "a bad law passed in haste and does not take
into account public interest and participation".
The CIJ and other
critics -- which have included some figures in the ruling coalition -- have
called for it to be scrapped or revised.
The 24-hour blackout was to
last until midnight.
Users attempting to access Paultan.org, a highly
popular automotive-themed blog, were greeted with a black pop-up screen early
Tuesday that said "This is what the web could look like" under the legal change.
Malaysia has long been known for its authoritarian rule but Najib, who
came to power in 2009, has launched a campaign to repeal some repressive laws to
gain voter support.
However, the opposition and rights groups have
dismissed the drive as a sham, saying that various laws introduced to replace
the previous legislation have been little better than the old statutes.
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