Malaysian activist Lena Hendry was today found guilty of airing a documentary on the Sri Lankan civil war \u2013 No Fire Zone \u2013 which had not been approved by the Malaysian Censorship Board, malaysiakini.com reported.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Mohd Rehan Mohd Aris said the defence had failed to raise reasonable doubt in the case against Hendry, a programme manager at NGO Pusat Komas.<\/p>\n
He, however, set March 22 to deliver the sentence and requested for the defence lawyers to submit their written submission by March 1.<\/p>\n
The Star reported that Hendry, 32, who stood expressionless in the dock upon hearing the verdict, said she was disappointed with the judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will definitely appeal. No proof to convict me,\u201d Hendry, who was accompanied by her lawyer New Sin Yew, told reporters Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Her well-wishers, friends and supporters surrounded her after the judgment, and they hugged and consoled her.<\/p>\n
A supporter of her was holding a placard saying \u201cHuman Rights Documentaries are not dangerous\u201d.<\/p>\n
One of those present in the public gallery was Ivy Josiah, who is Hakam\u2019s (National Human Rights Society) exco member and former executive director of Women Aid Organisation.<\/p>\n
Josiah said she was disappointed over the ruling, saying that \u201cthe film had been shown everywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
A High Court had on Sept 21, 2016 set aside an acquittal order against Hendry and ordered her to enter her defence over the charge.<\/p>\n
In reversing her acquittal order, Judicial Commissioner Mohamad Shariff Abu Samah found that there was a prima facie case against Hendry.<\/p>\n
Mohd Rehan had on March 10 last year acquitted Hendry after ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove the case against her at the end of their case.<\/p>\n
A total of eight prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses, including Hendry, had given sworn evidence in the trial.<\/p>\n
Hendry, who was also the programme coordinator for a human rights group Pusat Komas, claimed trial in a magistrate\u2019s court on Sept 19, 2013 to illegally screening the documentary \u201cNo Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka\u201d.<\/p>\n
The film directed by British national Callum Macrae explores the alleged oppression by the Sri Lankan government of Tamils in the island nation.<\/p>\n
She was said to have committed the offence at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall at Jalan Maharajalela here at 9pm on July 3, 2013.<\/p>\n
The charge under Section 6(1)(b) of the Film Censorship Act 2002 carries a jail term of up to three years or a fine of up to RM30,000 or both if convicted. DPP Nurakmal Farhan Aziz prosecuted the case.<\/p>\n
Courtesy: Colombo Gazette<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malaysian activist Lena Hendry was today found guilty of airing a documentary on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globaltamilnews.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}