Apex court hears arguments if 'facilitating' readers' comments amount to contempt

Editor's note: In view of the Federal Court's order for everyone to avoid commenting on this case, the commenting function for this article has been disabled.

Contempt proceedings against Malaysiakini at the Federal Court today saw prosecutors and the defence arguing at length on whether the news organisation had an intent to commit contempt by facilitating readers' comments.

Senior federal counsel S Narkunavathy, who appeared on behalf of Attorney-General Idrus Harun, told the court that the news portal and its editor-in-chief Steven Gan had facilitated commenters by providing the platform and thus presumed to have published the comment...