Russell Sam

Dr. Elise Rainer

March 9, 2021

Funding the Sinar Project for anti-censorship advocacy

OutRight Action International is registered as a non-profit organization within the United

States that works on national, regional, and international levels to research, document, defend,

and advance the human rights of LGBTI communities around the world. We have staff in six

countries and work alongside LGBTI organizations and individuals across four continents to

promote lasting change. Additionally, we work very closely with the United Nations, holding

special consultative status there to advocate for the progress of LGBTI rights around the world.

As the executive director of our organization, it is my goal to persuade the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs of Sweden to take a foreign policy stance on the issue with Malaysia. I am proposing an

850,000 SEK (roughly $100,000) government bypass fund for the Sinar Project, a Malaysian

non-profit organization that aims to promote free media and government accountability. It is a

simple action, but we believe that it may be the best course in promoting LGBTI rights in

Malaysia at the current time.

LGBTI rights in Malaysia are in desperate need of improvement. The Franklin and

Marshall Global Barometer of Gay Rights has graded the country at an extremely persecuting

score of 15%, making it one of the least tolerant countries in Southeast Asia. The Malaysian

Penal Code Section 377A outlaws “carnal intercourse against the course of nature” (Malaysia

Penal Code 1997) and with Islam being recognized as the government state’s religion, Shariah

law mandates action against any “unnatural sexual relationship (Owoyemi, 2013).” Same-sex

relations are criminalized with a punishment of 5000 Malaysian ringgit - equal to $1250 - 3 years
of imprisonment, or 6 strokes (Universal Periodic Review, 2018), while any form of anal or oral

sex is punishable by 20 years of imprisonment and mandatory caning (HRW, 2021).

According to our research, government censorship of media throughout Malaysia remains

a prominent inhibitor towards LGBTI rights. A Comparitech report recently ranked Malaysia at a

6 out of 10 for censorship laws (with 10 being the most stringent), placing it only ahead of 11

countries that scored from 7-10 (Comparitech). This is mainly due to the Malaysian

Communication and Multimedia Act (CMA), which allows the government to censor a wide

range of media that is deemed as “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character

with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person” (Communications and Multimedia

Act, 1988). This is a clear violation of the freedom of expression for many communities and

individuals within the country. But to better understand this act and how it interacts with the

country’s censorship of LGBTI media, we could refer to Phillip Ayoub’s theory of threat

perception in religious governments. According to Ayoub, religion plays a role in moderating

LGBT norms in contexts where it has been linked to the popular nation and becomes a threat to

the national identity (Ayoub, 2014). Because of how Islam is the official religion of the state, any

LGBTI media is considered a threat to the state due to Shariah law, and thus political actors feel

obligated to censor such media.

In 1994, the Malaysian government banned any LGBTI individuals from appearing on

state-controlled media, and in 2010, the Malaysian Film Censorship Board announced that it

would not allow the depiction of homosexual characters unless they repent or “go straight”

throughout the show (Rahim, 2015). This censorship combined with state-sponsored

sensationalist homophobia prevents a formal discussion of LGBTI rights between the minority

communities and the rest of the country. In 2017, the Islamic Development Department (JAKIM)
held a recorded speech that created fearmongering against LGBT people and supporters amidst

the HIV/AIDS epidemic (Malaysian AIDS Council, 2017). Additionally, in 2018, Sinar Harian,

the top-selling Malaysian language daily, published an article that included a bullet-point list

giving tips on how to identify gays or lesbians (Reuters, 2018). Cases such as these leave the

LGBTI community helpless, as it is continuously vilified with no way of promoting beneficial

publicity for itself due to censorship. This is why removing the censorship laws is crucial in the

promotion of LGBTI rights in Malaysia, because it would open the conversation and allow the

community to remove the stigma that has been created by the state and its media.

In 1997, the Malaysia Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Bill of Guarantees was signed,

which in its seventh article states that there shall be no censorship of the Internet (Wok 2017).

However, from the Sinar Project’s recent findings, the Malaysian government has been

overstepping its boundaries. The Sinar Project has a Digital Rights Monitor Project that records

and documents cases of websites being blocked, which currently includes a list of 39 blocked

websites, three of which are international LGBTI-related sites (Xynou, 2020; Sinar Project).

However, the government has been going even further, censoring independent media

organizations and limiting access to critical information. In 2015, the Malaysian

Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) cut off access to several newspapers

from the Sarawak Report, an independent news website, that implicated the Prime Minister in the

1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) embezzlement scandal (Internet Monitor). This

internet censorship is extremely relevant to the LGBTI community in Malaysia because

individuals have switched to the use of social media as a tool for spreading information, sharing

experiences, and communicating with LGBTI movements and communities (Mokhtar, 2019).

Because standard LGBTI media is censored, these communities rely on the internet to
communicate, and if that is taken away, there aren’t many options left, as LGBTI organizations

cannot be registered in the country. The Malaysian government has also already proven that it

isn’t afraid to censor LGBTI issues on social media. In 2017 the police launched an investigation

alongside the MCMC into the Facebook status of two gay men regarding an alleged gay wedding

ceremony, effectively censoring their use of social media as a platform for support of LGBTI

rights (The Coalition for SOGIESC Human Rights in Malaysia, 2018).

We believe that the Sinar Project can become a strong advocate against the government's

use of censorship. The Sinar Project’s main goal is to strive towards an open and transparent

government that can be properly held accountable. However, they started focusing their work on

internet censorship and digital rights during the run-up to the 13th general election in 2013.

Reports came in about websites related to the opposition party being blocked and the

organization realized that their work could be affected as well (Monitor, 2018). Since then, the

organization has been at the forefront of criticizing the MCMC when internet censorship is

involved and even calling out the Malaysian government when the 2018 data leaks were being

mishandled through the censuring and reprimanding of sites and individuals who have revealed

the critical information to the public. Co-founder Khairil Yusof is looking forward to bringing

the Sinar Project into strategic litigation to determine the constitutionality of internet censorship

in Malaysia, which is why the organization needs any support it can get. Throughout 2020, the

Sinar Project received about $205,000 in funding from international organizations such as

USAID ($49,000), IDRC ($51,000), and Luminate ($70,000). Therefore, an additional $100,000

donation seems to be a reasonable amount to give while providing a generous amount of

resources for the organization. Additionally, the Sinar Project is collaborating with the European

Union to host investigative journalism workshops that focus on accountability and social justice
throughout March. The Sinar Project has a lot of potentials to bring down the censorship laws,

and OutRight believes it is a strong candidate for the Swedish government to support financially.

As mentioned before, our proposal is simple: an 850,000 SEK government bypass fund to

the Sinar Project. This proposal was crafted with the best interest of LGBTI individuals in

Malaysia, as well as the relation between Sweden and Malaysia in mind. This is why we are

specifically targeting the censorship laws first instead of anti-LGBTI policies, as censorship can

be deemed as a violation of the right of expression for the general public. This reduces the risk of

the Swedish government being criticized for interfering with Islamic law and receiving backlash

on the grounds of “cultural terrorism,” such as in the case of the U.S. Embassy’s 2013 pride

event in Pakistan (Burack, 2018). It also reduces the risk of double discrimination attacks against

LGBTI individuals that we have seen in nations such as Jamaica as a result of international

boycotts of Jamaican products (Becker, 2012). By focusing the conversation on a government

policy, we are removing the potentially harmful spotlight from vulnerable communities and

targeting that spotlight onto the government to encourage lasting change.

Currently, Sweden does not offer monetary foreign aid to the Malaysian government, and

the Swedish-Malaysia relation lies mostly in the realm of trade. However, according to Business

Sweden, Malaysia is one of Sweden’s most important trading partners in Southeast Asia (Hedin,

2019). Therefore, using the implementation of trade barriers to convince the Malaysian

government to remove its censorship laws would likely harm the Swedish businesses and

economy, as, throughout the past decade, Sweden has consistently exported more goods to

Malaysia than it imported from Malaysia (OEC, 2020). Furthermore, with the current COVID-19

pandemic, travel restrictions are already in place for both countries, so the cancellation of visas

from Malaysian leaders would not be an effective method of persuasion for the Malaysian
government at the moment. The next best option would be to provide aid to Malaysia as an

incentive to remove the censorship laws. However, the Malaysian government has already

violated its policy of no internet censorship, so there is no guarantee that it will not do the same

in the future. Additionally, the 1MDB embezzlement scandal provides us with enough proof that

providing aid to the Malaysian government does not guarantee that the aid will be used

effectively. In governments where corrupt practices are held, it is better to bypass the

government and provide aid directly to organizations to reduce the threat of aid capture (Dietrich,

2013).

Hence, we have come to the decided proposal of providing 850,000 SEK aid directly to

the Sinar Project. Because the Sinar Project is collaborating with the EU and aims to remove

internet censorship, it proves to be an organization that is both credible as well as cooperative in

our goals of reducing media censorship. This will, in turn, open the conversation up for LGBTI

rights and generate beneficial publicity for these communities, and when it does, hopefully, it

will lead to the betterment of LGBTI individuals throughout Malaysia.

 References

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the Nation of Islam in ASEAN Community in Addressing LGBT Issues." In Proceedings
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Wok, Saodah, and Shafizan Mohamed. "Internet and social media in Malaysia: Development,
challenges and potentials." In The evolution of media communication. IntechOpen, 2017.

Mokhtar, Muhammad Faiz, Wan Allef Elfi Danial Wan Sukeri, and Zulkifli Abd Latiff. "Social
Media Roles in Spreading LGBT Movements in Malaysia." Asian Journal of Media and
Communication (AJMC) 3, no. 2 (2019): 77-82.

Owoyemi, Musa Yusuf, and Ahmad Zaharuddin Sani Ahmad Sabri. "LGBT: nature or ideology:
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