TNB failed to see the funny side of the jokes

Malaysian prosecutors charged a newspaper editor on Thursday with publishing false information in a satirical blog post that poked fun at the national electricity company.

Irwan Abdul Rahman, editor of the Malay Mail newspaper’s lifestyle section, pleaded innocent in a district court near Kuala Lumpur to a charge of transmitting content that is “obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with malicious intent,” said Ahirudin Attan, the newspaper’s editor.

Irwan faces up to a year in prison and a fine if convicted.

Malaysian media activists have criticized authorities over the past year for prosecuting people over online remarks. Activists say such measures undermine freedom of speech and could run contrary to the government’s insistence that it would not impose unfair Internet censorship.

The charge stems from a blog entry written by Irwan in March that claimed the head of Malaysia’s main electricity firm, Tenaga Nasional, would sue the environmental group World Wildlife Fund for urging people to switch off their lights for the annual Earth Hour initiative.

Irwan has said his blog is meant to provide “fake jokes” as “stress relief.” He has since deleted the entry that caused Tenaga Nasional to file a police complaint against him.

He wrote on the blog earlier this week he had been “hoping for cool heads and [a] developed sense of humor to prevail.”

The court scheduled a preliminary hearing for Nov. 24. Government prosecutors could not immediately be reached.

Last year, several people were charged with posting allegedly derogatory comments against a state royal sultan. At least one was fined 10,000 ringgit ($3,000) after pleading guilty to the charge.