The Price of Freedom of Expression

By nature, human being likes to express himself without any restraints... Every sane person should be allowed to express himself without fear or favour. However as time evolves, there are rules, laws which to a certain extent curtailed freedom of expression. Below are two recent examples ... The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange had been granted an asylum by the Ecuador government as he sought refuge at the Ecuador embassy in London for months. He sought refuge there to avoid being extradited to Norway for an alleged sexual assault... It was reported earlier that the UK government might resort to avail herself to "a seldom used legislation" to declare the Ecuador embassy as an "illegal entity" thus making it not immune and could not use the "diplomatic immunity". In short, the UK government/apparatus could enter the embassy and arrest Julian Assange. This has drawn criticisms world wide. It was reported by the BBC just now that the UK government has placed police personnel outside the embassy with a crystal clear order that Julian Assange is to be arrested if were to leave the Ecuador embassy. This practically means Julian Assange is held up imprisoned at the said embassy. As we all know, Julian Assange was responsible for the leakage of thousands of sensitive and ultra confidential information including diplomatic cables of the western governments especially the States. This incurred the wrath of the States especially and the perception of the common people is that the sexual assault allegation is just a tool to keep his mouth shut!!! At the other end of the world, three members of the Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot had been convicted to two years of jail each. The three, Yekaterina Samutbvich, Nadezhda Tolonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were convicted on the charge of hooliganism after being arrested for their performance a cathedral. Obviously, their action caused an outrage from the Russian Orthodox church. The Pussy Riot saga had turned into an issue of freedom of expression in the Putinist Russia. They had even been declared as prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and had also become the darling of anti Putin's repression in Russia. The conviction as reported by BBC just now had drawn world wide crisscrossing from outside the Court in Moscow itself right up to Paris, UK and even Israel... What a hefty price to pay in expressing oneself against the "imperfect" system.... Here in Malaysia the long arm of the law had even stretch to the cyber world by the recent amendment of the Evidence Act by the insertion of Section 114A after the various restrictive legislation such as the Printing and Press Act, the OSA and the likes .... Till we meet again ....