Malaysian hawker sentenced to 30 months’ jail for insulting Islam, deceased firefighter

KUALA LUMPUR — A hawker was sentenced to 30 months’ jail by the Sessions Court on Tuesday (Aug 6) for posting insulting remarks on social media on Prophet Muhammad, Islam and the death of firefighter Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim, according to Malay Mail.

Judge Edwin Paramjothy handed down the sentence on Chow Mun Fai, 43, who changed his plea to “guilty” on June 18 last year to eight charges pertaining to the offences. Tuesday was fixed for sentencing.

When Chow was first brought to court on March 8, he had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Before handing down the sentence, Mr Paramjothy said the court could not accept Chow’s action of giving negative comments about other people’s religion, reported Malay Mail.

He said the action of the accused in posting offensive comments on Muhammad Adib's death while everyone else was in grief and mourning the death also could not be accepted by the court.

“The actions of the accused were excessive and went beyond the limit of freedom of expression,” said the judge, adding that these actions were planned as they were done repeatedly.

Mr Paramjothy sentenced Chow to between seven and 30 months’ jail on each count, to be served concurrently from the date of his arrest, which was on March 6 last year.

On the first count, Chow was charged with intending to cause public mischief by posting offensive remarks on Muhammad Adib’s death on his Twitter account, using the profile name 'Alvin@Alvin15358333', on Feb 13 this year.

He was also charged with three counts of uploading postings that insulted Prophet Muhammad on social media which could cause disharmony between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The offences were committed last year on March 2 and 13, respectively.

Chow was also charged under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 with four counts of using his Twitter profile to transmit offensive tweets with the intention of causing annoyance to others. These offences were committed at the same place and time.

All the postings were read at the federal police Cyber and Multimedia Crime Investigation Division, Commercial Crime Investigation Department at Menara KPJ, on March 3 this year.

Deputy public prosecutor Muhamad Asyraf Md Kamal appeared for the prosecution, while Chow was represented by lawyer Mohan Raj.

This is not the first time Chow has faced time for his remarks online.

In September 2014, he was sentenced to a year’s prison for making comments on his Facebook account which insulted Muslims, according to The Star.

The post mentioned eating pork during Ramadan, and also insulted the prophet. AGENCIES