KiniTV and its director charged for airing offensive video

KUALA LUMPUR: KiniTV Sdn Bhd and its director Steven Gan claimed trial to four summons charges under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 for allegedly airing an offensive video on the news portal at the Cyber Court today.
KiniTV is alleged to have initiated the transmission of a video titled: "Khairuddin: Apandi Ali not fit to be the AG, he should quit immediately" in English at about 1.14pm (first charge) and in Malay at about 1.34pm (second charge).
The offence was allegedly committed at about 1.14pm and 1.34pm on July 27, this year.
Gan, 54, who is also editor-in-chief of Malaysiakini was charged with two counts of initiating the transmission of the video in Malay and English, at the same time, date and place.
All the four charges under Section 233 (1) of the Communications Act, is punishable with a RM50,000 fine or jail, not exceeding one year or both.
Cyber Court judge Zaman Mohd Noor set bail at RM2,000 for each of the four charges without surety and fixed Jan 3, 2016 for case management.
Gan represented KiniTV in court yesterday as J.Premesh Chandran, who is also a director of KiniTV is currently overseas.
Earlier, defence counsel Fahri Azzat said Premesh left for the United Kingdom in September 2016 and is on a sabbatical until August 2017.
The director of MCMC's department of prosecution Mohd Sophian Zakaria said the summons was served to the company and not personally to Premesh as he is a director of the company.
Fahri said the summons must be served personally to Premesh. He suggested for the charges against him to be postponed but Mohd Sophian objected.
The judge ordered for the charges against the company and Gan to proceed.
When met outside the court, Gan said this is a case of harassment against the media for covering a press conference.
"We will try to prove to the court that by covering a press conference, we did not commit any crime and that we were only doing our job as journalist," he said.
Gan added that he will be discussing with his lawyer on the possibility of issuing a subpoena to Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali to testify in court.